Network tube radio receiver "SVD".
Tube radios.DomesticSince April 1936, the vacuum tube radio receiver "SVD" has been produced in experimental series at the Leningrad plant named after Kozitsky, and a little later at the plant No. 3 NKS in the city of Aleksandrov. In 1935, the slogan `` Catch up and overtake '' appeared at the state level in the USSR, in everything and everyone. This also applied to the production of receivers, which in those years were much inferior in quality to even the simplest Western models. The development of new models of radio receivers with HF bands was entrusted to the Leningrad Institute IRPA. After some deliberation, it was decided to purchase some of the best American receivers at that time. The choice fell on the RCA Victor receivers, the RCA-140 model of 1933 and the RCA-T-10-1 model of 1935, especially since both models were freely sold for import in the USSR. At the same time, contracts were concluded for the supply of various American radio tubes to the union. The radio receivers were purchased and transferred to the Leningrad plant of Kozitsky, where some of them were photographed and documented dismantled to the ground, while others remained unchanged for comparison. All assemblies, parts and elements were carefully copied and put into production. By the beginning of 1936, the plant already had a sufficient reserve of components for the production of the first domestic high-end radio receiver with HF bands. The first SVD radios (Network, Vsevolnovy, with a speaker) repeated their American counterparts in appearance, had a plywood back cover, an original scale and pens, but with inscriptions in Russian. In terms of the quality of work and technical parameters, the receivers were still somewhat inferior to the American ones, left for comparison. The reason for this was the low quality of domestic materials used in radio components and radio receiver assemblies. The assembly of the receivers was small-scale, manual, and to speed up their production, the documentation was transferred to the Aleksandrovsky plant No. 3 of the People's Commissariat of Communications, and at the Kozitsky plant, the production of SVD radio receivers was gradually discontinued. In the city of Aleksandrov, the production of SVD radios began in early June 1936, but no more than a month passed before a scandal broke out with the Americans over copyright infringement. The production of receivers had to be temporarily suspended, and the 5th Main Directorate of the NKOP at IRPA, in Leningrad, was forced to conclude an agreement with RCA on the official purchase of a license, as well as on the development of radio receivers by the company specifically for the USSR. A delegation of the best specialists in the field of radio engineering, led by engineer E.A. Levitin, was sent to the United States to control the process of developing the receiver, procurement, training and informing the management at the IRPA. In the reporting documents sent to the IRPA, the licensed radio developed by the Americans was referred to as a "9-lamp", and in the IRPA it was called "SVD-1", with this name it went into serial production at the plant No. 3 of the NKS of the city of Alexandrov with autumn 1936.