I have a Wards Airline radio I am restoring, but the antenna coil is gone. I know it is just a couple of loops of wire, but where can I get info on how many loops, what gage wire, ect?

Which model? I can give you the count from my Airline if you want--the "Air Wave."

:Which model? I can give you the count from my Airline if you want--the "Air Wave."

64BR-1503B

::Which model? I can give you the count from my Airline if you want--the "Air Wave."
:
:
:64BR-1503B

I can't seem to find a schematic for that exact model, but the 1503C appears to match although there is no info about the coil other than how it connects (not even an ohms rating on each of the two coils). I seem to recall reading that the differecne between the 1503B and 1503C was something about the case they were in.

Most radio manufacturers unfortunately do not give turn counts for the coils found within their radios. You will almost never find the turn count for a loop antenna. By the way, when I said "Air Wave," I was referring to the loop antenna used in Airline radios. This is not the theme for my radio model, however. I should have clarified that. They used "Air Wave" for several of their antenna systems.

I will see what I can figure out.

Thomas

Do you know the general form of the original coil? Was it a flat spiral winding just inside the back of the radio? A little coil under the chassis? Perhaps someone with a similar model could send you some pictures.

If the original coil had two windings, the one that matters connects to the tuning capacitor. A winding for connecting an external antenna is pretty uncritical.

If you have access to instruments for measuring inductance, you might connect an adjustable loopstick antenna coil, adjust it to allow alignment of the radio, then measure the inductance to find the value that you need. You can then design a coil to get this inductance.

It should be possible to develop a coil by trial and error. If the set can be aligned, the coil is close enough. ( The part of alignment of concern here is the RF and oscillator alignment, not the IF alignment! )

Note that to tune the entire AM broadcast band, the coil will need to be wound to have relatively low self capacitance. A jumble-wound coil on a stick may not work.

The radio may still work well enough even if the antenna coil isn't correct. You might try a coil off a junk set, or winding something yourself and seeing if it works.

Ted

I beleive the orriginal coil to be one of those that is a large olval of thin wood/cardbord like material, that looked like the wires are woven back and forth. My dad purchased the set sometime right after WW2 (1945 or 46) and I am sure that he has run it without the coil. It has been setting around collecting dust the last 20 years or so, and as a surprise I am restoring it, so I was hoping to make a new coil.

:I beleive the orriginal coil to be one of those that is a large olval of thin wood/cardbord like material, that looked like the wires are woven back and forth. My dad purchased the set sometime right after WW2 (1945 or 46) and I am sure that he has run it without the coil. It has been setting around collecting dust the last 20 years or so, and as a surprise I am restoring it, so I was hoping to make a new coil.