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Vintage Radio Restoration - Multi Elmac PMR 6A

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The Multi Elmac Company was started in 1947 in Oak Park, Michigan. Amateurs know the company for their line of compact mobile transmitters and receivers, but they also made a line of garage door openers and citizens band transceivers.

The PMR-6A was a mate for the A54 transmitter. Later receivers, the PMR-7 and PMR-8, mated well with their AF-67 and AF-68 transmitters.

Like most of the PMR-6As still around, this one was pretty rough, as can be seen in the before photos. Particularly, the plastic dial bezel and the paper band scales were the worst. A lot of effort was spent on the bezel to straighten it out and polish it to remove as much surface scratching as possible. Not much one can do about the yellowing. The cabinets were sand blasted and powder coated in today's hammer tone. The finish is gorgeous and rock hard. Removing the main cabinet involves bending it away from the rear of the radio; never saw anything quite like it. Once the cabinet was off, the front was scanned and loaded into Photoshop Elements. Several hours were spent cleaning up the scale: removing the tears and redoing lines, numbers, etc. The result was excellent. In order to recreate the original panel, it was printed onto HP gloss photo paper. The knobs were all polished on my lathe and set screws oiled. The chassis was cleaned, tube shields polished and switches/pots had a drop of DeOxit Gold applied. The main cabinet and top/bottom covers are held together and onto the receiver chassis with 36 sheet metal screws! The result is a wonderfully robust and rigid receiver. I have never been a fan of sheet metal screws and they were badly tarnished. They were replaced with stainless 6-32 screws with the identical head. The 36 holes were then tapped to receive the 6-32 screws. The two electrolytics on the chassis bottom were replaced but that was the only electrical restoration done. I have heard from another PMR-6A that his receiver also required no electrical work. This was surprising as many, more modern rigs I have worked on required replacement of resistors and capacitors in order to meet spec. Resistors going totally open is commonplace.

The bands were realigned and that was the extent of electrical restoration. It is a very nice AM receiver and OK on 160-20M. Touchy on 15M and 10M SSB/CW, but adequate sensitivity. I could hear a -112dBm signal on 10M with the BFO turned on.