RCA CR88 Identification Help

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by thoyer454

The more I study this chassis, the more little things I find. Today I noticed that all of the tube sockets are held in by spring clips and not the typical flange held by screws to the chassis. There are no holes in the chassis for tube socket screws either so it was made for mounting the sockets in this manner.

My early set is the same. I don't remember how my later set is and there's an HP8566 and Icom R9000 sitting on top of them...

Hmm, near Camden?

Maybe it was one-part-at-a-time ala Johnny Cash. Or else an escaped prototype.

I was once in a party with Micheal Messer, the guitarist, and he said that when in the states he often was invited to stay at the Cash's and how welcoming they were.

David

[turretslug]

I wonder if the change to flange-mounting valve sockets was to make servicing by users easier. I've released the spring on the flange-mounting type in order to alter the indexing of ceramic insert in keyed flange, but it's a bit of a fiddle and would be rather more so when installed in the chassis of a crowded set. RCA no doubt had a tool or jig that made installation in a bare chassis easier, but not so quick and easy for someone down the user chain. The sort of thing that might have occurred to a purchasing commission, perhaps, if not RCA themselves. Similarly the change to "wasp" pattern tuning scale from all-plain might have been a recommendation to ease discrimination by operators, even if a bit more ink was needed!

I gather that a British delegation went to the US early in the war (or possibly in the lead-up?) to appraise the receivers that were available and the AR88 found favour (I'm sure that its combination of advanced techniques yet suitability for mass production would have struck them). It would be interesting to know their comments on it.

[thoyer454]

I contacted the seller and asked if he could provide any history of the radio. Below is his response. No smoking gun but interesting........


"It belonged to my wife's great-great-uncle, Archibald Cotter, who was a postal worker and a gambler who used the radio to place bets on and listen to horse races all over the place. After he died, my father-in-law got it in the early 1970s and started using it down on Long Beach Island NJ to listen to weather and Coast guard activity. We don't have any information about how it was originally obtained. The uncle who owned it apparently lost so much money on horse races that he committed suicide leaving his 90 something year old wife behind with nothing. These are the stories that have been passed down, so we cannot verify all of it".

The one inscription on the front panel to the right of the tuning knob is Wheeling W. VA, which is a town in West Virginia.

The scribbling above the CL meter could be "betters" in light of hearing the story about horse racing and betting.

So for now it all remains a mystery. It'll go into my que for getting operational but right now I have two R390A's and one R390 ahead of it. (yes those seem to follow me home too...........)

My son groans every time I ask him to help me carry a new find into the basement. My rational is that at least our house won't blow away in any storm with all of the iron in the basement!

Tom
W3TA

[Dave757]

Originally Posted by turretslug

I gather that a British delegation went to the US early in the war (or possibly in the lead-up?) to
appraise the receivers that were available and the AR88 found favour

Hi,

As far as I know, the AR88 went into production in 1941, so although development may have begun before the war, there probably wouldn't
have been much to see in the lead up to the war.

I understand that the AR77 had only just been launched in late 1939.

Kind regards
Dave

[turretslug]

I see what you mean Dave, I was thinking of "the war" timescale from the US perspective when the political attitude to the UK was still a bit ambiguous around 1939/40/41 and there was political desire not to be seen to support the UK too ostentatiously, but they were quite happy to discuss supply/purchase on favourable terms with lower-key military/commercial rather than political delegates. Apparently, there are many more people claiming German heritage than British in the US (hence British asides around "don't Americans have funny names"....) and the US casualties and expenditure in WW1 had come as something of a shock, so the UK-favouring political camp had to play things carefully.

Colin