The man you want to talk to who is probably the most knowledgable concerning the Breting 14 is Larry Rosine, W0OG. He wrote the most definitive article to date on the Breting 14 in the Old Timer's Bulletin (now the AWA Journal) for the Antique Wireless Association in the early '90s if I recall correctly. I remember a few points from his article. He warned against trying to restore the Breting 14 to operational condition using the schematic in Riders; if you do it will never work correctly. Seems the receiver design was constantly being modified at the factory (chassis were produced at the Gilfillan factory in CA) on the fly and a faultly schematic was put in Riders to mislead their competition. There are a few control layout variations of the receiver. In the article he said he has reverse engineered a few of them, and when they're restored correctly the receivers are hot as a pistol! I believe the Breting 14AX is the same receiver with the addition of a crystal filter. One feature of the receiver that I've always thought was exceedingly cool is that, aside from the regular speaker output, there is also a 200 ohm output from the audio section enalbling you to use it as the audio amp for the modulator of your AM transmitter! I have a Breting 14 that I bought a few years back at the auction held during the AWA Conference in Rochester, NY, that Larry Rosine put on the block, and it is one of my most treasured communications receivers. It even came with the very rare rack mounting face plate along with the regular desktop cabinet. It requires one of the old field coil speakers, but I can't remember what impedence range the field coil is supposed to be (700 to 1200 ohms strikes a cord, but don't quote me on that!). They were sold with a speaker, but I've never seen what an original matching speaker for the Breting 14 looks like. There is a multiple generation copy of an original owners manual for the Breting 14 complete with schematic (correct?) floating around somewhere out there (BAMA?). About a year or so ago a collector friend of mine turned up the only original copy of that manual I've ever seen, and it's in virtually mint condition! I've been meaning to ask for a hi-res scan of it. Perhaps I need to ask him about it again. I do have a very nice full page and even a two page spread advertisement for the Breting 14 out of a couple of vintage electronics catalogs of the period. If you're interested I can email you hi-res scans of them, just let me know!
