Erla Circloid Kit Radio

[Ed Kraushar]

I picked up a chassis for this Erla Circloid Kit Radio at an estate sale. The chassis was in bad condition, rotten wires, mouse effluent, mud and also stripped of its audio interstage transformers. It was found in a junk pile on a entire 4 X 8 foot table of radios and chassis I purchased for $10.00. Most of the stuff was in poor condition but some partial chassis of fairly rare radios were in it such as a Golden-Leutz Pliodyne 6 and a David Grimes Inverse Duplex 3XP.

The kit is unique as Erla advertised that it could be assembled in 45 minutes to an evening. It went together with no soldering and came with the main components already mounted. The wiring was supplied in various lengths with eyelets on each end to attach to the components with nuts or thumbnuts.

After cleaning the wiring was replaced using the original eyelets and a similar cloth covered wire. Some connections were made with flat metal straps and some had to be made to replace ones lost when the audios were pirated. The Erla interstage transformers are mounted in a strange way. The connections are made under the chassis board but the studs on the top of the transformers pass through the chassis and are held in place with the thumb nuts on top. This meant that exact replacements were needed to fit and as the transformers also acted as center supports for the chassis board. PTOP had one good transformer and one empty case of the proper type. Both were purchased and the empty case filled with a Hammond 124A.

Chassis top view.

Chassis rear view.

The restoration was completed and the radio tested. This is one of the better performing five tube radios that I have. Distant stations came in loud and clear. I used a lot of star washers in the assembly as I would expect performance of this type of assembly to deteriorate as the radio aged and connections became poor.

Finished radio. I can see no evidence of this chassis ever have beeing installed in a case.

Ed.

[Rogers flipdial]

Another great job Ed – I’m pretty sure that came from Barry Coleman’s estate – I’m glad you were able to see the potential in it. There were a lot of us there at that auction that came home with a lot of stuff – I hope that some of the other items show up here restored as well. I was really disappointed that noone posted pictures of the first auction – at least that I could find – maybe they did and I don’t know about it.
Barry was a good guy – I used to see him at the Toronto club meetings – he was one of the few guys that would bring in a decent item to sell at the club auction. I know he went back a long way in our hobby – it would be nice if someone who knew him well would write something up about him and post it here on the forum.
Steve

[Author]

Posts