As from today the name of this blog has changed to Radio Recycling.
For the last couple of months I've been blogging about my interest in repairing and restoring vintage radios, so an update was required. (The old name dated back to 2006 when I was presenting a 1980's themed radio show and never got changed)
Thanks to a change in my employment status it looks like I might have a bit of spare time over the next couple of weeks, so expect a few other changes here with the old posts being cleared out, and perhaps a new layout as well. The blog address will also change, as soon as I work out how employ my new domain name radiorecycling.co.uk
My current project is a Bush SUG91 console radio, which was built in January 1947. Restoration of the chassis is almost complete, so some project related posts and pictures will also be appearing here soon.
Keep listening!
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Wartime Civilian Receiver - Part 5: Finishing touches
With the set working again, the final part of the restoration entailed making replicas of the top panel and rear panel labels, and sticking these onto the cabinet.
The design for the top panel label was available on the web; all I had to do was download the image and print it full size. I did consider using the water-slide transfer paper for this, but I finally decided to use a colour laser printer and ordinary paper. After sticking it in place I gave the label a couple of coats of spray lacquer to protect it.
Th rear panel label required a bit more effort. Once again a scanned image was available on the internet, but it required a lot of cleaning up with Paintshop to remove odd marks and artifacts. After cleaning up the image I tried to give it an aged look. I wasn't completely happy with the colour though, as on the computer it looked more like somebody had spilled tea on it!
With the label glued in place and the rear panel re-fitted, the colour doesn't look too bad really.
It would have been nice to have repaired the original speaker, or at least fitted a replacement of similar age. For now though I will enjoy it as it is, and perhaps another speaker will turn up at some time in the future.
Since completing the restoration I have determined that my WCR was probably built by Murphy Radio, which means that it would originally have been identified with the code 'U7' somewhere on the rear of the chassis.
Blogging my restoration of this wonderful old set has turned out to be a bigger task than I had originally planned, but I hope that the information in all five parts will have been of interest, and perhaps even useful to anybody who wants get one of these sets working again.
Keep listening!
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| Top label in place |
The design for the top panel label was available on the web; all I had to do was download the image and print it full size. I did consider using the water-slide transfer paper for this, but I finally decided to use a colour laser printer and ordinary paper. After sticking it in place I gave the label a couple of coats of spray lacquer to protect it.
Th rear panel label required a bit more effort. Once again a scanned image was available on the internet, but it required a lot of cleaning up with Paintshop to remove odd marks and artifacts. After cleaning up the image I tried to give it an aged look. I wasn't completely happy with the colour though, as on the computer it looked more like somebody had spilled tea on it!
 |
| Rear label, cleaned up (click to enlarge) |
With the label glued in place and the rear panel re-fitted, the colour doesn't look too bad really.
 |
| Rear view, with vintage Bakelite plug fitted |
It would have been nice to have repaired the original speaker, or at least fitted a replacement of similar age. For now though I will enjoy it as it is, and perhaps another speaker will turn up at some time in the future.
Since completing the restoration I have determined that my WCR was probably built by Murphy Radio, which means that it would originally have been identified with the code 'U7' somewhere on the rear of the chassis.
Blogging my restoration of this wonderful old set has turned out to be a bigger task than I had originally planned, but I hope that the information in all five parts will have been of interest, and perhaps even useful to anybody who wants get one of these sets working again.
Keep listening!
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Wartime Civilian Receiver - Part 4: Bringing it back to life
With the chassis work completed, the time had finally come to see if my WCR would work.
The restoration had included replacement of all potentially faulty capacitors and wiring, so the possibility of anything going bang when the power was applied was minimal. Some safety checks were still necessary though before power was applied.
I used my Robin 3111 tester to check the continuity between the earth pin of the plug and the chassis, and the isolation between chassis and the mains. This showed a fraction of an Ohm for the earth continuity, and infinite resistance between both sides of the mains and earth (after checking that the set's mains switch was on!)
A multimeter could be used for this, but a proper insulation tester or Megger is preferable as it applies a higher voltage for the insulation test.
A WCR is unlikely to receive anything without an aerial, so I connected a couple of metres of wire to the A1 socket, more than enough to pick up the local AM Gold transmitter around 5 miles away.
