Category Archives: Pre war

The HMV 444 was a tall floor standing unit, with Art Deco styling from around 1934. It contained a chassis made by EMI and was in my opinion quite over engineered, perhaps that was a way to express quality at the time. I always wanted an early pre-war, I new this one was going to take a lot of effort, but I had time, it was going to be one of those labour of love things, so here goes……….. This unit came to me in really poor condition, with the […]

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 […]

This device was purchased by a friend and passed to be for a quick safely check. I don’t really know if these devices provide any benefit to the user, but their workings are quite interesting. The general idea of the device is to generate a high voltage at a high frequency at very low current to cause stimulation of nerve endings. Note that the frequency is so high that muscles do not react. The current limiting device is a glass tube filled with a gas that will glow violet when […]

This is a lovely old set with LW MW and a SW band. It’s a restoration for a family friend. Initial investigation shows that the chassis are quite well laid out. There a PSU with audio amplifer on one chassis and the radio section in the upper chassis. Work on the PSU showed lots of perished wiring, with is common for this age. The transformer looks sound and will be tested on mains shortly. 2/6 Just finished re-wiring the power supply and connections to the speaker, as the harness totally […]

This is an old cabinet speaker dating from the 1920s. I was unable to find any details about it on the internet, other than a similar looking Model 140, dated 1929. It took a while to get the cabinet open as storage and time had rusted some of the screws. Stress on the front and back panels also caused the plywood to delaminate! On investigating, there was an internal transformer (high impedance to low) and a smaller than standard vintage speaker driver that had been fitted. The transformer had been […]

Whilst looking around for a 1920s style radio, I found this old thing on eBay. It looked nothing like a commercial set, using rigid interconnecting wires and screw terminals between internal components. I was captivated by the simplicity of it. As is was missing a critical component, the tuning capacitor, it wasn’t very expensive so I bought it immediately. It sat on my shelf for nearly a year before I had the time to concentrate on it. Recently, with a virus caused lock-down in place, I took it down from […]

This little 1938 radio came to me in a small collection that were left in a basement for many years, then a loft space. Those conditions had quite a negative effect on the metalwork of the chassis but happily not insurmountable and the cabinet was in quite good condition to begin with. The 808 is known as a ‘transportable’ as it was easily moved using it’s carry handle, but more impressively included a built in aerial. It’s construction is quite unusual, in that the chassis is a mixture of hardwood […]

Here’s a quick post about the other day, fiddling with my 1930 homebuild radio.A couple of things happened:- 1 I was able to get it to work much better after modifying it’s circuit a little bit with a different grid leak resistor arrangement.2 After returning from a nice walk with the better half, I’d discovered that the radio barely worked at all with virtually no volume. I was quite miffed at 2, and spent much of the remaining day debugging it. It all turned out to be caused by corroded […]

This week I received an old Art Deco extension speaker, I don’t have a make or a model for it, so can’t date it, but guessing from the moving iron driver design below, and the paper cone that was attached to it, I’m guessing 1920s. It was unfortunately open circuit (faulty) so wasn’t going to be any more than a desk ornament unless I took a look inside. So that’s what I did. I was lucky, it contained two electromagnets in series and with a quick test I was able […]

This all started a couple of years ago while searching on eBay for an old 1970s pocket transistor radio, the kind I’d taken apart many times as a kid. I happened upon a 1930s valve radio and was intrigued. It was a battery set, had three valves, no speaker, no make or model and loads of woodworm damage. I already knew the basics of valve electronics but never studied it formally as it was long since obsolete by the time I was old enough to read. Now was the time […]