Some of the stuff the shed’s seen recently…..

The shed’s where most of the collection lives…….

Except for the stuff that I don’t have room for which has migrated into the summerhouse next door. At the moment there are about 50 radios altogether, about half of which are in working order, and the rest vary between the "I know what’s up with it but I haven’t got the bits/ time/ inclination at the moment" to "I’m sure there’s a radio in this box of crap somewhere if I could just find something I recognise!"

If you have a similar collection I’m sure you’ll know where I’m coming from, and if you haven’t, then now’s as good a time to start as any! Nothing wrong with it as a pastime, unfortunately her indoors has a slightly different view of them than I do. Something to the effect of "What’s that thing doing in the corner of the front room, it’s too big/old/ugly and it smells funny…." How can you not appreciate the smell of 20 year old dust burning off a dropper resistor that’s slowly cooking due to the HT current being a bit silly due to the leaky caps and stuff that I haven’t quite got round to changing yet? And it’s a big improvement on some other hobbies I could mention in terms of keeping it under control.

 At one stage I was the proud owner of 11 cars, 4 of which were more or less roadworthy, and 3 parking spaces. Not a recipe for harmony with the neighbours, that’s for sure. The classic car bug has receded into the background at the moment, there’s only so many late nights in the garage, welder burns and grinder rash a lad can take. Although if somebody waved a Rover P4 in need of a bit of TLC under my nose I might just get tempted again! And when you spend your days as a mechanic working on heavy plant it’s nice to be able to work on something you can just pick up and move sometimes!

And just out of insane curiosity, why is it when you buy a batch of old radios from e-bay or an auction, that the ones that sound best always seem to have cabinets that look like they’ve been through a mangle backwards and the nice shiny looking stuff has a full set of the wrong valves stuffed in it to make it look good? (the worst example was a Philips with 4 PCL82s and a PCF80 filling the gaps.) I don’t mind if there’s no valves in the bloody thing, at least that way I know what I’m getting! In the case of the Philips, that didn’t include a tuning cord or an uncooked mains transformer which looked like it had been resoldered with a poker and plumbers bar…

Still, we live and learn, and a good coat of 40 year old dust is usualy a good sign! The old HMV on the front page had the best collection of fossilised spiders I’ve ever seen and actually worked when I powered it up in a fit of optimism. Until the smoothing caps decided that they’d really rather be resistors. Nowt a bundle of fresh ‘uns didn’t fix!

Are there any easy ways to set up tuning cords on these old things apart from throwing a ball of string at the pulleys and hoping it sticks? After spending several happy hours restringing an old Murphy for the secretary at work i was highly impressed to find I’d managed to get the dial to work backwards, but only after I’d put the thing back together with ALL the screws! Strange thing is, she only ever listens to Radio 2 so she still hasn’t noticed 6 months later! Guess I’ll have to do it properly one day but I can save it for another day at the moment. An even better challenge was a Pye P76 that arrived without any dial cord at all, and a few pulleys stuffed into a paper bag in the back. To anybody who’s ever had the joy of one of these, I can safely say find a drawing of how it goes first! Definitely a good test of patience that was, and I even managed to get a drawing of how it went after I’d spent two nights fiddling and getting it to work properly. Best sounding MW radio I’ve got though, puts many an FM radio to shame even on weak stations.

There’s even the odd transistor radio in here as well though, although they are sadly outnumbered! There are a couple of Bush TR82s and one TR82L (i think) with the Luxembourg button as well. Unfortunately due to the mighty amount of rain we’ve been having I haven’t been down the shed for a day or two although it’s definitely still lurking at the bottom of the garden. It’s a lot pleasanter to work in there when you can hear yourself think over the rain on the bloody roof and the sound of the sparrows coughing in the hedge.