I use a lamp limiter when powering unknown sets for the first time. A 100W 240V lamp connected in series with the live supply wire has negligible effect if the radio is working correctly; the current drawn is insufficient to heat the filament and it's resistance is very low. However, if a fault causes the radio to draw a lot of current the lamp lights, the filament resistance increases and the fault current is safely limited...well that's the theory anyway!
Power was applied, valves began to glow and the lamp limiter didn't...and after 30 seconds or so I could hear noise from the loudspeaker.
It lived!
After removing the lamp limiter I tried again. Tuning around I was pleased to hear three or four stations, but something wasn't right. There was a loud whistle that decreased in frequency as a station was tuned in, dropping to almost zero, but then rising in frequency again as I carried on tuning past the station.
If you read my earlier post you might remember that I had been a bit clumsy in removing the BVA246 IF amplifier valve early in the restoration. It turned out that I had broken the earth connection to the red metalised paint on the glass envelope, and in this receiver this can cause IF instability.
Fitting a good EF39 borrowed from another radio confirmed that this was indeed happening, and a New Old Stock CV1053 (a military equivalent) was duly bought and installed.
It was great to hear the set working again!
All that remained now was to sort out the rear panel and cabinet labels, and take some pictures of the finished radio. I'll put this all in the final part, coming soon.
Keep Listening!
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| We can bring it back to life! |
The restoration had included replacement of all potentially faulty capacitors and wiring, so the possibility of anything going bang when the power was applied was minimal. Some safety checks were still necessary though before power was applied.
I used my Robin 3111 tester to check the continuity between the earth pin of the plug and the chassis, and the isolation between chassis and the mains. This showed a fraction of an Ohm for the earth continuity, and infinite resistance between both sides of the mains and earth (after checking that the set's mains switch was on!)
A multimeter could be used for this, but a proper insulation tester or Megger is preferable as it applies a higher voltage for the insulation test.
 |
| Robin Model 3111 tester |
A WCR is unlikely to receive anything without an aerial, so I connected a couple of metres of wire to the A1 socket, more than enough to pick up the local AM Gold transmitter around 5 miles away.
I use a lamp limiter when powering unknown sets for the first time. A 100W 240V lamp connected in series with the live supply wire has negligible effect if the radio is working correctly; the current drawn is insufficient to heat the filament and it's resistance is very low. However, if a fault causes the radio to draw a lot of current the lamp lights, the filament resistance increases and the fault current is safely limited...well that's the theory anyway!
 |
| Chassis re-fitted ready for testing |
Power was applied, valves began to glow and the lamp limiter didn't...and after 30 seconds or so I could hear noise from the loudspeaker.
It lived!
After removing the lamp limiter I tried again. Tuning around I was pleased to hear three or four stations, but something wasn't right. There was a loud whistle that decreased in frequency as a station was tuned in, dropping to almost zero, but then rising in frequency again as I carried on tuning past the station.
If you read my earlier post you might remember that I had been a bit clumsy in removing the BVA246 IF amplifier valve early in the restoration. It turned out that I had broken the earth connection to the red metalised paint on the glass envelope, and in this receiver this can cause IF instability.
 |
| Original BVA246 (EF39) with damaged screening |
Fitting a good EF39 borrowed from another radio confirmed that this was indeed happening, and a New Old Stock CV1053 (a military equivalent) was duly bought and installed.
It was great to hear the set working again!
All that remained now was to sort out the rear panel and cabinet labels, and take some pictures of the finished radio. I'll put this all in the final part, coming soon.
Keep Listening!
Monday, March 17, 2014
AVO Test Bridge
Its been a busy week so I've not had much time to spend in my workshop, but I did find enough time to finish off my latest project, an addition to my test equipment collection.
Whilst browsing my favourite internet auction site recently I came across this, an AVO Test Bridge.
I'd never seen one of these before, but a quick search on the web turned up enough info to get me interested. What better than vintage test equipment to test vintage radios? It looked too good a deal to miss out on!
The ATB is the same size and shape as an AVO 7, but it will test resistance, capacitance and capacitor leakage. It's basically a Wheatstone bridge, with a sensitive valve voltmeter driving a balance meter. With the desired range selected, the dial is rotated until the meter reads a minimum value; the component value is then determined by multiplying the reference for the selected range (100pF/10nF/1uF or 100R/10K/1M) by the number on the dial. An additional setting also allows an external reference resistor or capacitor to be used instead of an internal reference. The leakage tests applies a high voltage to the capacitor via a neon lamp, which flashes repeatedly if there is any leakage current.
