jonw
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Thought I'd share my latest project. Sorry about the dodgy mobile pics. My camera has gone phut! A 1940 Murphy A92 Radio. Six Shortwave, Medium and Long Wave ranges. Still in working order, just needs a bit of modern safety putting into it! The heart of the Beast! An the Lovely glass front: The scale isn't in Frequency, but in Wavelength. I love the Empire next to Britian. Ok connected to a variac (I need to make an Isolation transformer for this) and we get: The Shipping Forecast on World Service: And Coldplay (I think) on local commercial It is actually quite loud. Just my phone isn't that good with sound. Plans are: Clean out 70 years worth of dust. Replace any Dodgy wire found Establish a proper earth via an isolation transformer (the metal frame on this is live - 230V!!!) Make a proper areial My Girlfriend has always wanted an old radio, so this is going to be her xmas prezzie... just hope she dosen't look here!!!
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Last Edit: Nov 15, 2011 9:49:18 GMT by jonw
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beautiful, get some clear pics up asap so we can really appreciate the quality, she'll love this prezzie btw !!
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jonw
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Have just figured out that the areial should be somwhere in the order of 100 meters long for the set to be fully sensetive. Hmmm... how to hide a reel of wire in a house....
PS: The scale on the front is not in Herz but wavelength in meters.
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Last Edit: Nov 9, 2011 9:36:25 GMT by jonw
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Brilliant. I'd love something like that.
We've got an old radiogram but it doesn't work unfortunately.
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scruff
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Talk to a radio ham about aerial matching, can probably be done with a cunning use of capacitors, inductors and stuff.
Awesome present! I love the soft start of valve kit as it all warms up and comes to life.
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1994 Lotus Esprit - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights. 1980 Porsche 924 - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights.
I spy a trend...
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jonw
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Nov 14, 2011 15:44:27 GMT
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Talk to a radio ham about aerial matching, can probably be done with a cunning use of capacitors, inductors and stuff. Awesome present! I love the soft start of valve kit as it all warms up and comes to life. Won't work on these. It really needs a long aerial.... have found an aerial socket in the house..... am going to see if it's connected still.... if not, a lenght of copper wire run around the room should do. In the meantime.... I bought another.... pics to follow.
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Suzuki SV650R The good Triumph T20 The Bad BMW G650GS The Ugly Matchless G12CSR The Smokey Toyota Hybrid One pint or Two?
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jonw
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Proper pics!!!! And another Radio....... First to proper pics.... The Murphy. Next to it is a Sony portable Tv for scale. The guts of the beast The main Tetrode Where is where in the world?? Whats on tonight??? Where shall we listen?? This is a better vid of it playing. This gives a better idea of the sound quality and volume. Also shows the tetrode glowing at the end.
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Last Edit: Nov 15, 2011 9:48:36 GMT by jonw
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cavman
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feeling inspired :)
Posts: 233
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This is brilliant! and beautiful too. The sound quality is superb for such an old set, this will make a very special pressie indeed. Good work fella! ;D
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'78 Mk1 Cavalier Coupe - I wish I had a pound for every time someone told me "my dad used to have one of those"!!
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jonw
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Oops I bought another... A 1945 Vidor Portable Superhet. Not working at the mo, but I suspect the batterys are fubar. Display.... Controls, MW/LW, Tune, On/ Volume Inside. The Battery is 90V!!! This runs the amp circuits. In good nick. Behind the 90V battery is the 1.5V heater battery. The corrosion is surface and caused by the 1.5V battery leaking. Plans are to replace some of the bad wiring, and replace the batteries with a combined PSU. I love the simplicity of this one and the inbuilt areial. For those who are interested, the superhet is short for supersonic-hetrodyne. A principle which allows massive amplification of signals by reducing frequency. All modern radios and Tvs operate using the superhet principle.
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Suzuki SV650R The good Triumph T20 The Bad BMW G650GS The Ugly Matchless G12CSR The Smokey Toyota Hybrid One pint or Two?
Ingredients of this post Spam Drunken Rambling of author Bad spelling Drunken ramblings of inner voices Occasional pointless comments Vile beef trimming they won't even use in stock cubes
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Nov 15, 2011 12:01:47 GMT
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LOVELY in a word.
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scruff
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Nov 17, 2011 13:01:53 GMT
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Nice work. If you can find it (I'm sure a quick google will help) see if you can get fiberglass insualtion for the wiring, it'll give the look of the old woven insualtion but hide the modern PVC I've successfully built PSUs that run on 12V batteries to produce 450VDC from the designs on www.electricstuff.co.uk/ the 150/160V and 1.5V should be easy.... Watch out though I got a hefty belt off a 1.5V battery and one of these circuits... Entirely my own fault for not respecting battery powered electrics!!
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1994 Lotus Esprit - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights. 1980 Porsche 924 - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights.
I spy a trend...
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Nov 17, 2011 15:52:57 GMT
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These are some lovely old things. Does Wayne refer to Fort Wayne, perhaps? I have no idea. I love that there's Vatican on there too.
