Just bought this radio last sarurday, I gave the guy £30, was this a good buy or not??
@michael-dranfield Looks a fair price, cabinet looks in excellent condition , what matters is are you happy with it, nothing else really matters. 👍
Looks good to me!
I think this is possibly the cct for the radio, 3-valve plus rect.
ECH3, EF9, EBL1 & AZ1
@crustytv many thanks for that, I had a quick look inside and it's in really good condition apart from the dial cord has snapped and every cap will need replacing, the only big downside I assume the on off switch must be faulty as someone has drilled a hole in the front and there's a pull switch fitted, where I am though I only get two stations, one on mw and another on lw, going to look into an am transmitter soon.
Radio's were delightfully standard in those days. One superhet was basically the same as any other....at least the basic circuit was. Looking at that circuit it's pretty much the same as any other up to around the early fifties.
Radio's were delightfully standard in those days. One superhet was basically the same as any other....at least the basic circuit was. Looking at that circuit it's pretty much the same as any other up to around the early fifties.
Indeed - I remember having a not-dissimilar discussion with the late Pat Leggatt at a Harpenden meeting some thirty years ago. Once radios got to having a triode-hexode as a frequency changer they were pretty much all the same until FM came along.
, the only big downside I assume the on off switch must be faulty as someone has drilled a hole in the front and there's a pull switch fitted,
[/quote.
I used to view such modifications with some distain, but to be honest maybe it should just be seen as a repair that helped keep the set going when a 'proper' repair would have probably rendered the set BER, so in a way preserved it? All part of it's history.
I once repaired a circular EKCO which had a replacement mains Transformer, speaker transformer, speaker and had some other mods to enable a replacement valve to be fitted. At first I judged it as 'well got at' but in retrospect it had been kept going with parts that were available, probably during the war, when parts and engineers were in short supply... Despite the alternative parts once repaired it worked well.
I have one of these, one of the problems is the valve becomes lose in it's base and the metalic screen earth becomes intermittent causing the set to take off into hoots and howls. the cure for this is to wrap the red valves in tin foil and wrap some tin copper wire round the base in the groove between the glass and the base. this then restores the screening.
to improve reception I have made a tunable frame aerial. there is not much on medium wave smooth, five live and a couple of gosple channels.the frame aerial really brings in the stations.
am is getting less each year and Radio 4 will probably be next as there are no valves left in the world for the transmitter. kr Pete m
In Sydney we still have all the AM stations running that were around 70 years ago, plus a few more. I think the reason is that they all upgraded to Nautel mosfet transmitters in the 70s and 80s. Those things just keep running as long as you feed them power and some content. About 95% of the power you feed them gets radiated so running costs are not high. Most of them are in the swamp around Homebush Bay. No neatly manicured gardens around them any more!
Many regional stations have disappeared from the band though.
Mind you, there's not much worth listening to....
@ultrascan yes, I have had that stability problem a few years ago in a different radio when the conductive paint fell off a valve.
One of my vintage sets ( a Ferguson 461 I think) has been running with the EF39 wrapped in tinfoil for many years. I keep thinking about spraying the valve in metallic paint and spraying it red and then recreating the Mullard markings.....but I really can't be bothered. I have several EF39's that I can use as subs and then keep the 'tinfoil' one as a checking spare.