All it needed was a new electrolytic capacitor and a couple of polyesters to replace the old wax paper types. It's simple to use, and it appears to be surprisingly accurate for something that is nearly 70 years old. (The last four digits of the serial number visible on the meter scale are 1144, indicating that it was made in November 1944)
The total cost of bits including a bit of vintage type three core mains cable came to under £5, and with a total outlay just over £30 I reckon that I got a bargain.
I went back to the seller a few days later and bought another bit of kit, an AVO allwave oscillator. I'll leave that story until another day.
Keep listening!
Whilst browsing my favourite internet auction site recently I came across this, an AVO Test Bridge.
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| AVO Test Bridge |
I'd never seen one of these before, but a quick search on the web turned up enough info to get me interested. What better than vintage test equipment to test vintage radios? It looked too good a deal to miss out on!
The ATB is the same size and shape as an AVO 7, but it will test resistance, capacitance and capacitor leakage. It's basically a Wheatstone bridge, with a sensitive valve voltmeter driving a balance meter. With the desired range selected, the dial is rotated until the meter reads a minimum value; the component value is then determined by multiplying the reference for the selected range (100pF/10nF/1uF or 100R/10K/1M) by the number on the dial. An additional setting also allows an external reference resistor or capacitor to be used instead of an internal reference. The leakage tests applies a high voltage to the capacitor via a neon lamp, which flashes repeatedly if there is any leakage current.
All it needed was a new electrolytic capacitor and a couple of polyesters to replace the old wax paper types. It's simple to use, and it appears to be surprisingly accurate for something that is nearly 70 years old. (The last four digits of the serial number visible on the meter scale are 1144, indicating that it was made in November 1944)
The total cost of bits including a bit of vintage type three core mains cable came to under £5, and with a total outlay just over £30 I reckon that I got a bargain.
I went back to the seller a few days later and bought another bit of kit, an AVO allwave oscillator. I'll leave that story until another day.
Keep listening!
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Wartime Civilian Receiver - Part 3: Electronics and Tuning Scale
Before setting to work on the chassis I decided to remove the valves and put them somewhere safe. The pins on their Octal bases needed some persuasion to part from the sockets, and I made the mistake of grabbing the one of the valves by the glass envelope. I didn't pull it hard at all, but I heard a slight cracking noise from the joint between the glass and the base. It didn't look too bad, but it turned out to be a problem later.
I started by replacing all the wax paper capacitors, re-stuffing their cases with new polypropylene film types. This was the first time I had done this, but I found that once the old capacitor had been gently heated in a vice with a hot air gun, the insides could be pulled out easily with a pair of pliers to leave a hollow tube. With the new capacitors fitted snugly inside I used the recovered wax to seal the ends of the tubes. I used a similar method to re-stuff the cathode bypass electrolytic capacitor for the audio output valve.
The WCR originally had three 8uF smoothing capacitors. With everything else looking original I was reluctant to use modern looking capacitors, but I did have some fairly chunky 10uF 500V electrolytics that looked like they might have a good ripple current rating. So, after re-forming them I set about making them look old.
I tried several methods before settling on brown paper parcel tape, wrapped around to make a cardboard cylinder with the capacitor inside. Circles of cardboard with a hole punched in the middle then slipped over the leads, sealing the ends of the tube. These discs were coloured red or black using a Sharpie pen. I used brown paper to make labels, copying the design from an old TCC capacitor as best as I could using Microsoft Publisher. I then stuck the labels on and dipped the whole capacitor in melted candle wax
The capacitor securing bracket had long gone, so after studying a few WCR photos on the web I made a 'V' shaped bracket from thin aluminium and secured it to the chassis using two existing 4BA screws under the transformer.
Its worth noting that the negative of the reservoir capacitor goes to the centre tap of the HT secondary winding, and not to chassis like the other two smoothers.
The wires from the chassis to the output transformer were replaced with some original looking wire that I bought from www.savoy-hill.co.uk. This 9/0.2 stranded wire has a cloth covering bonded over the top of the plastic insulation.
