1950s Arvin 951T tube radio, all-original & working

This radio survived the Cold War, and still plays today on what I believe to be all its original components. It is an Arvin model 951T, circa 1955, in then-fashionable Coral pinkish-orange color. It is a traditional "All American Five" design with miniature tubes on a printed circuit board.

The two triangles on the dial indicate the CONELRAD frequencies of 640 and 1240 kHz, a system used in the USA from 1953 to 1963 and designed to both confuse enemy aircraft which might use radio transmitters as their targets and to broadcast emergency information to the public in the event of a nuclear attack. Thankfully, CONELRAD never had to be used for its intended purpose, and was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System in 1963.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• 1950s
• 50s
• 1955
• arvin
• 951t
• am
• vacuum
• tube
• valve
• table
• radio
• coral
• pink
• orange
• color
• plastic
• bakelite
• all
• american
• five
• aa5
• circuit
• board
• miniature
• tubes
• original
• unrestored
• playing
• working
• conelrad
• civil
• defense
• dial
• triangles
• 640
• 1240
• khz

[macintoshgermany]

you should tune this to some russian music

[vwestlife]

@macintoshgermany Why?

[CenTexVideo]

iMovie?

That radio sounds very nice. Looks pretty good, too.

[vwestlife]

@CenTexVideo Yup. I also tried rendering it in 720P, but I decided that uploading double the file size just for fake upscaled "HD" wasn't worth it.

[CenTexVideo]

@vwestlife If your DSL is as bad as mine, it would have taken all day.

[vwestlife]

@CenTexVideo Verizon claims I'm getting 3360 kbps download and 864 kbps upload, but with latency and overhead taken into account, my uploads actually top out at around 650 kbps.

[SpeakerFreak95]

do you want to sell it?

[bluenazz]

Very cool Arvin radio K! I remember when the radios had those triangles on the dial. I also survived the Cold War and still have most of my original parts (:->

[thecooldude9999]

Actully from what I've read all the radio stations would transmit on 640 and 1240 in sequnce each station would transmit for a few minutes then it would turn off and the next one would transmit it was so bombers coundent home on the us

[senderjaeger]

The case seems to be made of plastic... interesting! European radios of the 50s usually had wooden cabinets.

[Trance88]

I always wondered what those triangles meant. Very interesting. I kind of wish I didn't sell my Crosley.

[windoes98se]

@CenTexVideo lol DSL sucks they customer service is retarted and the service people are retarted they are too lazy to actualy fix the problem so the blame it on the customs wiering , i had to tell the service guys over 6 different times to go and check it from the street where my line is hooked up to the pole to there there telecomunication hub , they are also sneeky too , the first time i was charged over 100$ for those sneeky fucks to test the line quality from my fone jack to the hub

[CenTexVideo]

@vwestlife Here at the laundromat, we have 768/384. Downloads at approximately 650 and uploads at about 200kbps. Many times is a lot less due to AT&T's cable being so old and the connections at the cable are exposed to heat, dirt and the occasional rain drop that we get every three months. They are still working on putting in fiber, so it might be a lot better when they get to this area. We are only a half block from the CO.

[wilkes85]

Nice radio. And all original parts? That's awesome. Well these things were built to last a long time. I got an RCA Victor radio from 1953 running on all original parts except for a few tubes. It doesn't have the nuclear emergency triangles on the dial though.