Home Forums Reply To: Restoration of a 1950/51 Arvin 542T: Part 1, Background

#32024
Gary Albach
Forum Participant

Hi Les – I’m just writing up the restoration of the chassis and the cabinet, and will post the casting of the knobs after that, hopefully by next week.
You will see that this radio also started with a grey-white colour and had terrible blemishes in the finish. I always thought it was just a poor paint job by a previous owner but now I wonder if the factory finishes might have badly deteriorated.
Yes, bright yellow was an original colour for the 440T. They called it ‘Banana Yellow’ as shown in the attached advertisement. The following year for their model 540T they switched to ‘Citron’. Have attached a photo of a display we had in our kitchen until my wife got tired of looking at it and made me change it.
And, yes, the circuit in these radios can be a bit confusing at first. They are not strictly TRFs but are a real superhetrodyne, without an IF amplifier stage. They have the basic All American Five (AA5) circuit without the IF amplifier tube. Hence, they have the selectivity of an AA5 but without the sensitivity. Being housed in a metal case, and not having a built-in loop antenna, they definitely need an external wire antenna!