MidCenturyRadios.com

Homemade Radios

I have been building radios since I was a teen ager. The radios on this page are just a fraction of what I have built over the years. My early designs were simple, using 2 and 3 transistors only. Eventually, I discovered integrated circuits and used them extensively in my later designs. Looking

for a change, I ventured into vintage land and decided to build an old fashioned tube radio. The experience was so rewarding, I built 8 tube radios in about 4 years, the last of which was a hybrid 9 tube-3 IC stereo FM receiver with a solid-state MPX decoder for stereo reception.

Click on the thumbnails below to view detailed pictures and description of the projects. The pictures are fast loading and good quality. Enjoy!

Tube Radios

Some people ask me "why tube radios?". Well, for the nostalgia, for the love of glowing tubes, and for the challenge of building radios the way they were built many years ago. After all, real radios glow in the dark!

5 Tube
MW Receiver

7 Tube
SW Receiver

8 Tube - 1 Tr
SW Receiver

2 Tube
FM Receiver

3 Tube
SW Receiver

2 Tube - 2 Tr
SW Receiver

8 Tube
FM Receiver

9 Tube Stereo
FM Receiver

Solid-State Radios

If it wasn't for the criters above, man wouldn't have reached the moon and beyond. These radios won't heat up my room or serve as a couch for my cat, but they will still get me the world, at a much lower cost!