The mains power lead had been been cut off (it wasn't original anyway) so I fitted a very authentic looking modern 3 core cable. The mains switch turned out to be intermittent and had to be replaced. The earth wire was securely bonded to the chassis, and a new length of silicone wire was run from the live side of the switch to the voltage tapping on top of the transformer. A 1A fuse in the plug completed the job.
Whilst checking the wiring I found that a wire had become detached from the coil mounted on the chassis. It looked like I might have broken this when trying to straighten up the tag board. Another lesson learned!
The paint on the tuning scale and the disc was badly blistered, so after making a scan of the scale I removed the paint with Nitromors. I sprayed the metal with a coat of etching primer, followed by a couple of coats of cream coloured cellulose. The new scale was then created by making a close copy of the scanned image with Visio and printing it onto water slide transfer paper. After a few unsuccessful attempts in applying the transfer I managed to get the result above.
The set was then ready for testing. I'll be blogging more about this later.
Keep listening!
I started by replacing all the wax paper capacitors, re-stuffing their cases with new polypropylene film types. This was the first time I had done this, but I found that once the old capacitor had been gently heated in a vice with a hot air gun, the insides could be pulled out easily with a pair of pliers to leave a hollow tube. With the new capacitors fitted snugly inside I used the recovered wax to seal the ends of the tubes. I used a similar method to re-stuff the cathode bypass electrolytic capacitor for the audio output valve.
 |
| Chassis after capacitor replacement |
The WCR originally had three 8uF smoothing capacitors. With everything else looking original I was reluctant to use modern looking capacitors, but I did have some fairly chunky 10uF 500V electrolytics that looked like they might have a good ripple current rating. So, after re-forming them I set about making them look old.
 |
| Disguised electrolytics |
I tried several methods before settling on brown paper parcel tape, wrapped around to make a cardboard cylinder with the capacitor inside. Circles of cardboard with a hole punched in the middle then slipped over the leads, sealing the ends of the tube. These discs were coloured red or black using a Sharpie pen. I used brown paper to make labels, copying the design from an old TCC capacitor as best as I could using Microsoft Publisher. I then stuck the labels on and dipped the whole capacitor in melted candle wax
The capacitor securing bracket had long gone, so after studying a few WCR photos on the web I made a 'V' shaped bracket from thin aluminium and secured it to the chassis using two existing 4BA screws under the transformer.
Its worth noting that the negative of the reservoir capacitor goes to the centre tap of the HT secondary winding, and not to chassis like the other two smoothers.
 i |
| Another under chassis view - note coil top left |
The wires from the chassis to the output transformer were replaced with some original looking wire that I bought from www.savoy-hill.co.uk. This 9/0.2 stranded wire has a cloth covering bonded over the top of the plastic insulation.
The mains power lead had been been cut off (it wasn't original anyway) so I fitted a very authentic looking modern 3 core cable. The mains switch turned out to be intermittent and had to be replaced. The earth wire was securely bonded to the chassis, and a new length of silicone wire was run from the live side of the switch to the voltage tapping on top of the transformer. A 1A fuse in the plug completed the job.
Whilst checking the wiring I found that a wire had become detached from the coil mounted on the chassis. It looked like I might have broken this when trying to straighten up the tag board. Another lesson learned!
 |
| New tuning scale transfer |
The paint on the tuning scale and the disc was badly blistered, so after making a scan of the scale I removed the paint with Nitromors. I sprayed the metal with a coat of etching primer, followed by a couple of coats of cream coloured cellulose. The new scale was then created by making a close copy of the scanned image with Visio and printing it onto water slide transfer paper. After a few unsuccessful attempts in applying the transfer I managed to get the result above.
The set was then ready for testing. I'll be blogging more about this later.
Keep listening!
Thursday, March 06, 2014
DON'T just plug it in!
Several vintage radios in my collection came from my favourite online auction site, and I regularly browse there to see what is currently available. Unfortunately the radios that come up for auction often have silly starting figures, or ludicrous buy it now prices, or are described as 'rare' or even 'very rare' when they are not.
I also regularly see sellers describing how they found a radio and plugged it in to see if it worked. I wish more people understood the risks in doing this, because I'm sure that they wouldn't be so keen if they knew what could happen. I've also cringed at seeing pictures of sets with obviously dodgy wiring, live chassis sets with the back covers missing, and even dangerous modifications done by previous owners!
