Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

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Fordwright
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Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Fordwright » Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:29 am

Radio was taking off around the time of the Model T, so I was wondering if anyone was trying to fit a radio in the car around that time.


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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by George Hand » Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:45 am

Off the internet, When was the car radio invented?
The first car radio on record was fitted to the passenger door of a Ford Model T by 18-year-old George Frost, President of Lane High School radio Club, Chicago, and was in use by May 1922. The first commercially produced car radio was the Philco Transitone, introduced by the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company in 1927.
When and where was the first car radio invented? - Fun Trivia
www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question41959.html
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Turn it On: A Short History of the Car Radio
When the first car radio was invented As commercial radio stations began appearing in the 1920s, the idea of making music portable gained steam. Chevrolet was the first to come up with an in-car radio, and it was neither compact nor cheap.

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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Steve Jelf » Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:12 pm

It took a few years for the sound quality of car radios to equal the table top or the console you had in your house. The radio in Mom's 1940 Plymouth sounded as good as anything we had in the house, but even in a Packard the radio of a year or two earlier had a rather tinny sound.

Screen Shot 2020-09-11 at 11.06.38 AM.png
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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by ThreePedalTapDancer » Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:22 pm

5CAB84D9-8700-4008-BB96-F0261E6D0712.jpeg

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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Rich Eagle » Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:11 pm

"The Galvin Corporation of Chicago, USA is credited with introducing the first commercial car radio, in 1930".
http://www.driving.co.uk/news/test-your ... ntroduced/
"The first car radio was introduced in 1922 by Chevrolet".
http://www.exaget.com/evolution-car-radio/
Sept7-1924.jpg
Sept7-1924.jpg (41.32 KiB) Viewed 2855 times
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/tim ... automobile
Take your pick.
"In 1907, De Forest patented the audio tube and the audio circuit". Another source talks about that happening in 1904.
The 1922 Chevrolet in the second entry is referred to as a Ford in another article.
Again, the media doesn't always agree.
Last edited by Rich Eagle on Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Norman Kling » Fri Sep 11, 2020 5:18 pm

I don't know how they got it to work, at least when running on magneto. I left my Model T running and then drove around in a modern car with an AM radio and found the Model T jammed the AM for about 400' .
Norm

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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by TRDxB2 » Fri Sep 11, 2020 6:07 pm

Lots of bits and pieces to sort out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_audio
In 1904, well before commercially viable technology for mobile radio was in place, American inventor and self-described "Father of Radio" Lee de Forest did some demonstration around a car radio at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.
Around 1920, vacuum tube technology had matured to the point where the availability of radio receivers made radio broadcasting viable. A technical challenge was that the vacuum tubes in the radio receivers required 50 to 250 volt direct current, but car batteries ran at 6V. Voltage was stepped up with a vibrator that provided a pulsating DC which could be converted to a higher voltage with a transformer, rectified, and filtered to create higher-voltage DC.
----These were from other postings
----The first car radio on record was fitted to the passenger door of a Ford Model T by 18-year-old George Frost, President of Lane High School . radio Club, Chicago, and was in use by May 1922.
----The 1922 Chevrolet in the second entry is referred to as a Ford in another article.
----"The first car radio was introduced in 1922 by Chevrolet".
In 1924, Kelly's Motors in NSW, Australia, installed its first car radio.
In 1930, the American Galvin Manufacturing Corporation marketed a Motorola branded radio receiver for $130. It was expensive: the contemporary Ford Model A cost $540. A Plymouth sedan, "wired for Philco Transistone radio without extra cost," is advertised in Ladies' Home Journal in 1931. In 1932 in Germany the Blaupunkt AS 5 medium wave and longwave radio was marketed for 465 Reichsmark, about one third of the price of a small car. Because it took nearly 10 litres of space, it could not be located near the driver, and was operated via a steering wheel remote control. In 1933 Crossley Motors offer a factory fitted car radio. By the late 1930s, push button AM radios were considered a standard feature. In 1946, there were an estimated 9 million AM car radios in use.
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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Steve Jelf » Fri Sep 11, 2020 11:50 pm

I'm told that my grandpa (1865-1941) could not abide radio and would not have one in the house, so Grandma and my aunts would go out and sit in the car to listen.
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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Allan » Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:14 am

When Duncan and Fraser were relieved of their Ford distributorship in the 20's, they took on the agency for Rugby cars, which were US Star brand. We already had English Stars. Interestingly, Rugby reflects an English influence, rather than US.
One of the Duncan brothers pursued new interests in radio, developing and marketing the DUNFRA brand of household and cabinet radios. I am not aware of there being car radios produced.

