The Old Lady Project - Introduction

Years ago (I think was the 2009) I  did buy, with the idea to restore it, an old tube radio, immediately called "The Old Lady".

The radio is a Truetone D-1001.

However the electronic was really in bad shape and of course, who the heck has time to work on it ?

So the Old Lady went in a box, waiting.

The original

Just a couple of pictures to show how the Old Lady was when I found it in an antique mall.

Inside down

Inside up

The general idea

Now is time to do something with it.
Ideally would be really nice to rebuild/restore it, but even assuming to have the time (that I don't have), the space to work on it (that I don't have), the motivation to work on tubes (that I don't have) and the ability and money to find all the needed parts (that I don't have), I would say something else is needed.

So I decided to use the box and build a new radio in it !

The goal

Initially I was thinking to develop an IP radio, however going around the net I found a very nice chip from Silicon Labs (now sold to Skyworks), the Si473x series, controlled via I2C, that contains a full radio receiver for AM/FM/SW.

Thus the idea now is to retrofit the Old Lady with a new digital radio capable to receive AM/FM and SW, possibly maintaining the old look as much as possible.

Proceeding proposal

The ideal goal would be to build a AM/FM/SW receiver, controlled by a GUI that mimic the "graphic" of the old lady, i.e. a clock with a underline bar to indicate the frequency.
Of course the D-1001 was only AM, so something will be different, not sure yet how to proceed with the GUI design.

Different activities will follow, here some of them (not necessarily in the chronological order) :

• select the correct hardware for the project
• set up a development  environment for the MCU/system selected (very probably I'll go with a Raspberry Pi in Python)
• start to design a basic GUI based on the Old Lady design
• start to build a received based on the Si43xx (I do have the 72 and 75 available)
• possible to use an ESP86 or WROOM since I have them around
• integrate the receiver control in the Raspberry
• Adapt the electronic to the Old Lady
• 3D print adapters/supports