HUFFY RADIO BIKE- looking for a picture of the radio

[weyburneagle]

I have been working on a radio bike, albeit at a glacial speed for several years now. The radio has been taken on as a pet project at a local electronics repair business in town.

They have the radio working, however there are issues.... the sound is not very loud, the speaker cone has disintegrated so we are using a standby speaker until we figure out how to replace the paper and the shop has added a small amp to get some sound out of it. I am wondering if anyone could forward me a picture of what the radio looks like. I found the hand drawn diagram on line, but would like a clear picture of the radio to take to the radio guy.

The bike needs the battery pack and a couple of other small items - but it's one thing at a time. Also parts for this thing seem to be few and far between - as I am new here any advise on how to move forward would be greatly appreciated.



Thanks for your interest.

Edward aka weyburneagle

 

[gifarmer]

I found the hand drawn diagram on line, but would like a clear picture of the radio to take to the radio guy.

To start with, here's the circuit diagram as it appears on the large paper label inside my 1955 Huffy RadioBike tank. The middle tube (hard to read) is a 1U5. I have not compared it to any online hand drawn diagram.

 

[gifarmer]

Here's a few photos.

 

[gifarmer]

Here's a photo of an original Burgess 4TZ60 battery that was specified for the Huffy RadioBike radio. Other equivalents were an Eveready 729, an RCA VSO64, or a Ray-O-Vac AB944. These supplied 1-1/2 volts (A+) for the tube filaments and also 90 volts (B+) for the other radio circuitry. The batteries had a cardboard covering, so I carefully cut through the glue under the flaps on this one and removed the old cells. I made a cardboard platform to support ten new 9-volt batteries that are plugged together to get 90 volts, and made a cardboard box that sits on top of the 9-volt batteries and contains three new 1-1/2 volt D-cell batteries connected in parallel. These will wear out before the 9-volt batteries will, since these are used for the tube filaments, so putting three of them in parallel provides 3 times the life of using only one. You could fit 4 in there, but 3 will last a couple days if I leave the radio turned on, so that usually lasts the whole summer for me and I take all batteries out during the winter. I retained the original connector from the battery, wired the batteries to it, and slid it into the original cardboard battery cover. It ends up looking like an original battery but has replaceable modern batteries inside.

 

[gifarmer]

I have been working on a radio bike, albeit at a glacial speed for several years now. The radio has been taken on as a pet project at a local electronics repair business in town.

They have the radio working, however there are issues.... the sound is not very loud, the speaker cone has disintegrated so we are using a standby speaker until we figure out how to replace the paper and the shop has added a small amp to get some sound out of it. I am wondering if anyone could forward me a picture of what the radio looks like. I found the hand drawn diagram on line, but would like a clear picture of the radio to take to the radio guy.

The bike needs the battery pack and a couple of other small items - but it's one thing at a time. Also parts for this thing seem to be few and far between - as I am new here any advise on how to move forward would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your interest.
Edward aka weyburneagle

Edward, There are many things that could be wrong, but make sure the antenna is connected properly, check the tubes, and use 1.5 volts DC for A+ voltage, and 90 volts DC for B+ voltage. If anyone adjusted the IF transformers, they may be set wrong. Otherwise, I've had several of these and they've all worked with no component replacement. it wouldn't hurt to replace old capacitors, but there is no high AC voltage in this radio to break them down so I've left mine original and it works fine. I happen to have my tank off the bike right now, so if you need any more information please let me know soon.

 

[weyburneagle]

Great Pictures Greg

Thank you for the very detailed and clear pictures. They tell a lot - the biggest of which is that I am missing the metal speaker cover and the thing that attaches to it - I'm guessing that's the transformer and something to hook it up to the speaker. I'm also missing the orange tubular thing? It's quite possible that I have the wrong speaker as well. The speaker I have is Mitsubishi .3V 40 ohm speaker. Do the pictures on the diagram give the specs of the transformer and the orange thing. Perhaps the orange thing is the transformer. What is that damn orange thing? I was so bloody excited when the electronics guy said that he had the radio working.... sort of like when I asked Kathy Jeffries out on a first date in grade 9 and she brought her sister. I guess that I am going to have to do as you've done and continue until I can piece together a whole bike.

At any rate you have been very kind in taking the time to take such good pictures and post them. I am very grateful.

Edward.