[This article originally appeared in its entirety in The Old Timer’s Bulletin: Official Journal of the Antique Wireless
Association, Inc. (AWA), Vol. 30, No. 4, February 1990. It is reproduced here by permission of the author. -- F.W.]

Although the exact number of sets is unknown, the "Marlodyne" radio must have had one of the shortest production runs in the history of the radio business. This, at a time when anything that called itself a radio was salable. Ralph Longley's Set Catalog and Index -- January 1921-1933 gives an insight into just how short the production run was. His compilation -- based on manufacturers who advertised nationally -- shows a listing for the Marlodyne for the year 1926 only. The set didn't make it into Rider's either.

I acquired one of these radios recently. In restoring it to "like new" condition, I became aware of the attention to detail that the manufacturer employed in its construction. The set itself is of the conventional TRF type with two stages of RF gain, a detector, and two cascaded audio amplifiers -- typical for the 1926 period. The construction details were typical of manufacturers who did not have access to a machine shop or metal fabrication facilities. The chassis is a Bakelite sheet supported by right-angle brackets from the front panel. Battery and antenna connections between the chassis and the cabinet rear are provided by jumper wires and terminals, thus making the chassis rigid enough to support the machined tube sockets, capacitors, coils, etc. Coils are basket-weave types like those in the Freshman Masterpiece, but angled to reduce coupling. Bus-bar construction is used throughout. The most interesting part of the construction is the rear of the wood cabinet. The entire rear surface is covered with a blueprint which depicts two triangular radio towers with a lead-in to the antenna terminal, with pictorials of all batteries and a water-pipe ground. Seems like a novel way to picture the set connections: the wrong battery hookup could cost you a set of tubes!

As I restored the set, I became interested in determining more about the Ernest Marlow Company since the set was manufactured in Asbury Park, New Jersey -- my home state. A letter to the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce helped fill in some detail. It seems there was no listing for a radio manufacturer at 613 Bangs Avenue -- the address on the blueprint of the set. Further, the "old timers" of the Asbury Park area could not recall an Ernest Marlow. Rosemarie Porter of the Chamber of Commerce did graciously provide a few hints, however. In the early Twenties, references such as Polk's Asbury Park Directory were available. These directories were a miniature Bureau of the Census -- although probably more useful. They listed all residents with their addresses, occupations, etc. Rosemarie located the 1924 through 1931 directories and the pieces of the Marlodyne mystery started to fall into place. It seems the Marlodyne was manufactured by a salesman whose name was Ernest Moberg. In 1926, both he and his brother (or father) did assemble radios in Bradley Beach, New Jersey: not Asbury Park, but close by. By 1928, the two Mobergs ran the Bradley Beach Radio Company but no mention was made of the manufacturing aspect. By 1931, Ernest Moberg's occupation was again listed as a salesman working out of New York City. No mention of his partner or the radio company is made by that time. My search for the man and his radio ended abruptly with this information -- just as the production run of the Marlodyne had done years before. Incidentally, the radio operates very well although, typical of TRFs with grid-leak detectors and no AGC, it tends to overload on locals and its lack of selectivity makes it tough to get DX.

Biographical note. Robert F. Haworth is a veteran RCA electrical engineer and Radio Attic
advertiser. Since his retirement in the early 1990s he has restored hundreds of antique radios,
commercial and military, and has contributed extensively to the radio hobby press.

The "Archives" are presented just for fun by Steve Adams at the Radio Attic.
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