RCA Radiola IV (AR-880)

One of my favorite "Radiola's", the Radiola IV was introduced Dec 1922 and 10,400 were made. One of the few early radio receivers that was self contained. That is, it had a built-in speaker and had space set aside for the batteries. It did not include a built-in antenna so an external "long wire" antenna was required.

This neat, attractive set was designed to operate on dry cell batteries using the new, low current UV-199 tubes. Not a bad performer considering it only has 3 tubes. It features a regenerative circuit similar to the Radiola II but with an additional audio amplifier stage.

I recently restored the electronics which did not need much, replacing the for glass resistors was all I could find wrong. The finish is original and very alligator'ed, unfortunately it is missing the feet which is common on this model as they made it's already large footprint about 12 square inches larger.