04/08/2007

By the Lord Harry, the weather seems to have become less damp of late, so after attacking the lawn with the trusty mower I wandered in and had a fettle at a little bakelite Ekco that’s been at the back of the queue since forever. On/off switch had died along with the volume pot so after a bit of digging in the drawers I stuck another one in there, stood the chassis on the bench and plugged it in in a fit of optimism because the sun was shining. The resulting bang wasn’t what I expected. The mains filter capacitor had decided to call it a day, so I stuck another in, reset the trip on the socket (2A max, I like me fingers the shape they are!) and tried again. Not a good radio, but I could’ve warmed me hands on the output valve. Usual capacitors there then, decided that they should’ve been resistors.   A bit more soldering later and the little thing was playing a merry tune again for the first time in years. Not the best looking thing in the world but nice to see it working again anyway!

13/08/07

Too many things to do and no time to do them in seems to be a common problem today, and I’m definitely suffering from it at the moment. Decided to listen to the old HMV 481 that’s on the front page to be greeted by silence and a glowing rectifier. Bugger! Dragged the chassis out to find that the HT smoothing electrolytics had given up the ghost. Should have changed them in the first place, but you know the old ‘if it ain’t broke….’ Doesn’t work too well with these old things, because it may not be broke now but a few more shots of electrickery and what bit of capacitance they ever had’s buggered off and turned to resistance and a funny smell. Decided to change all the other electrolytics while I was in there as they all look original except one, and that’s dated 1951 so it’s not that recent a repair! Trouble is, they’re all 8uf and I’ve run out till I get to our friendly neighbourhood shop. Got more 16s, 32s, 47s and stuff like that than you can shake a stick at, but 8s? Nope! So a slight delay till weekend then. Ended up listening to old Blaster Bates records through the Stella on top of the TV and laughing my head off. A bit dated now but still bloody funny all the same. If you’ve never heard him, find a bit somewhere on t’internet and have a listen.

15/08/07

Ended up on something a bit more modern tonight, the remote for the satellite receiver had packed in so I pulled it to bits and soldered up all the dodgy battery connections and anything else that looked a bit off. At least it works now, although why they had to glue it together so that the only way into it was to bust the case i ‘ll never know. Still, superglue’s a grand thing……..

20/08/07

And back to the old HMV. Managed to acquire all the bits I thought I’d be needing, and had a marathon soldering session. Mucho cursing later at the way they’d packed stuff in around and under everything else, and it’s moment of truth time. And sadly the truth is it still don’t work! I think the poor old rectifier couldn’t stand the strain because all I’m getting is about 90v HT but the current’s not excessive so it looks like the old thing doesn’t want to do any more rectifying! Since all the writing’s long gone off the old valve I guess I’ll have to look the model number up on t’internet and see if I can find out what valve it is I’m looking for. Asking somebody for a "british five-pin rectifier valve made of glass with no numbers on it" might not be too helpful! Unless anybody out there can tell me and save me the bother?

23/08/07

Filed the HMV under "things to do another day" and spent a happy two hours dismantling and resoldering the glowplug relay off the wife’s peugeot 205. Not radio related, you might say, but there were more ICs and resistors and things in there than you could shake a stick at! Along with a fair few dry joints as well! Why they needed to make the box so complicated in the first place I don’t know, Ford manage it with a bimetally thing in the relay itself but not the bloody French. £65 for a relay? Bloody car’s not worth that…… Anyway, flushed with success after putting the thing back in and it working, decided to have a go at the old Murphy A272 that’s been propping up the side of the shed for a while now. The cabinet’s seen better days unfortunately and I think a bit of wood glue’s in order in the near future before it turns itself into a kit. Then again, I did fish it out of a skip along with the Pye P75 that’s my works radio! Still, nothing ventured as they say… Plugged it in via a 100W bulb, and it completely failed to explode or do anything stupid. Stage two arrived, and I just plugged it in and stood well back. No need, actually, the old thing started playing away to itself on Radio 2 quite happily, if a bit short of volume. Ten minutes and a couple of replacement caps later and I was amazed how good the old thing sounds. Tone control’s a bit lacking in effect but maybe the holes in the speaker due to its spell in the skip don’t help. Sounds really warm, if you know what I mean though, similar to the Pye P76. Anyway, a bit of TLC for the cabinet and I think it’ll be a success!    I’ll try and get a before and after pic up if I can a bit later.