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Nov 17, 2011 17:50:06 GMT
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I love the detail of the front panel. While you have it apart it would be good to get a scan of it up on the web, just for the benefit on anyone needing to make a replica sometime in the future. I've successfully built PSUs that run on 12V batteries to produce 450VDC from the designs on www.electricstuff.co.uk/ the 150/160V and 1.5V should be easy.... For an HV PSU, I'd go for this one at Taylor Electronics, assuming the radio would be all right at 150V. (You could always drop it with a ballast resistor and neon bulb like they did with mains sets in the old days.) I have a bunch of potted buck converter modules that will do 12V to 1.5V at 3A. They're about an inch square. If you want one for nowt, let me know. If you do replace the batteries with SM power supplies, they'll probably need to go in a screened can together with the battery with pi filters on the two outputs due to their proximity to the IF stuff. Cool resto by the way!
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scruff
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Nov 17, 2011 19:19:59 GMT
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They are pretty neat! I have to admit my lash-ups were a bit suspect at 450V... More than one has gone up in smoke! But at 150V they are much more stable!
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1994 Lotus Esprit - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights. 1980 Porsche 924 - Fragile red turbo with pop up lights.
I spy a trend...
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jonw
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I've bought a purpose built power supply that will give the 1.5V and 90V to replace the batteries. I did also consider putting 10 PP9's in series to get 90V and using a D cell for 1.5V. Those old dry cell batteries are not very powerful...
As to progress, the Little red one is apart to have the sscruffy wiring looked at and a clean. Progress report soon.
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Last Edit: Nov 18, 2011 8:23:59 GMT by jonw
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jonw
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Nov 21, 2011 10:10:52 GMT
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More progerss.... but sorry no pics.... got a bit carried away and forgot!!!
The PSU for the red one appeared... so betterr tidy up the srcuffy wiring.... all done. Most of the wires are in ecxellent condition.
Wired up to the PSU, turn on... and is very quiet.... the PSU is only giving off 58V.... Hmmm... either the PSU isn't man enough, or the valves are a bit shonky... not sure yet. More reading and investigation required.
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Suzuki SV650R The good Triumph T20 The Bad BMW G650GS The Ugly Matchless G12CSR The Smokey Toyota Hybrid One pint or Two?
Ingredients of this post Spam Drunken Rambling of author Bad spelling Drunken ramblings of inner voices Occasional pointless comments Vile beef trimming they won't even use in stock cubes
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jonw
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Nov 24, 2011 11:34:43 GMT
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Again, apoligies for the pic quality (or lack of). another radio joined the collection for my favorite price £Free!!!! A Defiant Transistor Radio!! British Made using 2xPP9's as fuel. Had an issue that it wasn't tuning. Turned out that the cord connecting the tune knob, the scale and the capacitir had come adrift. An easy fix. Is now in the garage as entertainment for when I'm fixing the bikes. The murphy is now earthed correctly and as safe as a 71 year old radio ever will be. Am Scrounging bits for a new 90V PSU for the Vidor. Have found a 380-110V Transformer in the skip (230 - 69Vrms which is approx 97Vdc) a 250V rated Bridge recifier and an enclosure. All I now need is a large capacitor. I may have to buy that bit.
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Suzuki SV650R The good Triumph T20 The Bad BMW G650GS The Ugly Matchless G12CSR The Smokey Toyota Hybrid One pint or Two?
Ingredients of this post Spam Drunken Rambling of author Bad spelling Drunken ramblings of inner voices Occasional pointless comments Vile beef trimming they won't even use in stock cubes
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Nov 24, 2011 23:27:07 GMT
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got a couple of 70's portable radios look good in my mk3's one is even ford branded, i'd like a 70's ferguson studio 7 hifi think we've still got the speakers from ours
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theres more to life than mpg & to much power is just enough.
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jonw
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Posts: 768
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Nov 30, 2011 15:56:44 GMT
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New wombled PSU!!!! Made from scrap.... is amazing what you can find laying about. All was recovered from bins apart from the capacitor, which I had to buy. 85Vdc..... nice and smooth!!!! Perfect for the radio!!!
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Suzuki SV650R The good Triumph T20 The Bad BMW G650GS The Ugly Matchless G12CSR The Smokey Toyota Hybrid One pint or Two?
Ingredients of this post Spam Drunken Rambling of author Bad spelling Drunken ramblings of inner voices Occasional pointless comments Vile beef trimming they won't even use in stock cubes
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jonw
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....and It works!!!! Kind of. The volume is much better, it can now pick up a lot more stations, but the distortion is awful. This is mainly at higher volumes. Not sure if it's the areial, speaker or amp at the mo. I might change the valves and check the solder joints on the back. Not great quality, but here is a vid of it working. some of the distortion is the phone, some is the radio. Plans are to check the solder joints and repace the Pentode.
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Last Edit: Dec 2, 2011 10:46:18 GMT by jonw
Suzuki SV650R The good Triumph T20 The Bad BMW G650GS The Ugly Matchless G12CSR The Smokey Toyota Hybrid One pint or Two?
Ingredients of this post Spam Drunken Rambling of author Bad spelling Drunken ramblings of inner voices Occasional pointless comments Vile beef trimming they won't even use in stock cubes
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