If you are bold (or daft) enough to plug an unknown radio set into the AC mains, then your efforts are quite likely to be rewarded with a loud bang and/or the smell of burning. If you are lucky it might appear that nothing nasty happens, but there is a good chance that you are still damaging the radio and therefore reducing its value.
Until the early 1950s radios commonly used rubber insulated wiring. The problems is that after all these years, the rubber is likely to have perished and fallen off, leaving bare wires to short out on the chassis or other components. This wiring needs to be replaced, or at least checked, before power is applied.
Some types of capacitor will usually need replacing as well, particularly the large 'smoothing' capacitors which usually have sealed aluminium cans. If full power is applied suddenly after years of non-use these can overheat, leak chemicals or even burst. This is really bad news as it can be quite violent, in fact one account I read described the bang it produced as being 'like a gun had been fired in the workshop'.
As a potential buyer you should also be aware that any radio that has been 'tested' in this manner by the seller may be more difficult and expensive to get working than you expect.
A very common example of how damage can occur involved is the grid coupling capacitor on the audio output stage, which is likely to have gone leaky with age. A replacement capacitor will probably cost no more than 50p, but running the radio without changing it could destroy a valve costing £15 or more to replace. If you are unlucky the failing valve will also destroy the output transformer as well. The solution is then either a replacement from another set, or in the case of a rare set, an expensive re-wind by a specialist. (This is why I usually check the transformers before starting restoration work).
Vintage radios don't meet modern safety standards for electrical appliances and need to be treated with some respect. If you do not then there is a very real risk of serious injury, death or fire. Making old radios safer is an important part of bringing them back to life, and unless you understand how to do this then I suggest that you leave it to others that do.
There are several good vintage radio forums on the internet, and in my experience the experts who use them are always happy to advise people who ask for help, whether they be experienced or complete beginners.
Safety should always come first.
Keep safe!
I also regularly see sellers describing how they found a radio and plugged it in to see if it worked. I wish more people understood the risks in doing this, because I'm sure that they wouldn't be so keen if they knew what could happen. I've also cringed at seeing pictures of sets with obviously dodgy wiring, live chassis sets with the back covers missing, and even dangerous modifications done by previous owners!
If you are bold (or daft) enough to plug an unknown radio set into the AC mains, then your efforts are quite likely to be rewarded with a loud bang and/or the smell of burning. If you are lucky it might appear that nothing nasty happens, but there is a good chance that you are still damaging the radio and therefore reducing its value.
Until the early 1950s radios commonly used rubber insulated wiring. The problems is that after all these years, the rubber is likely to have perished and fallen off, leaving bare wires to short out on the chassis or other components. This wiring needs to be replaced, or at least checked, before power is applied.
Some types of capacitor will usually need replacing as well, particularly the large 'smoothing' capacitors which usually have sealed aluminium cans. If full power is applied suddenly after years of non-use these can overheat, leak chemicals or even burst. This is really bad news as it can be quite violent, in fact one account I read described the bang it produced as being 'like a gun had been fired in the workshop'.
As a potential buyer you should also be aware that any radio that has been 'tested' in this manner by the seller may be more difficult and expensive to get working than you expect.
A very common example of how damage can occur involved is the grid coupling capacitor on the audio output stage, which is likely to have gone leaky with age. A replacement capacitor will probably cost no more than 50p, but running the radio without changing it could destroy a valve costing £15 or more to replace. If you are unlucky the failing valve will also destroy the output transformer as well. The solution is then either a replacement from another set, or in the case of a rare set, an expensive re-wind by a specialist. (This is why I usually check the transformers before starting restoration work).
Vintage radios don't meet modern safety standards for electrical appliances and need to be treated with some respect. If you do not then there is a very real risk of serious injury, death or fire. Making old radios safer is an important part of bringing them back to life, and unless you understand how to do this then I suggest that you leave it to others that do.
There are several good vintage radio forums on the internet, and in my experience the experts who use them are always happy to advise people who ask for help, whether they be experienced or complete beginners.
Safety should always come first.
Keep safe!
Sunday, March 02, 2014
Wartime Civilian Receiver - Part 2: Chassis and cabinet repair.