04/09/07

Seems a while since I got the chance to update the old place. Had another go at the HMV,found another leaky electrolytic hiding ( in very plain sight inside a cardboard box under the chassis) replaced it along with one of those fuseholdery resistor jobbies that’d lost the will to live and the old thing’s up and singing again. And there was me blaming the poor old rectifier. I have apologised to it and polished it nicely for being a good ‘un! It’s surprising how many things there are to do apart from hobbies like decorating, gardening, shopping etc, none of which I’m a great fan of, but all of which I have to take part in. Plus at the moment I’m trying to resurrect my radio controlled plane which I acquired three or four years ago and haven’t actually managed to fly for more than 30 seconds without breaking it. Let you know how it goes in the next exciting instalment….

10/09/07

The model plane’s not come under starters orders yet, but I have been fettling an old Elizabethan tape recorder for one of the neighbours. Brought in as "It were my dad’s and I’ve got loads of tapes but it won’t work and can you have a look at it you’re into these old things etc etc…" Plugged it in, switched on and waited, and waited…… Tried pressing the keys for the mechanism,and was rewarded by a few humming and squeaking noises but not much else. Then as if by a miracle, the EM84 started to glow faintly and the speaker crackled a bit. Not completely dead then!                   So I thought I’d have a look inside and after removing umpteen screws and dislodging a herd of spiders (herd? what is the collective for spiders? buggered if i know!) I ended up looking at a three motor deck! Very posh, a bit like a Ferrograph (only a bit though, let’s not get giddy).                After a liberal application of WD40 to the motors and a bit of freeing off the deck was actually working. And after a bit of pin cleaning for the valves and switch cleaner for the controls the old thing sounded pretty good on its own speaker. No silly grid voltages on the output valve so in a spirit of "if it ain’t broke…" I stuck it all back together. First tape I pulled out the box turned out to be  Frank Ifield’s Greatest Hits - not a long tape then! Sounded very 60s though! Sent it back playing away, and he brought it back half an hour later saying it was playing everything backwards. I plugged it in, let it warm up then realised that it’s a 4-track deck and a 2-track tape, and he’s playing it on the wrong setting. Tried to explain what the  track switch did, then gave up and told him to leave it alone. A bit much for somebody raised on DVDs!

20/09/07

And back to the plane I mentioned earlier, which was, amazingly enough, even more broken after two years under an old mower in the other shed. After retrieving all the bits the mice hadn’t eaten, I decided that it might not be the success I was hoping for, since the fabric on the wings was full of holes, and the balsa frame had gone rotten with the damp. On the bright side, the radio control gear still worked with a change of batteries and a bit of clean fuel and a quick fettle had the old OS25 engine running better than the thing in my new Nitro car! Even better, one of my friends has a plane it’ll all fit in for the tremendous price of FREE! Now all I’ve got to do is find time to strip all the bits out and swap ‘em over after evicting the spiders from hell that’ve taken up residence in the fuselage.

23/09/07

Got round to pulling the old plane to bits, seems a shame to demolish it after I found the date it was built and the chap’s name who built it on a sticker inside. It’s actually 39 years old, so instead of trashing the poor old thing, I’ve stripped it nice and tidily without breaking anything, but the os25 would never have got it off the deck in a million years, it’s not big enough according to a mate who flies these things. Might get a bigger engine one day and sort out the rot, you never know! On a more wireless oriented front, I spent a happy hour or two trying to convince an old bakelite Stella to work on VHF without any success at all. Good old Philips, why they have to do everything different’s beyond me. The slidey-in-and-out bits in the tuner head had stuck and there was no way they’d unstick. (There’s probably a much more technical name for ‘em but I can’t remember what it is…..) and the bit of string that pulls them up and down had given up the struggle. After half an hour so had I. Better get used to listening to Virgin radio on this one! It’s now filed at the back of the shed if I ever get the bits to fettle it from another radio, because the cabinet’s in grand condition.

