Spartan Sparton 620A

Seven or eight years ago we were strolling the pleasant streets of Jacksonville OR during the "All City Garage Sale". This was in the days when people came from all around and set up shop anywhere there was space, in the days before the city limited access and started charging a fee - back when it was more interesting.

We walked along looking for, you guessed it, old radios. Spotted in the driveway, leaning against a post was this very short console. It had to lean since the parts were no longer held together by glue. The story was that this old radio came from a pile of old radios and parts that were the remnants of an old repair shop that had closed the same year that I was born and that was a while ago. It was told that the old fellow stored the radios in a barn, he passed away and later a tree fell on the barn. Some of the old gear was exposed to a lot of moisture and that is where the glue went.

So, I offered $20 for the tubes in the flimsy, short cabinet. The seller said "OK", but I had to take the cabinet as well. We had driven the car to town. I might have gotten the radio to fit but decided to meet the fellow the next day at his home, besides, there were other items from the barn there too.

The next day I spent $100 and loaded the back of my pickup full of cool old stuff and the various parts of the disintegrating Sparton radio.

I could not resist fixing the radio and what was left of the cabinet. Then I just stored it away since it still had issues, like no legs. There was, even then, a mystery. I could find no examples of this radio even though it was listed in the Riders manuals. The serial number plaque was still there and it called the model a 620A. Now I knew that the chassis was the collectable but not too uncommon Sparton 410 Junior. The escutcheon even said "Sparton Junior". My search uncovered pictures of the cabinet belonging to a Sparton 620 NO "A". So what was the deal?

The chassis was still in nice shape and still retained its large "wet" filter cap combination. It did not take long to figure out that the cradle, pictured above, was factory built and even hosted the customary Sparton slide-in mounting system for the chassis.

And so, time passed and passed and one day I saw what the radio needed, about 300 miles away. So off we went to pick up a non functioning but seemingly intact Sparton 620 (no "A").

Well somebody had worked on this 620. Known as an Equasonne, it was a large chassis - and heavy. It was missing a lot of parts including the big filter cap. It had also been raided for the speaker by the owners son who was probably wanting to acquire a big base "thumper" for his tunes. We all know how this always turns out and why replace a speaker that "doesn't work" (for him)? So the speaker was gone but I did not need it anyway and as it turns out, I did not even need the shelf that it mounted to.

From the front of the cabinet the 620 and the 620A seem to be identical except for the missing 3rd knob and the associated decorative hole plug on the 620A. But inside the cabinet was another story and might require some history to explain. Note the round cut made to accommodate the Sparton Jr's. dial on  the front panel, far right.

The year was 1930. Sparton had been manufacturing the Equasonne radios and their own line of tubes to try to avoid paying RCA patent royalties. None the less, the two companies were in court. Sparton had the resources to challenge RCA where most smaller companies didn't. Yet they were likely to loose  any claim regarding tube design in court and their Equasonne receiver worked but was no match for a good TRF let alone a super-heterodyne. They had reached an agreement with RCA which would bring to an end both the Equasonne and the now rare and expensive Sparton/Cardon designed tubes.

The Sparton Junior 410 was one of the first radios the company made following the agreement. It was a TRF (Tuned Radio Frequency) receiver. Though branded Sparton, the tubes it used were conventional RCA models except the 2 push-pull output tubes and these were Sparton 183/483s which were baisicly a 45 (UX-245) with a 5 volt filament. I believe this was done simply to use up remaining tube stock at Sparton.

I am not sure which it was. Maybe Sparton had some of the 620 cabinets left or maybe they just wanted to offer a TRF radio in a console rather than the cumbersome 10 tube Equasonne. In any case it appears that the 620 cabinets were modified to accept the smaller 6 tube radio. Besides manufacturing the cradle for the smaller chassis and routing out the circular hole for the dial they had to take the top off the cabinet off to remove the upper 1/2 shelf that the earlier radio's speaker mounted to. This was not all that difficult. the top comes off with a few taps of a rubber mallet. A little wiggling and the shelf comes out too. The front panel is held in with screws. I would think that they would have modified it at the same time. The original 620A's cabinet shows the scars created by the removal of the shelf. The new speaker screws to a baffle board that is in turn mounted to the front panel. It would not have fit at all if the shelf were left in place.

So here it is complete with a pair of the now rare Sparton 183/483 output triodes and it's 10 inch Rola speaker.

A few notes:

Never confuse a Sparton/Cordon tube from this period with a similarly numbered RCA (or other brand) tube. A Sparton 483 is not the same tube as an 83 where as a 27 is a replacement for a 227. Making this mistake will cause bad things to happen!

The original Rola speaker found in the 410 Junior was silver not brown. Unknown as to the color in this console.

Has anyone seen another Sparton 620A?

The radio still needs a set of Sparton 410 style knobs.