Well here’s a nice little set, as the title suggests I bought it back with me from my holiday to Anderby Creek! We finally went back there after 5 years, and of course I went round all the local antique and junk shops to see what they had. There was a great selection of radio’s, I first went to the little town of Alford, a few miles in from the coast, where I found an antiques shop which had some very optimistically priced sets, a nice Ultra T491 for £120, and a tatty red Ekco transistor set for £48(ouch!). There was a nice Perdio table set upstairs, which I managed to get for £17.50! That’s another story though! I took a trip out to Sutton on sea, Just up the road from Anderby Creek, There’s a fantastic shop on a corner which is full of stuff from house clearances, It is on 2 floors, and also extends into a large shed out the back. There were several sets which took my fancy, a Sharp TV/radio/cassette thing, An Ekco battery mains valve portable, and the Bush BP10. I was already on limited space in the car (mainly due to my camera equipment!) So I limited myself to 1 more set, it was a toss up between the Bush and Ekco, and I chose the bush, mainly because it still had the badges, and the Ekco had rust coming from the grub screws in the knobs, not a good sign! So the Bush was mine for £32.
Click to see full size image
Click to see full size image
I had already checked it over in the shop, all valves present, battery plugs looked ok, and no rust! The cabinet, although dirty, was in good undamaged condition. The controls also turned freely, but the tuning dial didn’t seem to fit in its hole, a gap of about 3 or 4mm down either side.
When we returned home to Daventry, I took the set to the garage for a test. I powered it from 2 bench PSU’s, one set to 1.5v for the valves, and the other set at 60v for the HT (it doesn’t go any higher than 60v...) The set originally would have run from 2 45v batteries in series. To turn on the radio, you open the flap over the tuning scale, and controls. All I got was very feint crackles, no stations on LW or MW. Got the circuit up on the PC and identified the coupling cap, C18 on the trader sheet. A quick test showed it was leaky, so I dug a replacement from my box, and tacked it in after snipping the original, turned it back on, and tuned around, as if by magic, radio 5 live came in quietly! The set was on its front at this point. I then looked at the circuit again, C16 looked like it might cause trouble, and sure enough, it was leaking, in went a replacement, power back on, still the same. I then thought, what happens if I stand it up?! The signal suddenly becomes much louder and clearer! It was quiet because it was lying down! The set has an internal frame aerial, stand the set upright, and rotate for best reception (why didn’t I try that first?!) I then decided that because the chassis was in such good condition, and the old waxies were also in good physical shape, I left the rest alone. Why change them if you don’t need to?! I then took the whole set apart for a good clean and polish. I used t-cut on the brown Bakelite, and the cream front was washed in the sink. The scale was removed and the front polished with Brasso and the rear just a duster. The knobs were cleaned in situ as removing them looked like you have to dismantle half the chassis! Foam cleaner sorted them and the control cover. All the original rubber wiring was left alone, as it’s in very good condition, still showing its correct colours. The set was re-assembled and tested for a short while, I can safely say it sounds really good for a battery set, plenty of volume, with enough bass to sound as good as a similar sized mains set. It uses the same type of backward speaker as the DAC10. Something must have shrunk though, as the scale doesn’t fit properly, and there appears to be no adjustment. I now intend to make a power unit for this set, I have used a design borrowed from someone else using a mains transformer backwards with 2 transistors driving it from 6v for the HT, and 2 rechargeable 1.2v c cells for the LT, with a LT current sensing arrangement to turn on and off the HT circuit. This works very well, but is quite big and heavy (especially with a 4ah SLA for the HT!) and there’s the chance the transistor current sensor could go short and dump 6v up the LT line, but so far its worked fine in another of my sets.
I do hope this wasn’t too long and boring for a first post to this forum! I hopefully have attached some pictures too!
Click to see full size image
Click to see full size image
Click to see full size image
Click to see full size image
Regards,
Lloyd.