28/09/07

Another one of the neighbours with a Decca record player which wasn’t playing. (Suppose that’s why I got to look at it then!) Opened it up to find a one valve push-pull amp, the ECLL800. after a bit of rooting in the cardboard boxes full of valves I got from Wetwood, I found one, plugged it in and hey presto, NOTHING! HT feed resistor had called it a day and after a swap it worked fine. Really good sound for a portable, must have surprised a few people back when it was new. Then of couse he wanted to know if he could plug his ipod through it. A bit of wiring later and the answer was yes, and he actually said it sounded better than the two hundred quid ipod dock he’d just bought. Not much in the way of features though, a bass and treble control were luxury back then! Beat the hell out of the Fidelity UA4s an stuff that followed it, you know the ones with the SN72763N output chips that died if you coughed near ‘em! (Don’t quote me on that number, it’s been fifteen years since I’ve seen one of them and it’s small loss I can tell you!)

02/10/07

Surprising how many times you get fooled by the same faults you’ve repaired loads of times before. An old Pye U168 with bugger all volume was the problem, and the number of times it’s been the usual grid decoupler said swap the bugger. Sadly that wasn’t the problem this time, or so it seemed, so a bit of crafty voltage checking later and the grid was way too positive for comfort and the valve was geting a bit too warm. Much capacitor swapping and messing about later, turns out the new bit I started with was leaky as well. New old stock….. very old if you ask me! Still, a new shiny cap about the size of a pea and all the planets aligned, along with a vast increase in volume from the old thing. Love the 15W pygmy bulb dial lamp in this and the white painted inside on the back cover! Leaves a nice pattern on the wall behind when it’s working though. Bugger originality, the set’s only worth a few quid and nobody’s going to look in the back of it anyway as long as it plays OK.

05/10/07

An unusual beast this time, a Grundig 3068. 4 speakers, graphic equaliser, magic eye tuning, all the bells and whistles in fact. Bought at an auction, it’s been sitting at the back of the shed for a while after a quick trial resulted in the valves lighting up but not much else. Still, its turn finally arrived and on the bench it went. Nicely put together, EL84 output stage and lots of German instructions and labelling on the back. Even seems to have a connector for a remote control, or at least that’s what "fern-dirigent" seems to translate as. Anyway, down to business, and all the paper caps I could find seemed to have gone leaky. A bit of serious soldering later and it actually worked, but not on FM. Out of insane curiosity I decided to change the ECC85 for one out of another set that did work on FM. In a matter of seconds I was listening to Radio 2 in glorious 4-speaker mono! The graphic surprised me by being remarkably effective, and even the liittle electrostatic tweeter works, although only at the extreme top end. Still, another one to add to the working end of the collection!

08/10/07

Transistor power for a change when I dug one of my collection of Bush TR82s out and it failed to come under starters orders. A pop when it switched on was the total effort it made, and the battery current turned out to be 95mA, which is a bit over the top (should be about 15-20mA). Turned out to be two out of the three AF117s shorted collector to case. Still, cutting the earth wires had the desired effect and off it went again for the next umpteen years, or until the PP9 runs out….. Why modern stuff can’t be this simple I’ll never know!

17/10/07

And now, the return of the secretary’s Murphy, suffering from crackling noises when it played quietly. Thanks to Steve P from the vintage radio.com forum for his advice, turned out to be the usual grid coupling cap gone leaky (no surprises there then!) I might even put the string on the right way round before I take it back……

21/11/07

Been a while since I updated this, and there’s still a few tales I haven’t managed to put in but I will get round to them soon. Just thought I’d mention that I went to the Radiophile auction at Wetwood on the 18th and bought a few more radios to add to the collection. You can see some of them in the back of the shed if you like. I had to buy the old McMichael 135 because I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and some of the others just because they were there! The old Mullard looks like a bit of a challenge, but I’ll let you know how it gets on. It’s a good job I didn’t take a lot of cash with me otherwise I’d probably have ended up with a carfull of the things! Too many radios at some awfully sensible prices, that was the trouble. Even the old twenties stuff was going fairly cheap! Still, no point in filling the shed any more than it already is, or there won’t be room for me in there! I think there may be a bit of weeding out in the next few days as some of the bad stuff finds its way into the Theatre of Crud…….