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| Chassis after the initial cleaning |
After carrying it home and inspecting it more closely my initial pleasure in getting a bargain began to reduce somewhat. The radio was obviously complete, but the cabinet looked like it had been kicked down the garden path and the chassis was rusty. Wondering if I had taken on too much this time, I put it on the shelf until I could find enough time to work on it properly.
Several months later the fibre back panel broke into two pieces as I removed it; not really a good start! I stuck the bits back together with UHU glue, and then clamped both pieces to the workbench for a few days while the glue did it stuff. I didn't really expect it to work, but the repair seems to have held.
After carefully removing the valves I found that the chassis rust was less extensive than I had first thought. The top of the chassis was only lightly rusted, and a couple of hours scrubbing with a brass brush removed all but a few stubborn patches. The front and underside of the chassis were pristine, except for the inside bottom rear edge.
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| Chassis front view, tuning scale removed. |
Once all the loose rust and dirt had been removed I treated the metal with a rust converter liquid, taking care not to get it on the aluminum IF cans. After a few hours all the rusty areas had turned a bluish black colour. There were some rusty patches on the steel parts of the tuning capacitor, but a careful work over with the brass brush removed this as well.
The original dust bag around the speaker had lone gone, and I thought that I could see some damage to the paper cone. After removing the four wood screws, the baffle and speaker were removed from the cabinet.
Here was the first evidence that the Phantom Bodger had been at work on this set! A horrible yellow material had been used to replace the original speaker fabric, it was far too thick and totally unsuitable for the job. This was quickly removed, revealing a very sorry looking speaker.
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| Just horrible! |
The speaker was removed along with the fixing bolts, which had been overtightened so much that they had almost pulled through the wood. To do this I had to remove the two horizontal wooden mouldings. The oversize holes left by the bolts were plugged with wood filler, and the wooden mouldings glued back into place. The replacement speaker would have to be held in with wood screws.
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| Original speaker before removal |
I initially tried to repair the speaker cone, but after some success in gluing the torn edges together, I discovered that the voice coil was out of alignment and was scraping against the magnet. I learned a lesson here, next time I will check the alignment first.
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| Plessey 6 inch speaker |
May 1944 is clearly visible on the cork gasket of the speaker. Since the WCR went into production in June 1944, this suggests that my set may be one of the early ones.
I cut a piece of Tygan speaker cloth to size and carefully fitted it, taking care to keep it taut while fixing with staples. It took a few attempts before I was happy with my work. Purists might argue that the Tygan isn't right for a WCR, but I had plenty in stock and it does look smart.
Turning to the cabinet, there were a few loose joints that had to be glued together. I used Evostick wood glue for this, poking it into the joint with a cocktail stick before clamping it together and leaving it overnight.
The cabinet is made from soft pine and was covered in dents and abrasions. It also had some form of varnish applied by a previous user. I decided to take a fairly robust approach, and attacked the cabinet with fine sandpaper. After a few minutes I thought I had made a mistake, as the lighter areas of the wood were sanding away too easily, whilst the darker, harder areas remained. This gave a textured finish with patterning somewhat like a tiger's stripes. I decided to press on, but kept the sanding to the minimum required to remove most of the dents and marks.
After sanding I gave the wood a coat of Danish Oil. This went on clear but gave the wood a slightly darker finish when dry. This was left to dry overnight before applying a second and final coat. After a good rub down with a beeswax polish I think it looks pretty good!
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| The finished cabinet |
Later on I'll post details of the electronic restoration, so come back for more if you are interested.
Keep listening!
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Wartime Civilian Receiver - Part 1: Introduction
During the latter half of World War 2, the British government determined that there were a million or more UK households without a working radio. The manufacturers had stopped producing consumer sets in order to concentrate on war work, so no more new sets were available. Faulty sets often didn't get repaired, as many radio technicians and engineers had been called up for military service.
Recognising that the wireless was an important source of information and propaganda, the government created a scheme to produce domestic sets cheaply and in bulk, but using the minimum of materials. The task of designing this radio was assigned to Dr G.D. Reynolds of Murphy Radio Ltd. The final design was then given to 42 different manufacturers, who were contracted to produce identical looking sets. Whilst this seems strange today, the government were concerned that customers might prefer one manufacturer over another, presumably leading to supply difficulties, and making them anonymous avoided this. Manufacturers were therefore not allowed to put their name or any identifying marks on the finished set, although they were allowed to make small changes to the design in order to use stocks of components that they had. Most of these differences appear to have been things like loudspeakers and transformers, but there were a few minor circuit changes as well. Each manufacturer was allocated a code (A1 to A42) from which a technician could determine who the the manufacturer was when carrying out warranty repairs.
