Whilst on holiday in the Isle of Wight, I happened upon this little radio in a vintage shop, I found it very interesting so I after checking market prices of it on eBay, I made an offer.
Interestingly, the shop keeper wouldn’t budge on price, so I took it anyway, and as I also found another identical radio on eBay, I bought and collected that one on the way home too!
I’ve always found pre-transistor portables very interesting as they use really efficient little valves that run a 1.5v heater, easy for powering from a AA or C type cell. The only other battery they need is a 90v one, which is little more tricky to come by.
Both these radios had issues, the shop bought one needed new capacitors and re-wiring of the frame aerial.
The eBay one while looking slightly newer, had a burnt out audio transformer which I found was caused by a bad audio coupling capacitor. This forced the audio output valve to pass constant DC through the transformer. Fortunately, I had a small 100v PA transformer laying about with I used to repair this set. Once all the capacitors had been replaced, everything begin to work again.
Case restoration comprised cleaning and new leather paint, cleaning up the chrome and cutting some new leather handles.
As these are jewel case radios, they have a flip open lid that automatically turns the power on when open and also hides a frame aerial.
I’m not quite finished with these radios, as like all my radios, they must be usable and 90 volt batteries aren’t made any more. I’ve been developing a 9v to 90v DC-DC converter to allow this radio to work from a single AA and 9v cell.
Hey beautiful pye p114bq i have that exact model aswell as a bush ac34 plus a murphy and a unidentified 4valve radio that needs alot of work