It’s been a while since my last post as I’ve been fixing up various bits and bobs for friends as well as looking at Bluetooth conversions for gutted radio cabinets.

So here we are, back to the radio. This one came of Facebook, it looked interesting as it has push button pre-set tuning, which could come in handy. We don’t have many channels left on MW now, but there are easily at least 3 that I listen to regularly, so this feature would really come in handy!

I didn’t take any before pictures I’m afraid, and just started stripping it down. The cabinet needed re-finishing and the Bakelite front trim panel slightly broken.

  • Started stripping immediately
  • The button panel label strip

Internally, some one had already gotten at this set, at least twice. I found unsecured aluminium can electrolytic capacitors rattling around inside. These were crudely attached to the existing defunct caps and must have caused a short as I found the mains transformer’s HT winding to by burnt open circuit.

This vintage of radio uses an energised speaker coil, instead of a permanent magnet. This coil able doubles as a power supply filter, so high voltage goes through it, rewiring was necessary.

4 wires, 2 for the HT smoothing and field coil, 2 for the voice coil

So, while I wait for a replacement 1939 mains transformer to appear on the ethersphere I worked on retro-fitting new capacitors to the power supply and replacing all the other ageing caps that I found.

  • Before
  • After
Before and after pics. Transformer missing from the latest pic

So… after a very nice man on a vintage radio forum donated the correct PSU transformer, I was able to complete this project. I was very pleased to find that all the valves were good.

The radio in all it’s glory!