24/11/07

And at the moment I can safely say that in the clearing out stakes, I don’t seem to have achieved much. IF it stops raining long enough for my lawn to dry out enough to walk on I might get a bit more done. I have shoved a few old chassis’ outside to suffer the ravages of the weather till I can get to the tip.

27/11/07

In a mad attack of enthusiasm I decided to give the old Mullard a bit of a once over. After replacing several perished rubber wires round the transformers (at least the ones I could see without taking the chassis out…) I decided to plug the bugger in via the lamp limiter. Amazingly, there were no sparks, smoke or flames, and the valves all seemed to be glowing. Now I know you’re supposed to reform all the electrolytics and that kind of malarkey but it only cost a couple of quid, so I thought "bugger it!" and plugged it in. Panel lamps lit up, valves lit up, hum from speaker which varied with waggling the monoknob. Optimism over, back to reality….. Decided to take the chassis out and spent quite a while wondering what ingenious methods they’d used to hold the monoknob to the cabinet, because it’s surely got to come out with the chassis. Or has it? Anybody out there got a clue? Maybe if I put my glasses on and get a better bench lamp…..

29/11/07

Bigger lamp in hand and glasses on, another go at the mighty Mullard. A very short go as it happened, annd I’m still none the wiser about how to take it to bits. Decided to file it in the "things to do when I can be arsed" corner and try something less taxing like fixing our optic fibre christmas tree at the behest of the wife. We’ve had it three years and no bother. Plugged it in and nothing. Took all the lovely three slot safety screws out the casing, hurled them in the bin with a shower of curses and found some real philips screws the same size. I hate those bloody things and I’ve never got round to buying a screwdriver for them. Patience annd a pointy stick pays dividends with ‘em though! Still, once I’d fixed the dodgy Chinese soldering on the on/off switch all the planets aligned and it was ready for another year!

4/12/07

Checked over the old McMichael before plugging it in and was amazed to find that some kind soul had been there before me and replaced all the usual suspects! It’s obviously been done a while ago but it’s all neat and tidy and saves me a load of work. Plugged the old girl in and I was rewarded with a seriously mellow sound and decent reception even without an aerial. Love the dial lamp that lights the whole top deck up, and the ‘"easy-read" dial that even blind old me can read without my specs! Not quite sure why the cut-out metal badge on the front says MH or whether there’s a bit of trim missing round the top of the cabinet or not, but a good sand and refinish’ll do it a world of good. The previous fettler even put new speaker cloth in it as well. What a guy!

23/01/08

Well, the updating doesn’t seem to have got done as per usual, a lot to do with the counter on the front page. Oscar’s our little lad and he’s due to arrive on the 8th of February, although the exact date’s up to him! Been really busy with decorating, buying baby stuff, more decorating etc, etc….   He’ll be our first so it’s all new to us! I will post on here as soon as he’s arrived and let the world know, although only the part of the world that reads my waffling!

09/02/08

Oscar’s decided not to arrive yet, bit like his mum, late for everything! Be glad to see him when he does arrive though!

23/02/08

Oscar’s arrived on the 20th February at 11.30pm. weighed in at a sturdy 9lb 7oz (or 4.28kg in new money!) Lovely little fella, looks a lot like his dad! (handsome devil that i am )I’ll get a few pictures of him up here when I get a bit more time. You’ll notice the stork’s finally cleared off the front page anyway!

09/07/08

So for all you guys and gals out there on the interweb,I’m glad to say that little Oscar’s now 4 and a bit months old and weighed in last week at 17lb 5oz. I’m buggered if I know what that is in new money! A grand little fella who looks just like his dad, in fact you could swap baby pictures between me and him. We’re just about getting the hang of this parenting stuff and I’m getting a bit of spare time again. So finally, after a mighty delay, back to the updating and stuff. first thing I want to say is if you’re still looking, thanks for hanging in there. I’ve not been as busy with the old things as much as I used to be, but there’s still a bit of fettling going on at the bottom of the garden. I’ve even bought a new soldering gun to dislodge the stuff they use on old Fergusons….. None of the ones I’d got would even touch the stuff except the gas powered beast, and that on full blast. Anyway there’s another problem on the horizon in the shape of a 72 Vauxhall Viva that I saw in the scrapyard and felt sorry for, more about that in tales from the garage!

