RCA Victor 4-Y-511 combo (1954)

Radios from the US are rather rare in these surroundings. So I was really excited to get this radio-phonograph through a barter with an American who was interested in my Philips HX347A.

This radiogram is from the early fifties. It has a beautiful dark brown Bakelite case with a round dial and 3 knobs on the front. When you lift the lid, you see the record player. This is a 45rpm-only player, for 45 rpm records with a large hole. It has a record changing mechanism, so you can put a pile of your favourite singles on it and listen for an hour or so.

The radio part is an AC/DC radio with medium wave (AM) only. It is constructed for 115 V, 60 Hz operation. The valves used, (whaddayamean? oh, toobs), are miniature 7-pin types:
35W4 rectifier for the power supply;
50C5 penthode as output stage;
12AV6 as detector and AF preamp;
12BA6 HF penthode as IF amplifier;
12BE6 heptode as frequency converter.

After I received it, I connected it to a step-down transformer and tried it. The radio worked perfectly, without an external antenna, err, aerial. The record player works, too. But it runs too slow, as it has been constructed for 60 cycles/second. I'll see if I can build a frequency converter. Would be nice..