Mohawk A-5, Model 1925

Leafing through antique radio guidebooks, I’m always astonished by the large number of radio manufacturers -- many you’ve never heard of and most long gone. The real amazement is that you still run across radio manufacturers and models that are unlisted in any guidebook. This is particularly true of the 1920s TRF-era—there really wasn’t anything very complicated about designing and manufacturing a typical 5-tube battery-powered set. Many small manufacturers outsourced their components and just acted as assemblers of the final product.

The Mohawk Company of Chicago was a more significant manufacturer than many, yet I haven’t found this particular 5-tube, slant-front model listed in my guidebooks. This set is virtually all original, except the cabinet has been refinished. There is a trace on the cabinet, above the front panel, that suggests a missing decal, possibly eliminated by the prior owner who refinished the cabinet. It plays exceptionally well.

Mohawk’s distinctive Indian logo is engraved both on the front bakelite panel and on the 3-section, ganged tuning capacitor, indicating that Mohawk self-manufactured this and perhaps other components.

The large tuning knob has a smaller, concentric vernier knob. The smooth-turning vernier greatly helps with fine tuning. The two upper knobs are for filament voltage rheostats. The lower right knob is ON-OFF. Like most TRFs, the tuning knob is arbitrarily scaled from 0 to 100, with no logical correspondence to the tuned frequency or wavelength. When tuning, it’s necessary to remember that your favorite station is located at, say, 76 on the dial.

Notice the two, black bakelite-clad interstage audio transformers visible on the top of the chassis. These attractively styled transformers were manufactured by Stromberg-Carlson and have S-C's name on them.

© 2005 Doug Criner