The cabinets were very basic, made from soft pine wood, with two vertical pieces of hardwood on the front for decoration. The tuning was also extremely basic with no reduction drive or glass scale, and instead of the exotic-sounding names found on pre-war sets, the WCR tuning dial has only 'HOME' or 'FORCES' stations. The set was medium wave only , as the long wave broadcast service was closed down during the conflict to prevent German aircraft from using it for navigation. A few sets were produced as MW/LW after the war (using a design produced, I believe, by Bush Radio) and these are now quite rare. Many more were converted by radio shops or by the owners themselves.
The WCR was produced in battery only and AC mains only versions, and went into production in June 1944. It was priced at £12 3s 6d and 175,000 AC versions were sold in the first year.
Electronically the set is a four valve 'short' superhet, but with the traditional detector valve replaced by a 'Westector ' metal oxide rectifier.
Although some cost savings were obviously made, having restored my AC set I'm not convinced that the WCR was actually as cheap to build as the 'utility' design implied. The mains transformer for one seems to be rather larger than it needs to be, and could have been avoided altogether if a transformerless AC/DC design had been adopted, as was very common in post-war sets. There would have been other advantages in doing this as DC mains was still widely used in the UK during the forties.
Given its simplicity, the WCR seems to work surprisingly well. Mine is working nicely on the workbench as I write, but needs a bit more 'soak' testing before I'll be happy to call it completed. I'll then be taking lots of photos before putting it back together.
Details of the restoration will appear on here soon, so come back if you are interested.
Keep listening!
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| A family gather around their wireless set during WWII (photo: BBC) |
Recognising that the wireless was an important source of information and propaganda, the government created a scheme to produce domestic sets cheaply and in bulk, but using the minimum of materials. The task of designing this radio was assigned to Dr G.D. Reynolds of Murphy Radio Ltd. The final design was then given to 42 different manufacturers, who were contracted to produce identical looking sets. Whilst this seems strange today, the government were concerned that customers might prefer one manufacturer over another, presumably leading to supply difficulties, and making them anonymous avoided this. Manufacturers were therefore not allowed to put their name or any identifying marks on the finished set, although they were allowed to make small changes to the design in order to use stocks of components that they had. Most of these differences appear to have been things like loudspeakers and transformers, but there were a few minor circuit changes as well. Each manufacturer was allocated a code (A1 to A42) from which a technician could determine who the the manufacturer was when carrying out warranty repairs.
 |
| Wartime Civilian Receiver - AC Version |
The cabinets were very basic, made from soft pine wood, with two vertical pieces of hardwood on the front for decoration. The tuning was also extremely basic with no reduction drive or glass scale, and instead of the exotic-sounding names found on pre-war sets, the WCR tuning dial has only 'HOME' or 'FORCES' stations. The set was medium wave only , as the long wave broadcast service was closed down during the conflict to prevent German aircraft from using it for navigation. A few sets were produced as MW/LW after the war (using a design produced, I believe, by Bush Radio) and these are now quite rare. Many more were converted by radio shops or by the owners themselves.
The WCR was produced in battery only and AC mains only versions, and went into production in June 1944. It was priced at £12 3s 6d and 175,000 AC versions were sold in the first year.
Electronically the set is a four valve 'short' superhet, but with the traditional detector valve replaced by a 'Westector ' metal oxide rectifier.
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| Wartime Civilian Receiver - Battery Version |
Although some cost savings were obviously made, having restored my AC set I'm not convinced that the WCR was actually as cheap to build as the 'utility' design implied. The mains transformer for one seems to be rather larger than it needs to be, and could have been avoided altogether if a transformerless AC/DC design had been adopted, as was very common in post-war sets. There would have been other advantages in doing this as DC mains was still widely used in the UK during the forties.
Given its simplicity, the WCR seems to work surprisingly well. Mine is working nicely on the workbench as I write, but needs a bit more 'soak' testing before I'll be happy to call it completed. I'll then be taking lots of photos before putting it back together.
Details of the restoration will appear on here soon, so come back if you are interested.
Keep listening!
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