Mr. Merriam bought his new radio on April 3, 1946. We know this because preserved inside the radio chassis is the original manual and sales receipt! This radio was purchased at Hatry & Young of 42 Cornhill, Boston, MA. The original purchase price was $167 which is $2,338 today accounting for inflation. The letter from RME acknowledging the registration of the radio is inside the radio and is shown below.
The RME-45 is an all band receiver since it can tune from 550 kHz to 33 MHz (33,000 kHz). That covers everything from the AM broadcast band to slightly beyond the amateur radio 10 meter band. Although this radio did not have a bandspread feature as did a later version, it did not really need it. This is because of the excellent tuning mechanism which has a 160:1 reduction ratio according to Dave Miller’s article in the May, 2008 edition of Electric Radio magazine.
Our 9-tube RME-45 is in need of restoration. The cabinet is in nice condition as is the original speaker. Most of the old capacitors and some resistors will have to be replaced before we can bring this one back to life. When it is completed it will take its place with other radios that make up the 1940’s amateur radio station in the P.J. Building. Mr. Merriam was very fond of the RME radios and he once remarked that “RME was a manufacturer that I rather liked when I was a young fellow. This row [referring to a display in our Wireless Building] is all RME…from here…down to here…Radio Manufacturers Engineers.” Eventually we will include those same RME radios in our online artifact collection.
Click on one of the images to see a larger view.
References and Resources:
RadioMuseum .org specification page
Refurbishing an RME-45 Communications Receiver by Gerry O’Hara
Sam’s Photfacts for the RME-45
Shortwave Receivers Past & Present, 2nd Ed., by Fred Osterman: p. 86
Electric Radio magazine, May, 2008, The RME Revisited: Fun and Frustration, by Dave Miller: p. 7