Pye black box G63
 

I am restoring a Black Box G63 stereophonic radiogram. I have managed to find the amp schematic, but no info on the FM tuner. Valve line-up is ECC85; 3 x EF89; EBC81. If anyone can help that would be great. Thanks.

Re: Pye black box g63
 

I suspect the G63 radiogram must be an export or local SA variant. Here it was only ever a stereogram AFAIK. A Pye FM radio of the period should provide some idea of the radio bits.

Try a search on Radiomuseum for Pye sets with the same RF valve lineup.

I always wondered at the time why my parents' "radiogram" wasn't.

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Could it be one of these?

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/pye_bl...tuner_bbf.html

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Yes, before it was delivered to me, my research told me it was only a gram, so I was surprised to find the FM receiver. Definitely an export model then. Some more pics attached. The radio has it's own solid state rectifier. It also kept promising company in the year of manufacture.

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Does the tuner actually identify itself as a Pye product?

May be a dealer or even diy mod?

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Those IFT's look continental/Philips, tuner head's a Gorler.

Lawrence.

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Not a retrofit by the looks of things. No markings on the chassis except the tuner head made by Gorler, as mentioned. Philips is a good bet.

Re: Pye black box G63
 

I'm in transit at the mo but I may have the service for this one it brings a bell know in about 2 hours.

Cheers

Mike T

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Hi, the tuner shown on Radiomuseum was an additional unit that was fitted as a plinth under the BB. Usually on the Chinevaserie ? unit, hence black.
This unit was switch tuned and had 3 crystals fitted of about 11 MHz frequency. The IF was, I believe about 350KHz.

The unit show by the OP was not one of those and is variable tuning

Ed

Re: Pye black box G63
 

As well as the Pye G63, there was the G63/T with the HFT113 FM-AM tuner, which was covered by a supplementary service sheet.

The HFT113 was from the Pye hi-fi series, and appears to have been the replacement for the HFT111. The HFT113 fitted into a Mozart-sized case, and had the valve line-up ECC85, ECH81, EF89 and EF184. The valves were mounted horizontally.

There was an FM-only counterpart to the HFT113, namely the HFT109, which I think was released a little after the HFT113, and replaced the Mozart HTF108. I haven’t seen the schematic, but the valve line-up was said to be ECC85, EF80, EF89 and EF184. Whether the HFT109 was ever used in the G63 I do not know.

As to the unit at interest, it could be that Pye South Africa installed a locally-made FM tuner in order to meet local content requirements. Pye products in the “colonies” were often different to their UK counterparts for this and other reasons.

The 3 x EF89 IF strip is probably somewhat unusual. Philips was on record (Philips Technical Review 1955 June) as preferring the ECH81, EF89, EF85 line-up, with the EF85 said to be the optimum choice as the amplifier/limiter for driving a ratio detector. (Although the EF80 was generally the industry choice for driving a Foster-Seeley discriminator.) So one might have expected 2 x EF89, 1 x EF85 for the FM-only case in a Philips circuit.


Cheers,

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Sorry so far only found G61 G66 G66A G71 none are remote similar chassis wise

Cheers

Mike T

Re: Pye black box G63
 

I can't see the typical Pye blue (rivetted metal) chassis identifier tag on this. So it may well be of local origin.

Re: Pye black box G63
 

Finished the re-capping today and tested the set. Radio and turntable working well. Just one helluva mains hum which is present despite the position of the volume knob. The service sheet makes mention of mains hum and suggested remedies (bottom of page 2), which I have done, to no avail. The set is missing one ECL82 output valve and I'm wondering if this is contributing to the hum (distortion?) One is on it's way tomorrow, so we shall see....