1926 Atwater Kent Model 30

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It's battery time again! This little fellow took several batteries to get it going, and a lot of antenna wire; 100' would be about right, and that had to be up in the air at least 30'...sounds like a modern-day shortwave listener's "inverted 'L'", doesn't it?

One revolutionary feature of this set was "one-dial tuning". No more fiddling with three knobs to get maximum smoke! This was very appealing to the general public, who knew about as much about radios then as they do about the Internet these days.

This set is shown with a Magnavox horn speaker on the side...in those days you bought the set, the speaker, and the tubes separately. It was a cheesy marketing trick, much like selling a computer without a monitor; it kept the advertised price down. The poor schmo who walked into a radio store thinking he was going to get off with a mere $70 was soon cured of his error! ("Oh, Mr. Johnson, do want tubes with that radio?...")

By the way, that speaker is a 1924 Magnavox M4, Model A, Pete Jensen's first speaker...Jensen? Yup, that's right...Jensen Speakers!

General Specifications
Design Type Tuning Range Number of Tubes Weight Batteries Required Original Selling Price Permanent Collection
TRF 540-1500 Khz 6 15 Pounds 6V, 9V, 22V, 67V,135V unknown Yes

Tube Complement and Types
RF Stages Detector Audio Stages
01A (3) 00A 01A, 112

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