Always thought adding blue tooth to these old radios was blasphemy. But rethinking that as good AM stations are hard to find sometimes, and you never know where an old radio may end up. If any are ever sold, blue tooth capability may be a selling point. As long as the original radio remains intact and the blue tooth is reversible, why not. You can always use an AM transmitter such as the “Talking House” version, but not everyone would want to out and buy one when they just want to play music from their phone or whatever thru that cool looking antique radio.

Since the last part of a radio is nothing but an amplifier, we just need to be able to switch between the audio from the radio and the blue tooth signal. We just need a blue tooth receiver, some shielded cable, 3mm jack and a switch. Found everything on Amazon for almost nothing, even a little project box to house the blue tooth receiver. Probably many ways to do this, but this is the way we did it.

The test radio did not have a polarized plug so one was installed with the hot side going to the power switch as wanted to ensure that the chassis was never the hot side while the blue tooth receiver was plugged and consequently fried.

One side of the switch is our original connection to the volume pot, the other goes to the 3mm jack for the blue tooth receiver. When you want blue tooth, plug the receiver into the jack, pair it to your phone and viola, you can stream Bing Crosby from Sirius XM to your old radio and it Bing will sound just like Grandma remembered it.

The blue tooth receiver was housed in a little plastic project box so its encased. you can sit it in the radio next to the chassis and no one will know its there. Again, many ways to add blue tooth but this is what we did. And if you aren’t sure what you are doing, don’t, there are lethal voltages in these old radios.