15/07/08

A new arrival in the shed from a most excellent gent called Jonathan, who kindly donated it to the collection. A 1933 Murphy A8, their first ever superhet with a mere 8 valves! After replacing the extremely crusty mains lead and a few other strategic bits of perished wire switching it on revealed a rectifier glowing brighter purple than a PD500 on full load! I thinm maybe a bit of its vacuum’s buggered off over the years! Some kind soul’s replaced the smoothing caps several moons ago, but I think a new valve’s going to be the order of the day befor I get any further! It’s a Philips 1807 according to the circuit diagram I’ve acquired, and I haven’t any better clues as time’s faded the sticker inside the case and the valve’s lost any writing it ever had! Looks a bit like a UU50 or something, it’s only got 4 pins and a 4volt heater so how hard can it be to replace? None of the panel bulbs work which isn’t surprising, and the dust on the tuning drum seems to have welded itself on! Love the knobs held on with little domed hex nuts. Proper man’s knobs them, none of that soppy grubscrew nonsense!                                                                    The brochure on the left shows the old girl on its stand (which it still has) although the grill cloth’s gone a lot darker since those days. The cabinet’s got the odd scratch but it’s really good for it’s age.                            Love the picture of Frank Murphy with his pipe on the front cover, although I doubt if he’d do as well on the front of a brochure for ipods…..

20/07/09

And after about three millennia, an actual update! I’ve still been fixing the odd radio, but having a little lad means that I don’t get to spend as much time down the shed as i used to. In fact at the moment I have to fight the spiders off with a soldering iron every time I go through the door. Cheeky buggers aren’t even paying any rent on the bloody place either! Every time I walk in the little fella wants to come in as well and 17 month olds and electrickity don’t mix too well. Mostly the usual things, including a Bush DAC90A suffering from a nasty case of dead caps and an open circuit heater on its output valve. Fettled that lot to be greeted by a speaker that sounded like one of those ten bob 70s Japanese transistor radios. I think the damp had got to the bugger. Still, a bit of patience, cone bending and WD40 made it sound reasonable enough to keep the proud owner happy. If I could only find some bugger who sells those strange dial bulbs it’d be a great help. I put the nearest thing I had in, but it varies from dim to candle in a stocking but it’s better than nothing I suppose. The good old days of 6v 0.3a bulbs you could get anywhere, not 0.1a things no bugger stocks anymore!

I have our secretary’s old Bush VHF90 to get round to, but the front tuning knob does NOT want to come off, and I’d rather not break it. Tried the old string under the dial trick but the creaking noises weren’t too hopeful. I’ll think of something…..

04/08/09

And yes, I got round to it. Used brute force and ignorance and removed the dial. Without breaking it. Plugged it in, heaters warmed up, HT made it into the feed resistor and never made it out the other side. Buggered if I know what value it was, the writing expired years ago, so stuck in a 5W resistor of dubious parentage and value. worked out it was losing about half a watt across itself and decided it’d do, as the radio seemed happy with it in. Listened to it for an hour, and it was only barely warm. RESULT! Back to the office for the little fella tomorrow.

11/08/09

The damp’s got to the old Sony TV in the shed, the colour’s buggered off. Took the back off, tried to remember how the decoder worked, failed, looked it up on the net, and switch cleanered the colour and tint controls in the meantime. turned it back on and the colour was back. Dirty tracks anyone? Be the end of the line for the poor old thing soon unless I can figure out a way of getting video into the bugger. No scart sockets in 1973! Or video inputs for that matter.

02/09/09

Acquired a ridiculously big TV for the summerhouse. 37" Toshiba, no widescreen, weighs about half a ton, and the line output transformer arcs when it gets damp. Fixed that with a stanley knife and a tin of hair lacquer by scratching off the track marks and lacquering the thing. Seems to work quite well, and the PS2 appreciates it. No remote, but what do you want for free? Finds the freeview box ok and that’ll do for me.