It was auction day on Friday and I bid on, and got, a lot of three radios: a Cossor Melody Maker 501AC, a Pye 1113 (transistor) 
and a Philips which I've only just managed to identify as a B3G63A.
We collected them this morning and as soon as we got home my antique dealing chum wanted to see if one would work. The Philips had a plug on with a PAT test sticker from 1999 so that seemed like a relatively safe one to try.
There was no dial light and I was just thinking there must be something amiss when it started to play. VHF seemed dead but I've since found it hasn't any form of internal aerial for that and there also seems something amiss with the related string engineering.
I've had a quick look at the innards and the first thing I saw was a modern Goodmans 8Ω speaker. It's one of the foam-edged types and the foam is shot so that will require attention.
Next to try was the Pye. This produced a loud hum which was even worse than my P224.
I suspected the smoother so took the back off and conected it up to my bench supply. For all that this can't get up to the required voltage the hum was just as bad and a couple of resistors quickly became smoking-hot. That one has gone on the Long Term pile as I know even less about transistors, especially germanium rump-about-face PNP ones.
I finally tried the Cossor. At first there was nothing beyond a crackle from the wave switch. When I took the back off one of the plugs fell off the frame aerial and after refitting that that one two worked.
Both this and the Philips need routine servicing and the Cossor has a few cosmetic problems: the flimsy bevel 'round the speaker and tuning glass is distorted but should glue into place OK, the volume knob is missing and the speaker cloth ripped. Still, it could be far worse and sorting these out is all part of the fun.
As well as these a few of my friend's purchases will need my attention so it should be an enjoyable few days.
- Joe
and a Philips which I've only just managed to identify as a B3G63A.We collected them this morning and as soon as we got home my antique dealing chum wanted to see if one would work. The Philips had a plug on with a PAT test sticker from 1999 so that seemed like a relatively safe one to try.
There was no dial light and I was just thinking there must be something amiss when it started to play. VHF seemed dead but I've since found it hasn't any form of internal aerial for that and there also seems something amiss with the related string engineering.
I've had a quick look at the innards and the first thing I saw was a modern Goodmans 8Ω speaker. It's one of the foam-edged types and the foam is shot so that will require attention.
Next to try was the Pye. This produced a loud hum which was even worse than my P224.
I suspected the smoother so took the back off and conected it up to my bench supply. For all that this can't get up to the required voltage the hum was just as bad and a couple of resistors quickly became smoking-hot. That one has gone on the Long Term pile as I know even less about transistors, especially germanium rump-about-face PNP ones.
I finally tried the Cossor. At first there was nothing beyond a crackle from the wave switch. When I took the back off one of the plugs fell off the frame aerial and after refitting that that one two worked.
Both this and the Philips need routine servicing and the Cossor has a few cosmetic problems: the flimsy bevel 'round the speaker and tuning glass is distorted but should glue into place OK, the volume knob is missing and the speaker cloth ripped. Still, it could be far worse and sorting these out is all part of the fun.
As well as these a few of my friend's purchases will need my attention so it should be an enjoyable few days.
- Joe
