Lockdown Vintage Audio Activities...

[mickthemaverick]

,,, the set fell into my hands

Well now we know what broke the valve!!

[CitroJim]

,,, the set fell into my hands

Well now we know what broke the valve!!

happily, no valves were harmed during the catching of the radio

[Peter.N.]

Presumably its a Philips chassis Jim, they are masters of tuned circuits and got performance way ahead of most other manufacturers. I had a Philips 'super inductance' pre war TRF and it performed better than many superhets, selectivity was brilliant and it would work without an aerial plugged in!

Peter

[CitroJim]

Presumably its a Philips chassis Jim

It is indeed Peter There was an identical Philips model with slight cosmetic differences, notably a blue dial...

Stella was one of their brand names in the same as Pam was a brand name of Pye. Both Stella and Pam were seen as a bit downmarket in the day and Pye sometimes used Pam to try out new things...

[RichardW]

Not vintage radio, but it is electronics, and this seems to be the de facto topic! Got a touch control dimmer light which started switching itself on, duff capacitor thinks I, and indeed there's a 0.15pF cap that looks a bit black and some black soot in the case. New caps sourced, but my (40W) soldering iron is not man enough to get the old one off.

So, recommendations for a better one? How big does it need to be?

[mickthemaverick]

I bought an 80W iron kit with desoldering pump etc and it has handled everything I have thrown at it, which included some "Mush" joints on 10mm copper cable in my 9Kw shower.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Soldering-Ir ... 0008.m2219

[CitroJim]

Not vintage radio, but it is electronics, and this seems to be the de facto topic!

Time to get it back on topic then

Yesterday I spent some time resurrecting this rather different one A Grampian 506 tuner/amplifier dating from the early 50s. Zel gave me this some while back...

Grampian were a famous Public Address equipment maker and this one would have been targeted at schools, institutions and maybe small factories... It has a hefty audio amplifier and is very loud and punchy... With bass and treble controls the audio quality is quite exceptional...

Inside view

And speaking of capacitors Richard...

I needed to replace all remaining wax capacitors and do some rewiring as the radio section had been somewhat 'got at'

70 years old and a bit leaky

One odd problem was the local oscillator stopping at certain parts of the dial... This was all down to bent vanes on the tuning capacitor...

It is now in use in my conservatory and part of my virtual cycling kit..,. Connected to a decent sized speaker it's loud enough to be able to enjoy Radio 5 Live over the din generated by my turbo trainer

[Peter.N.]

I remember them Jim, I thought for a minute you were going to fit it on your bike.

Peter

[Hell Razor5543]

As I said on your Instagram feed, that looks like a main line battle tank should be bolted to it!

[Richard_C]

Grampian, not heard that name for years. In the late 70's I worked in a factory which had Grampian PA throughout, ancient even then but wholly reliable.

Music was played in the assembly departments, c 400 mostly female employees doing very repetitive light assembly work on facing conveyor benches of 20 or so. I still shudder when I hear some songs because I remember them all singing along .... Max Bygraves anyone? And again .....

(I was in "Personnel" as it was then. Had to fire a storeman for beating up his supervisor. "But I didn't think you could fire me because I waited until he walked out of the factory door before I hit him....."

[Peter.N.]

I used to maintain a system at a local paper mill, 'music while you work' was the usual light program output. It used a pre war Philips amplifier with wet electrolytic smoothing capacitors if I remember rightly. I eventually managed to sell them a new system just before the place was closed and demolished.

Peter

[white exec]

Clarke & Smith held sway in schools right up to the '70s, most famously for LW/MW (and later FM) radio receivers, with 100v line output, which was conduit-routed to all classrooms. Large but lightweight infinite baffle speakers, almost a yard square and with a small 100v line transformer and volume control, could be quickly plugged in in any of the rooms. The central radio unit was often kept pretty much full-time on Radio 4, where BBC Schools' Broadcasts lived.

Other Clarke & Smith kit included amplifiers, record players and a few tape recorders. I think their kit was also favoured by the Home Office, so it was also found in HMP.

By the late '60s, the C&S items were looking somewhat old hat, and those of us involved in setting up AV services in education were looking to Ferrograph, Tandberg, Philips, Sony and others for higher quality and more flexibility, and taking advantage of many of the recent hi-fi offerings then on the matket.

The UK company Goodsell had success with 'schools kit', with some well-made amplified cassette recorders, portable PA, amplified speakers and tuners.

The video journey was another story - via EIAJ-1, N1500/1700, VHS, Betamax, U-matic, Video-8 and the beginnings of DVD.

[bobins]

In a bizarre coincidence, I've just been watching a Youtube about the Tapete (talking books on tape provided by the RNIB). The talking books were originally on very slow playing records, but they moved over to tapes in the 1960s, with the first players designed by Clarke & Smith which played bulky tapes. In 1966 Clarke & Smith then developed the smaller Tapete.

[bobins]

I used to maintain a system at a local paper mill, 'music while you work' was the usual light program output. It used a pre war Philips amplifier with wet electrolytic smoothing capacitors if I remember rightly. I eventually managed to sell them a new system just before the place was closed and demolished.

Peter

Bit of a monster PA system, this one

Amp racks - own work

A gramophone player - own work

Amp valves - Mrs Bobins' own work

[Hell Razor5543]

Bl00dy hell; you and Mrs. Bobins are good at making decent kit!