Hi Lloyd,
Far from boring, a delightful tale and a wonderful write up. I've seen these sets a few times in shops but never at a reasonable price, you did well there.
Its quite unusual to have the on/off as the flap, it looks superb and the chassis is sparkling a great job done there, thanks for posting the restore.
Makes a change for Lloyd to be doing a radio, have you run out of TV's surely not
Chris
p.s.
is that the view from your workshop over the ocean? very relaxing
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Nooo!! plenty of Tv's!! just not enough space to work on them! I'm still trying to tidy the workshop, There was just enough tidy space on top of the lathe in that corner to ballance a bench psu and a radio! I was reviving a Ferguson personal before the roof leaked all over it
I'll hopefully post about the Perdio soon too, but it'll probably only be 3 lines long, since there was pretty much nothing to do to it!
oh, I wish it was the view from my workshop! I have no windows in it though..
very nice
All you need to sense LT is a reed with series coil in LT line. It's about 82mV drop. A suitable bare reed switch is less than £1. I used 0.32mm wire, about 5.5 layers wound tight on a paper tube on screwdriver for 100mA switch on. Less layers if LT current is higher.
I have a nice cheap inverter, one cheap IC. But I'm making it nicer.
Hi
I have been reading your thread on this, and i'm going to give it a go! I bought a bag full of 10 reed switches for £2.99, so I'm going to experiment. I saw some of those nixie clock power supplies too, but thats extra expense, and takes the fun out of building my own
Regards,
Lloyd.
Hi Lloyd,
Interesting write-up! I went to Alford about 20 years ago as my wife's mother was brought up there. Is the 'Colonel's ' still there on the Market square? It was a large World War II emporium, uniforms, weapons, wireless equipment etc (everything for the re-enactor). Probably long gone.
I like your avatar pic., very homely! Now, where's the Ovaltine!
Keith
Hi Keith,
I hate to report that it wasn't there this year I remember the shop well, me and my Grandad used to go there years ago, it was a fantastic shop, I think it has been turned into a cafe.. I remember a good few years back (5 or 6 maybe) it had moved, but I couldn't remember where to. There was a shop on the main road which seemed to be selling similar things, so that may have been it (I hope it is!). Alford is a lovely place to visit! Actually, my Nan, who we went with, was bought up at Chapel st Leonards during the war. She lived at the Vine hotel, My great Grandad was looking after it after he was invalided out of the navy.
The avatar pic was originally taken for someone who wanted a photo of a 1950's tv for their website, they didn't use it!
Back to the Bush, I'll hopefully have my reed switches to play with tomorrow
Regards,
Lloyd.
Probably telling Gran how to suck eggs...
To bend lead ...
Hold about 2mm away from glass with fine pointed pliers and then bend lead beyond that.
I know of nothing as breakable when working with leads. I have broken more reeds than any other component.
Hi Lloyd,
That's such a shame, thanks for letting me know. I thought at the time that Alford seemed a little off the beaten path for such a specialist shop, especially in the days before internet shopping!
Keith
Just when you all thought I'd finished the project and forgotten about it! 
I've finally half-built the power supply for this little radio, I've used a reed switch with a coil wound on it to sense the current drawn by the valve fillaments to turn on an inverter made out of a back to front mains - 12v transformer, driven by 2 transistors, and a handfull of caps and resistors for smoothing and interference filtering.
Tests were carried out today, and slight adjustments/mods to kill all the noise from the inverter also. the results are very good! The Bush has a frame aerial inside the case, and the batteries would have sat right in the middle of the aerial, and this is where the inverter will sit, so it has to be as noise free as possible! With the transformer plonked in the middle of the aerial and the radio tuned to a quiet spot, I could hear a faint hum, but only with the volume up full, when tuned in you don't hear it.
Now all thats left is to make a case for it that fits in the radio, and with the batteries too! I've got it running on a 6v sla, and a D cell, which gives me about 80v when the 6v is fully charged (if you use a 9v transformer, you get more output from it).
