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I would like to start off by thanking Alex Whitaker,
a member of the Yahoo Antique Radio forum, for permitting me to post the wealth of information
he provided through our email correspondence! I also want to thank Stanley and Charles, fellow members of
the Antique Radio forum, for their many emails full of information and encouragement.
Now for a little
history. The Splitdorf Company was an American manufacturer of ignition
products, etc for automobiles, and got into the radio business around 1923. The R-500 radio is the one they made the
most of, but there are several other models out there. The R-500 was updated with a better tuning mechanism in 1925-1926.
Thomas Edison bought
the company in the late 1920's, and the company became the Thomas A. Edison Radio
Company. Edison
radio went out of business, a victim of the Depression, by about 1932.
The
R-500 pictured above, was a 2004 Christmas gift from my father-in-law, Bud Brooker of Falls Church,
Virginia. It was the family radio, purchased
by his parents in the mid 1920's, and the radio he listened to while growing up on a farm in upstate New
York. It had been in storage for over a half century
and needed some repair. I'm happy to report that Bud was very pleased to hear the radio playing
again!
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The interstage audio transformer pictured above has a patent
date of May 2, 1925, but needs to be replaced due to a shorted primary winding.
The capacitor pictured above has a Patent date of May 2, 1916!
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The 2 photos on the bottom left are pictures of my
homebrew AES power supply box, made from an old jewelry box from the 30's. I added the handle on top, the on/off power
switch and four brass feed through screws with knurled brass knobs. Each brass feed through has a small white
label under it with the wire color from the R-500. From left to right the connections are 6VDC (yellow wire), 22VDC
(maroon wire), 90VDC, (red wire)and the last post on the right is for the 2 striped wires, which go to the "-" side of the
6volt battery or in my case, the "A-" terminal of the AES power supply.
The homemade backboard has three 1/2" holes near the top, (spaced every 2" across the back), for ventilation and
a small hole in the bottom left corner for the power cord.
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