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Howard, if I can remember I will check my radios the first chance I get. If I don't forget again. I got a couple of radios but never checked to see if they work.
Wes

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Howard (HH56), at the next opportunity I will check his red brother. Have certain difficulties to believe that the Russians installed a lightshow into the radio. Greetings from snowy Ottawa.

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Say hello to Justin T. for me If you get to see him!

Here what it looks like when you turn the knob, changes the color in the display. Blue looks more blue, camera doesn't do a very good job.
Wes

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Thanks for testing and the photos. At least I will know what to look for when new bulbs and a vibrator arrives so I can get one of my radios working. I still find it interesting that they chose the purple filters over the bulbs to tint the dial for whatever reason. The instrument lights are just ordinary whitish yellow incandescent illumination so you would think the radio dial would be the same.

Only the lights would power up on both my radios. I don't know if I was hooking them up right or not, never heard the vibrator. I'm assuming these radios run on Neg. just like the car or is it positive input?
Wes

Neg goes to the fuse although that only powers the tube and bulb filaments, solenoid for the button assist, vibrator and the primary side of the power transformer. After the transformer secondary passes thru the rectifier tube then internally the high voltage supply is referenced by itself and will remain the same for the working electronics no matter what it sees on the primary side. At least that is my theory why radios in cars with accidentally (or purposefully) reversed batteries never seem to miss a beat.

Radios with vibrators run on AC from the vibrator which is its purpose and, as Howard said, only the filaments use the 6v which, like a lightbulb, also have no polarity. It seems to me (perhaps an over-simplification) that to convert one for 12v use would as simple as changing to a 12v vibrator and finding equivalent tubes with 12v filaments. I'm sure there is more to it than that, though.

You would also need to do something to the transformer -- either change it or perhaps added resistance in the feed wire to drop the 12v that would then be going to the center of the primary winding back to 6v. With 12v in, assuming the transformer did not burn out, you would have double the voltage output on the secondary.

Ah, yes. I forgot about that but you're absolutely right that it would need to be changed. Of course, the dial light would have to be changed too but that goes without saying even though I just did.