This page has several battery operated sets


4-valve Philco Model awaiting restoration

To see more of this set click the picture

 The set uses American UX-based valves... I think it's a model "255". In the early 30's there was considerable opposition by British setmakers to foreign sets being sold in the UK and they used all sorts of ploys to make things difficult including banning sales of the American valves the sets needed as spare parts. Interestingly the example above in its valve line up has a British type sitting on top of an adaptor converting its base pins to fit the UX holder. Although the American manufacturer had added a Long Waveband, which wasn't used in the USA, he presumably hadn't checked on the British custom of dial marking. All the usual stations are marked on the dial but the user would have been confused as the dial shows "Kilocycles" rather than the customary "Metres". Bournemouth shown as "1500" and Droitwich as "200" must have caused some confusion.

Valve line up (of the original set) is: 1C6 Pentagrid frequency changer, 1A4E Pentode, 2102 Double diode Triode and a 2103 Push pull output stage


A Philco portable set from the 1940s

click the picture to see more

 


Hacker Sovereign II

 Sad looking example which cost £1 at a car boot sale and in need of a miracle. It looks better in the photo than in real life! Restoration has started and after a wash and brush up is now looking rather good.

Hacker Autocrat Mk2, RP73

 This tidy little set was kindly donated by Paul Addison from Chichester when he visited my workshop to collect his Roberts 600 after a transistor transplant.

It tunes medium and long waves and I understand, like the rejuvenated Roberts, belonged to his grandfather

This model, the MKII from 1973, superseded the original Autocrat made in 1968.

Hacker Harrier, RP71

 A nice little portable, like the Autocrat MKII, from 1973. VHF only and that a mere 88-100MHz

It cost me £3 and it's in new condition.

 Perdio "Town & Country" Model PR32

This portable must be one of the least Vintage of my collection, dating from 1963

 

The set has a handsome appearance and a decent sized loudspeaker and quite solidly made from plastic

 

 Oddly, the set uses two separate circuit boards and uses Mullard AF117 transistors which were excellent germanium transistors having a good RF performance, but sadly after 20 years these started to degrade. Initially the symptom was excessive battery current then, if the owner kept fitting new batteries the set would fail completely. Most Roberts radios from the 1960s fared much the same.

Note the over-complicated wavechange switch, top centre.

Click the picture below to see more details and its circuit diagram.

 


 Bang and Olufsen, Beolit 1000

 

According to the label, still attached, I bought this from the local Red Cross charity shop for £1.50. At first (and second) glance I'll need a circuit diagram and some mechanical data to sort it out because the last owner tried unsuccessfully to get it working when it went wrong. I always knew B & O equipment was difficult to repair, probably that's why, with TV sets, they usually supplied the circuit diagram wedged in between the tube and the case. The underside has the markings TR1000 T1401.

Bang & Olufsen, were founded in 1925 by two young Danish engineers, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen and all their products that have passed through my hands were a bit special and downright expensive. Their mechanical design was usually badly thought out (my opinion) although the actual performance was usually first class... somewhat reminiscent of Roberts radios whose construction was absolutely awful although they worked really well.

 
 Above... what the set should look like. Besides the layer of corrosion on my example there lurks a really nasty problem.. the tuning knob for the AM bands is missing, together with the internal pulleys and whatever was required to tune the condenser top left in the picture below. The last "repairer" has substituted for the complicated drive cord arrangement, a tube wedged onto the condenser drive spindle. The tube passes through the cover where it may once have carried a knob. I suppose this allowed the set to be tuned, but without its original fine tuning speed. Bearing in mind the extremely high value of this receiver the last owner was a little remiss in his actions... putting it mildly!

 

 Below you can see the main circuit board. Bottom left is the audio output transformer.

 

 

 Here are some technical details of the Beolit 1000 extracted from the User Manual.

The set uses a variety of transistor types viz. AD162, BC149B, BC154, BF166, BF194, BF195 and maybe some MPS6518 or 2N4058 in place of type BC154. The diodes used are type AA119 or OA90 and type BA138 varactor diodes..

 Stella ST404T

 

  Newer than my usual purchases, this Stella "All Transistor" ST404T dates from August 1960. It looks as if it just came out of its box for the first time and worked perfectly when three "AA" batteries were fitted.

 

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