Zenith Universal Companion 1942

 

The Universal Companion - in yellow :-( from the back

 

Already having a nice 1953er Zenith Trans-Oceanic H-500 I got more and more interested in the history of Zenith's portable wavemagnet radios. Unfortunately the first Trans-Oceanic, the Clipper of 1942, is really rare. I learned sometimes Zenith had build so called 'companion' radios: cheaper versions of the Trans-Oceanics. But sales of the companions were not really successfull, so some of this radios are harder to get as some models of the regular Trans-Oceanics. This is not true for the 1941/42 line of models: about 35.000 Clippers were build compared to 225.350 Companions.

On eBay a 1942er Universal Companion was offered, with chassis in good shape, but with a yellow painted case and a missing front door. I was able to get this radio for 20 bucks.

Like the Clipper the Universal Companion was build in the first months of 1942 until the radio production in the USA was stopped in April due to WW2. This companion has AM only, but also the wavemagnet antenna and a simpler tube layout compared to the clipper. On the loudspeaker the Companion features the 'Sailboat' like the very first Clippers (on the majority of these the 'Bomber' was featured). But I also saw a picture of a Companion with the 'Bomber' on the grill, but there is no document covering the existence of this version.

The Zenith Universal Companion tube complement consists of 4 Loctal and 2 Octal tubes:

1LN5 R.F.
1LA6 Converter
1LN5 I.F.
1LH4 Detector Amplifier
3Q5G Power Amplifier
117Z6G Rectifier

Chassis number is 6B03. Serial number is T 833233, so the radio is from the 2nd last production run.

This is the schematic for the 6G601: 6G601_schema  (146k .gif)

And alignement instructions and chassis layout: 6g601_alignement (99k .gif)

Technically a good deal, is the yellow painted case a real challenge to resolve. Originally the radio was in brown and tan airplane, but this 2 color fabrics are today impossible to get. Sure, the radio needs a new fabric. First job was to search sources for the fabric types the case of the radio is coated with. I found a description saying:

The case is covered in "airplane fabric," basically a durable coated linen, with a pattern of contrasting tan and brown stripes. This radio was offered in two other fabric colors, plus brown cowhide and and a brown imitation alligator that's a perfect match for the original TransOceanic.

And I found this older posting in a discussion group of Antique Radio Forums :

The following is from the 1942 Zenith Universal Portable Radio book dated April 8, 1941. Suffix: M brown airplane fabric, D blue gray airplane fabric, ML brown alligator, MH brown and ivory airplane fabric, L genuine leather. Inital production in percent: M 80%, D 9%, ML 5%, MH 4%, L 2% The two tone is in simulated cowhide and rawhide.

I have discussed this issue with people on the web to find the right solution. So what we actually know is: the Companion was build in 2 versions of two-colour airplane, brown imitation alligator, brown and ivory, and in brown leather. I also found pictures of black looking imitation alligator, but is the originally brown one often looking near black. Actually I'm in contact with Scott McAuley , who can deliver various fabrics for old portable radios and for guitar amps. Also Scott has the black staghorn which covered the Zenith Trans-Oceanics. He sent me samples of the fabrics he can sell.

A possible solution for my problem is to use the 'brown and ivory' design, because those fabrics are deliverable by Scott.

Meanwhile the electrical restoration of the chassis is finished. The radio is working like perfect. I tried also a 1LC6 in place of the 1LA6 (Zenith used the 1LC6 in the first version of the 8G005 Trans-Oceanic), it's ok.

Chassis 6B03

... in the testbed

a view from down under:

before restoration (on top)

after restoration (below)

Back to my Zenith TO and Comp. page

Last update: 04/November/2002