In-built radio connection point in Don caravans

[Don Ricardo]

Hi everyone,

Now here’s a bit of a puzzle to interest all of you Don restorers and amateur (or professional) auto electrician’s out there.

One of the items of optional equipment listed in the sales brochure for late 1940’s Dons was a “Radio (latest vibrator sets)”. Then in the ‘General Specifications’ section, under the heading ‘Electrical’, the brochure says:

“Battery, aerial, and earth leads wired to radio shelf, with 50 feet of aerial wire built into roof. (All models except ‘Utility’).” [The ‘Utility’ model was the 12 ft 121 model.]

Intrigued with these comments I went on a voyage of discovery in our van, and concluded that the ‘radio shelf’ in the 14 ft vans is the shelf located above the divan at the rear of the van:



Just above the shelf appear to be the ‘battery, aerial, and earth leads’, or at least the connecting point for some or all of them:



So here are some questions:

1. Am I correct in assuming that the visible wires above the shelf are indeed the connection points?
2. Do the three wires correspond to the ‘battery, aerial, and earth leads’, and how would you work out which ones are which?
3. If an owner purchased an optional radio would there have been some sort of a socket attached to the wires to which the radio would be plugged in, or would the radio have been permanently wired in?
4. Where is the ‘radio shelf’ in the 12 ft and 10 ft Don models?
5. Has anyone who has worked on the roof of their Don seen signs of the aerial wires mentioned? (50 ft of wiring is a heck of a lot of wire – 15 metres!!)
6. What is a “radio (latest vibrator sets)”? (I thought that vibration mode was only introduced with mobile phones set on silent! ;D)
7. Were in-built radio connection points common or optional in other makes of caravans in the 40’s and 50’s?

And most importantly of all:

8. Is there anybody with a Don caravan who has one of the optional radios and/or the connection point all ready set up to use? If so I’m sure we would all love to see some photos!

I am interested in any info or thoughts people might have on all of this.

Regards,

Don Ricardo

[bigdidda]

Don,
I can possibly answer a couple of points for you.
In your picture you show two single wires and what appears to be a pair of wires.
The pair would probably be for the battery.
In the case of the " vibrator radio ", in the days before the all conquering transistor radios ran on valves or vacuum tubes and also weighed a ton.
Due to the fact that valves require high voltages eg 385 volts a unique system was designed that created higher voltages from the usal 6 or 12 volt car supply. An intergral part of the unit vibrated as it worked.These were known as "vibrator sets ".
These radios do sometimes come up in Auctions but due to their age the cost of repairing the vibrator supply usually is too prohibitive so they dont often work. ( i have been quoted over 500 dollars to repair a Malvern Star i own.)
Hope this helps and best of luck.
regards
don

[Don Ricardo]

Thanks for the info Don. That provides a couple of pieces of the jigsaw.

Regards,

Don Ricardo

[cobber]

G'day Don,

Classy little vans those Dons eh?

The fact that the radio was a vibrator model does indicate that it was a 6 or 12volt car radio that must have been encased in a box of some sort to sit on the shelf.

I would say that the two cables on the left are the battery and earth leads and the twin cable on the right is the "loop" aerial.

If you have a multi meter stick a couple of pins through the cable sheath of the two on the left, connect multi meter to the pins and hook up your battery supply....... does the Don have an on-board battery ? This would confirm what I say is true or false.
I would guess that if you were to remove those staples and pull on the cables you would find each had a loose end to connect to sockets of your choice, or direct to the radio.

The problem area with the vibrator radios was indeed the vibrator, they kept burning out the points. There are antique radio restorers around who are able to replace the vibrators with transistorized units, and they would most likely have restored radios also.

Cobber.

[firefighter]

Hi Don
I have a mate thats big in to restoring old radios , he has fixed about 6 shelve ones for me... plus 1 large radio gram type
1 of the shelve ones had its own 2 batterys , he took the batterys out and put a transistorized unit in it Don if you want 1 for your don give us a yell I still have 2 unrestored radios here if you are interestered I could get him to do 1 for you
Geoff ;D ;D ;D ;D
ps he lives up your way

[Don Ricardo]

Thanks for the offer Geoff. I may take you up on it, but I'm trying to get a bit more information about the radios that were an optional extra for the Dons first.

As Reddo would say, it would be 'really coool' if I could get something that is pretty close to the original. I am hoping that one of the other owners of a Don may have one of the 'Don radios' or some other information that will help us know what we are looking for. I know it's a long shot, but who knows...

If I can talk to you about the radios you have a little later that would be great.

Regards,

Don Ricardo

[firefighter]

Hey Don

give Alan ( austin 125 ) in bendigo a ring he should have info you need I sent a p m to you the other night with his phone nos
F/F ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Deleted]

Don R,
the pics from inside my Don aren't very clear, had to use the camera phone (no flash) :











Mark

[Don Ricardo]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the photos from your van. There's no doubt about it, a picture conveys more than a thousand words. It would be really difficult to explain the placement of these wires without some photos.

I note from the photos you have taken that the wires on the right hand side appear to be separate wires coming out of separate holes in the wall panel, whereas the wires in the same location on our van are in the form of a double/twin cable (what I would call light speaker wire if that makes any sense). Do the wires that have been used in your van look original?

I also note that the staple under the right hand wires in your van is still in place. Is this currently performing any function or has it just been put back after the wires were released?

Out of interest I have discovered tonight that the wires below the staples in our van are actually the ends of the wires. I hadn't noticed that before, despite having looked pretty carefully previously - I thought they went back into the wall . Anyway that fits in with Cobber's comment that if I pulled the staples out and pulled on the cables there would be some loose cable that could be pulled out of the wall ready for connection to the radio.

Still like to see the setup of the original optional radio. Firefighter has suggested that I talk to Austin125 about it - I must follow that up.

Regards,

Don Ricardo