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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Been Here Before » Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:03 am

Someone once stated education is repetition, repetition, and again repetition.

As there was a recent topic on the forum about radios in model T, the attached was presented in the Forum sometime back but, time to present again.

Motor truck magazine for 1921 presented an article about an experimental radio for use with Motor Carriers to send and receive messages from their trucks rather than looking for a phone booth. Yes, Virgil there was a time before a smart phone, one had to look for telephones in the landscape. (I wonder if Bell attempted to place one of his land lines in a horse drawn carriage?)

A Ford Coupe owner by the name of Giblin placed an early radio phone in his Ford to prove a point.

Rather than tell the story, I am presenting to those interested the complete article from Motor Truck, 1921, 'Radiophone adapted to trucks.'

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/82 ... 1538928176

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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Fordwright » Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:24 am

A friend had a 1937 military ambulance, which dealt with ignition interference by having the ignition wires enclosed in soldered copper tubes. I don't imagine it would have been too difficult to shield a Model T's ignition back in the early 20s.


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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by modeltspaz » Sat Sep 12, 2020 2:47 pm

If you'd like to read about Bill Lear (of Lear Jet fame) and his ill-fated first attempt at building, marketing, and installing his first auto radio in a brand new Packard, Wikipedia has a good write up on him.
Bill Lear was quite a guy.
Well, apparently Wikipedia doesn't mention the fact that the first auto installed radio Bill Lear built shorted out and caused the car to burn to the ground. He was teamed with Galvan to start a little company called Motorola. Marrying the terms "Motor", being marketed to automobile owners, and the term "Victrola" which became a common term associated with a machine that plays music.
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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Susanne » Mon Sep 14, 2020 11:41 am

I've been thinking about this for a few days now, and I'm trying to figure out how you'd cancel the RFI coming off the coils... and the wires... I mean, sure, I *guess* you could, but it feels like you're chasing a tiger's tail to make it work and not be drivn crazy by all the excess noise...


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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Been Here Before » Mon Sep 14, 2020 12:02 pm

In 1919 the Army Air Corp was concerned about radiophone communications and the ability of the pilot and ground to be in communication because of 1. noise of the engine and 2. the noise of battle. I would guess the answer as to how ignition interference was solved by looking to early aviation. If the Model T and four coils create interference, I would wonder how a 12 cylinder Liberty engine would sound.

Abstract from" Radio Noise Suppression: Science or Black Art?, Clem W. Rowan and Carlos A. Altgelt, SAE Transactions, Vol. 95, Section 1 (1986), pp. 1-8 (8 pages), Published By: SAE International


""This paper will address radio suppression development beginning with auto radio installations in the early 1920s. Early suppresion problems and attempts to develop meaningful corrective actions will be discussed in detail. Ongoing suppression development beyond the early 1920 era, will be traced forward to approximately 1960. Emphasis on special problems created by various radio power energy sources will be examined in terms of solutions, radio design direction, and variability of long- and short-term corrective actions. A brief discussion will center around antennas and its effects on radio suppression. The final portion of this paper will address internal and external electrical and electronic noise sources which ultimately affects basic radio suppression requirements. SINCE THE EARLY MATING of radio receivers to automobiles in the 1920s, radio engineers have been confronted with a never ending challenge known as radio interference suppression. This problem has had an apparent exponential growth rate with the passage of time, both in terms of the number of problems and severity. Diagnosis of early vehicles for electrical interference generation was for the most part quite simple, primarily because the magnitude of the noise was usually thousands of times larger than the incoming signal. To expand on that point, it should be noted that in 1919 very powerful radio transmissions were carried out using an aircraft engine magneto as the transmitter itself. Noise sources in the early vehicles were limited to spark plugs, distributor points, generator, coil, and in general poor shielding and lack of chassis bonding.""

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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by Mark Gregush » Mon Sep 14, 2020 12:48 pm

Don't for get RFI from the magneto its self. Many radios back then required voltage in excess of 6 volts and with then needed batteries to get the higher voltage, could be quite bulky. Even the Ford radios of the midish 30s required a motor/generator under the rear floor boards to supply the higher voltage needed.
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Re: Were after-market radios ever an option on the Model T?

Post by John E. Guitar » Mon Sep 14, 2020 1:08 pm

Here’s the radio forum member JohnH put together for his tourer.

https://cool386.com/tradio/tradio.htm

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