Radionette Kurer

It looks like my interest in vintage radios has influenced one of my friends, because he turned up at my house recently with an unusual radio that he wants me to restore. I forgot to take the usual 'before' photo, so here it is almost as received, but without its knobs.

The Radionette 'Kurer' is one that I'd never even heard of before. It's a battery/mains portable from Norway with Long, Medium and Short wave bands, and I would guess that it dates from the early to mid 1950s. It's complete and in reasonable condition, but one of the knobs has lost its brass trim and another is cracked.

The set uses 'D' series battery valves which require 90V for the HT, and 1.5V for the filaments. Batteries for valve radios haven't been made for decades, so the chances of finding a serviceable one today must be very low indeed. Fortunately the mains winding on the transformer seems to be OK, so at least this set should be usable.

It took me a few minutes to work out how to remove the chassis from the cabinet. Eventually I realised that  the wooden panel onto which the chassis and transformer are mounted slides out.

The wires on the left side of the chassis are connected to a aerial  inside of the cabinet.

After the usual strip, dust and clean the first task will be to replace some of the capacitors. Although there aren't any wax paper capacitors in this set there are several brown 'Hunts' branded ones, which in my experience can't be trusted either and usually get replaced on sight.

The smoothing electrolytic is only rated at 150V working. My capacitor re-former won't go this low so this time I will have to bring the supply Volts up slowly using a variac. This trick doesn't work well with sets which have a valve rectifier, but fortunately this one uses a selenium rectifier in the HT supply which will work at low supply voltages.


 I'll let you know how I get on.

Keep listening!