ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Can this be fixed?.

Guys I have a 1950-60's Valve radio here at home that was handed to me by a colleague at work.
It was given to him after the thing was bequeathed(sp?)to him.
Now the body of what I'm asking, is this:
I haven't plugged the radio in and given it a test run, because all the valves are very shiny and I aren't even sure that they've been inserted around the right way.
Also I have looked at each of the Valves and there are no markings whatsoever on them, the idiot that cleaned them, rubbed all the markings off them.
I'll upload some pictures as soon as I get my camera wound up to let you see what I have before me.
As far as I can make out, it's a Bell 5 Valve Super-Heterodyne set as was common here in the 1950-60 years.
I'm not about to go guessing where these Valves go.
Any advice you can give me in the mean-time would be good.
Cheers,
Mike :]

Trumpy,
I am of little use to you on this one. However, bring back valves! They were a mesmeric delight. I bet you would find a ready market for old valve technology if not for function then certainly just to look at!

If you do USE-Net, you might find some help at rec.antiques.radio+phono -- that is the antique radio & record-player collectors newsgroup.

Also maybe a New Zealand or Aussie radio club might help?

Some people who are really hardcore into the hobby are able to tell what type of valve it is just by looking at the innards and then figure out where it goes.

Most of the 5-valve sets sold here followed a pretty predictable line-up of valves/tubes:

1. Triode/heptode frequency-changer (also called a converter)
2. High-gain pentode I.F. amplifier
3. Double-diode triode detector/AGC/first audio
4. Beam-tetrode or pentode audio power
5. Rectifier

Most of the later generation sets used B9A-based valves, generally the E-series (parallel connected 6.3V heaters) or U-series (intended for series connection in AC/DC sets).

As Sven said, in the typical 5-valve lineup using these valves it is quite possible to identify the correct locations by just examining the internal construction, and I've done that myself in a similar situations.

I'm not sure I could even start to try to describe how to go about it though.

Oddly enough Sven and Paul I was having a word to Paul Gosciny (ZL4AAG) and he had an old RCA tube tester.
I sucked him dry, as to his experience in Aus/NZ valves, he looked at the valves and said, there is a EC81, a ECL89, and others, he then proceeded to plug them all in.
He then turned on the set and instead of the usual explosion, there was the warm-up period and.....
Sound!.
We had the National Radio Programme running here, I was most delighted.
He told me to re-align the set, (which I have since done), It sounded terrible, through the ripped speaker.(That I fixed with Supa-glue, being single, I can't justify having nail polish, these days)
But I will still get some pics for you guys, and put them in this post, a bit later
.
But thanks for all your help guys, it hasn't gone un-noticed!.

Oddly enough Paul said that this particular set is a rarity, because while it was made in Australia, it didn't use Australian valves, it used NZ valves, hence the EC Codes.
Valves were made in Christchurch for some years, a fact I never knew of.
I would have guessed Auckland or Wellington, but there you go.
I also asked Paul if he would like to share his knowledge with us at ECN, he gratefully declined.
The guy is a great Ham and one that I talk to on 2 metres quite regularly.

Trumpy,

An old trick, that I sometimes use, to identify valves where the markings are destroyed is to breathe on the valve. The moisture in your breath would highlight where the markings were and you can usually read them.

Remember when you were a kid and you used to write your name on a mirror or window after breathing on it. After a few minutes the condensation would disappear but if you breathed on the window again you could see what you had written previously.

Hope this helps.

Simon.

Simon,
Thanks for the tip mate!.
I'll use that in the future, unfortunately no use to me, the radio went back to it's owner today.
Cool though!.


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-06-2004).]

Glad you got it sorted out!

No problem trumpy.

I love old radios as you can see from my restoration post a couple down from this thread.

I'm also heavily involved with vintage plant and machinery and, now that I've bought a decent digital camera, hope to post some interesting pics.

The 1955 Dale generator I'm working on is a real work of art but it is a mess inside being subjected to a lot of quick fixes and botched repaires over the years.

Simon