[Sideband]

Hi Guy's, I don't think I've ever posted in the amateur radio forums before. I have acquired an Eddystone 840C. Not actually had one of these before so I thought it would be interesting to get it working. I've downloaded a manual which has a good copy of the circuit. I don't think it will give outstanding performance being only a single superhet but it seems well built and will no doubt be better than trying to use a domestic shortwave receiver with a signal generator as a BFO!

So having got inside it, there is previous work very obvious although the critical RF/IF stages look pretty much untouched. One thing immediately obvious is that the mains dropper has been removed and a mains transformer has been fitted. It still has all its U range valves and a valve rectifier so it's not been modified for parallel heaters. Curiously a small 6V transformer has been fitted to provide dial illumination. There is a 32/32 electrolytic hanging in the wiring underneath and another electrolytic squeezed in there as well. These probably just replace the original smoothing.

I'll need to investigate further around all this to see exactly what has been done.

The speaker is well past its best so I might have to look for a replacement. I think there is supposed to be a headphone socket on the front. This appears to have been moved to the back and a pot is fitted on the front where the phones socket should be. Oddly, the pot is not connected although it looks like it might have been at some time. Maybe this had been wired as a volume control for the phones only.

The main concern is the grafted in mains transformer. Was there a standard mod for a mains transformer if the dropper failed? It looks to have been fairly well done but I'll need to check around it all before I even think of applying mains.

Apart from all that, the IF stages look pretty much untouched. There are loads of Hunts Mouldseal capacitor and the red/yellow Plessy electrolytics which will all get changed.

If nothing else, it will give me something to do during the winter months and make a change from the run-of-the-mill radio's and TV's!