More Pye Radios
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Pye
VHF2D Continental
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Sold for
something over £26 in 1958
A "PianoKey"
set which were very popular in those days but not so with service
engineers as a faulty piano key switch can render such a set
scrap. |
Pye
Model R33
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A modern
looking set from 1961 |
Pye
Cambridge
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This a Pye Cambridge
Model 1101 with Long, Medium, 2 Short and 5 Bandspead Shortwave
bands reflecting growing interest in what was going on in the
rest of the world.
It has 5 valves and was made
for "universal" mains in 1963.
The term "universal"
by then was a bit of a fraud and had long been so as DC mains
were pretty rare if not long gone by 20 years! But a universal
set had no mains transformer and as such could be manufactured
for a lot less money than its AC equivalent. The downside was
that they were not particularly safe; at least in theory. Nowadays
a set like this would be verboten as it would not pass stringent
modern safety regulations. Is this because people aren't as clever
as they used to be? Maybe so. |
Pye Model Q7
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A early transistor portable
from 1961, this example has been neatly converted to mains operation
with the addition of a small plug-in mains power supply visible
in the original battery compartment seen below. |
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On the inside of the rear cover is
the model number and battery information. |
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Pye Model AC4D from 1931
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Below, the valves and
power supply can be seen after detaching two of its three aluminium
covers. These are a pair of B5-based MS4 tetrodes with anode
top caps and a relatively rare catkin type MH4 (a fellow of which
was the cause of several cuts and bruises received when I was
repairing a neighbours radio back in the mid-1950s.. that valve
didn't have the perforated metal cover.. just the bare metal
tubular anode sitting at 250 volts and I'd grasped it firmly
to remove it with the radio turned on). On the right is the output
valve an ML4. |
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I puzzled over the picture
above trying to see how much rotation it needed to correct my
sloppy photography. I usually need to add or subtract up to a
couple of degrees to get a picture looking OK but in this case,
I discovered the problem was a distorted chassis.
You can see the bottom edge
doesn't line up with the cabinet and the whole thing is leaning
to the right, and here at the side the wavechange switch (below
right) isn't quite right. |
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A keen eye should spot
the early labelling on the wavechange bezel. Back around 1930
broadcasts were using two ranges of wavelegths termed long and
short. What we know today as short waves had been considered
pretty useless for broadcasting until amateur radio enthusiasts
and others realised short waves chiefly spanned thousands of
miles. Around 1933 gve or take a year or two the term "short
waves" was re-named "medium waves" and the newly
discovered (true) short waveband, suddenly became full of high
power long range transmissions occupying several new defined
bands.. 49m, 31m, etc etc.
At much the same time international
agreements firmed up the broadcast frequencies of stations, which
resulted in radios adopting brand new tuning dials labelled with
exotic sounding station names. In fact the design of radio sets
changed quite dramatically with the tuning dial now being the
key feature instead of being a bit anonymous
This old Pye was one of the
last domestic sets to use a plain dial. |
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Above is a view with the
upper aluminium cover detached showing the area assigned for
the tuning condenser (a three gang affair), coils for its two
wavebands. When I get round to overhauling this receiver the
first job will be to square it up because as you can see here
something isn't quite right... Could it have been sloppiness
by Captain Seddon or a later dabbler? |
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more to follow... |
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