RCA victor battery/mains portable.

[Geoff 555]

Hi I mentioned the above radio in another thread ( about a Cossor!!) and had a response from a chap in the USA. USRADOLL1. He suggested that a thread would be good as there does seem to be quite some interest.
I made the remark that perhaps the radio, that was aluminum, 'might' be made from WW2 surplus airplanes. Dated 1947. The reply may well be interesting. It was bought almost by mistake, I was doing a search for parts for my car which is a Citroen BX and the radio is a model BX! $8.00 from Ohio.
Over to you gentlemen.
Cheers.
Geoff.

[Cobaltblue]

Hi Geoff

I am guessing it's one of these

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rca_gl...tter_66bx.html

Not sure about being made from air-planes but there was a lot of capacity in production of such materials after the need to build planes etc suddenly ceased.

Cheers

Mike T

[Geoff 555]

Hi Mike thats the one. Thank you. The might be made from airplanes was tongue in cheek somewhat - RCA was a very big contractor and there was evidently a large surplus of aluminium after the war. Oh well dreams of owning part of a Super fortress or B29 dashed again!!
Cheers.
Geoff.

[Graham G3ZVT]

The look of this set is not unlike the Russian (actually Latvian) Convair 10

[egrandUS]

That design was advertised as RCA's 'Globe Trotter' from about 1947 to 1950. The ones with gold colored knobs were the earliest. The last ones had red plastic ends and handle instead of black bakelite. Despite their international sounding name, they only received the AM band.

The aluminum supposedly made them "weather resistant" according to their ads. I have a couple of them and they are not at all sealed in any way. What I think they are referring to is the idea that a few drops of water would wipe off the aluminum case without damage, whereas water would damage the fake leather cases that were common in portable radios of the time.

The unique feature of these radios is that the on/off switch is built into the aluminum cover that slides over the dial and knobs. They also had an optional external antenna attachment that is hard to find nowadays.

It used to be common to hear stories in the US about products being made out of surplus war materials. Almost all of them were bogus. Aluminum was used a lot more in industry after the war, and scrapped aircraft was the source of a lot raw aluminum. However, these radios definitely were not made out of re-purposed aircraft panels.

[Cobaltblue]

Originally Posted by egrandUS

The unique feature of these radios is that the on/off switch is built into the aluminum cover that slides over the dial and knobs.

Philips Australia pinched that Idea and used it on the 148 Town and Country

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/philips_148c.html

I Offered a badly damaged 148D some time ago (has a new home just need to get around to shipping it ) https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?p=984678

Cheers

Mike T

[usradcoll1]

Originally Posted by Geoff 555

Hi I mentioned the above radio in another thread ( about a Cossor!!) and had a response from a chap in the USA. USRADOLL1. He suggested that a thread would be good as there does seem to be quite some interest.

I'm glad to see you follow up on it. I thought the mistake made was regarding a different radio, instead of c*r parts.
I have almost the entire evolution of the Globe Trotter series. The appearance changed several times through the run, but they still referred to it as the Globe Trotter. The last valve model had the GT name on the dial scale.