Just finished my latest little project. I occasionally listen to Rush while puttering around in my "guy room." Have been using my FT-991, but it struck me as kind of silly to put hours of use on that expensive rig just to listen to broadcast AM. I recently learned of the Echophone EC-1, and as I liked the utilitarian WWII style, I sought one out for a rebuild project.



Online sources say that the Echophone was one of the few radio sets which was allowed to continue in production during the war years. This was both because it was a Government purchased item, and that as a "morale radio," the war news it brought into homes and businesses was deemed worthy of the use of material and production resources. The "Commercial" designation right on the front of the set was supposed to erase any suspicion that the hardy, battleship-gray little radio set might have been purloined from military stores. A long-running series of advertisements in the magazines of the day featured the Echophone being used in exotic locales by the fictional Private Hogarth.



I picked this one up on eBay, and as it looked quite clean and unmolested, I wondered if I might find it all original on the inside. That didn't prove to be the case, and although most of the original wax-dipped paper capacitors were still in place, there was a newer gang capacitor and a solitary "orange drop." I wonder why someone started to put this back into service and then stopped. Was there a fatal flaw that I wasn't smart enough to spot?



So I ordered a pig pile of new caps, as well as replacement resistors for those which seemed to be out of tolerance. Here's what we pulled out:  



This is a transformerless set, meant to run on AC or DC, and they are known to be a real potential shock hazard. Several online sources gave good, detailed info info on making these safe, and I performed those steps along with the other work. Here it is all complete:



Speaking of online resources, if you have any interest in modern or vintage radios and electronics, you really need to give a look to the great videos put out by Paul Carlson. He has a great detailed overview of rebuilding and aligning one of these units, as well as a host of other interesting topics. I've learned a ton from watching these. Google "Mr. Carlson's Lab."

Before I started playing with tube gear, I presumed that tubes must be fragile little creatures, in need of constant replacement. These have been in use for some portion of the last 75 years, and had just endured a bumpy, cross continental ride in the UPS truck. Is there any chance they will work?



Well, today was the day to find out. I plugged the Echophone into my newly made dim bulb tester and powered it up... and... NOTHING. Where had I gone wrong? Hey, you don't suppose... I slid the standby switch from "off" to "on" and the radio leapt to life!

The Echophone isn't a handsome cabinet radio like so many others of its time, but I happen to like the quirky, battle ready look, and hope to enjoy it for a long time to come. Hey Hogarth, thanks for the recommendation!

Cheers...   Jim

Nice job! Sure looks "less busy" under the chassis with the new, smaller caps in there.

I'm in kinda the same boat as I use my IC-706 for AM broadcast duty most often while I have a Hallicrafters SX-110 just sitting here on the bench.

I was thinking the same thing. It looks neater now for sure. That point to point construction still weirds me out though.

Way digging it.

That is really Cool,  Looks like a great project..  Cheers..    Imagine the news that radio has received in its life..    

Prosise

Aww! I've always wanted an Echophone, and you did a great job of bringing it back to life! Adding the fuse block was a good ideal, too.

It's Interesting that the EC-1 which was intended as an SWL receiver was better than the later S-38 series that was derived from it and was marketed as an entry-level ham radio receiver. The EC-1 had a separate BFO instead of the regenerative IF stage of the S-38s, which really sucked for CW. A surplus ARC-5 receiver cost about 1/6th of what an S-38 did, and was more stable, while a properly-constructed homebrew two-stage regenerative set was much more selective.

Cool project!

The little Echophone is on now, and it sounds good! I'm with you Prosise, just imagine the dramatic news of the war years, and some of the great music of the time which these old tubes pulled out of the ether!

The BFO actually doesn't seem to be terribly functional. There's a good site describing this online (http://www.geojohn.org), and which details a modification to make it work as it should. Sometime in the near future I'll take a stab at performing his mod.

The HF bands were in pretty poor shape yesterday, and while I did finally hear one AM conversation on 80 meters, I could never pull out any code or sideband. I didn't embark on this little project with that in mind, but it would be nice to have it working fully as it should.

Sure is fun to work on this old gear and put it back into use!  Cheers...   Jim

I'd like to meet that guy on the linked website. Looks like he's a hunter/jumper rider, so we'd have a lot to talk about besides radios and guns.

The BFO mods he mentions should make a big improvement the Echophone's CW and possibly even SSB performance. Little thought was given to BFOs on these entry-level radios, possibly because so many new hams of the era either built their first receivers or converted WW2 surplus equipment, and then jumped to the next tier receivers.