This radio was gifted by a friend who buys from local auctions, it came in a misc box of other junk he wanted. This set was either me or the bin. I decided to see what I could do and to be honest I am pleased with how it has turned out. It made a nice break from the Wee wee Pye TV.
It has a band spread button for Luxembourg. I couple of features I found unusual were that it uses C cells instead of the usual 9V battery and that it isn't the usual Pye ? Ekco PCB 'chassis' it uses two Mullard modules.
There was no reception when tried this was due to one Transistor having shorts from the screen to Collector I found a good second hand one in my stash. A 10uf capacitor in the same module read almost double so I replaced that. Apart from the switches and volume control needing a clean that was all it needed to get it working. The soldering is quite poor the heat has shrivelled some of the insulation. It looks original I don't think the set had been worked on it looks as if Ekco put them together with poker heated on a gas ring!
The case however was a bit more of a challenge ! I had to replace the 'Rexine' covering as it would not clean the brown gunk had soaked all the way through. The speaker grille cleaned up reasonably well. I couldn't remove it as it is bonded to a sort of hardboard - cardboard backing. I repainted the badge the buttons and the handle. Polished up the Brass and cleaned the tuning knob being careful not to get it wet as the Perspex can 'fog'. the plastic front and back took a lot of cleaning this set has been in a really smoky environment!
The corrosion in the battery compartment cleaned up and the rust was treated with an inhibitor and dusted in with silver paint. The springs are still a little tarnished and look slightly rusty but make contact with the batteries so they will do.
Congratulations if you have got this far without falling asleep!
Rich.
Final pictures of the finished set.
My great-aunt Rose had one of these: it's in the garage (somewhere) along with the small Bakelite valve Ekco that sat on a shelf in the corner of the sitting room.
It goes well with the other Ekco "208" in my collection, Strange that they called this model the 208 and yet the "vanity" just had the button labelled LMB which I didn't realise at first was short for Luxembourg. Why they didn't label it LUX like on the other set which would have been more obvious...
@slidertogrid That’s looks really good, like new, the cabinet styling stayed the same for a good few years, just the internals changed with the technologies. 👍
Frank
@nuvistor Thanks! To be honest my first thought was to save the Transistors from the amp and the tuning knob and bin the rest. I'm glad now that I decided to save it. It didn't really take too long and it sprang into life once the tin whisker Transistor had been changed. Some set just want to live! 😎
It’s come up nicely that has! You always see loads of the PT-378’s about, but not many of these. I have some of the 378’s, and one of the 208’s. One of the red 378’s was rough, I nearly recovered that one, but just settled for using white shoe polish on the white bit! Came up ok, but not great!
@lloyd I wasn't going to recover this one but the covering wouldn't clean. I had to soak the case and back overnight to clean the plastic.
The covering then went a bit slimy and oozed brown gunk. I had an offcut of Rexine so I recovered it. The set was much more filthy than it looks in the pictures. Luckily due to the tight fitting back the inside stayed fairly clean.
I think most of the layer of thick crud was probably nicotine, the strange thing is that it didn't smell of tobacco.
