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Old 21st Apr 2021, 12:05 am   #27
Paul_RK
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Fakenham, Norfolk, UK.
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Default Re: Keep radio original, or improve it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Richardgr View Post
Therefore a consequence of owning a device that was built to last forever is that it was never intended NOT to be improved over the decades of its life.
I'm not sure what you can be thinking of as improvements, unless you just mean made to work again after they stop, or to work well again after their functionality deteriorates - which is a different matter from making them work "better" than their original design allowed. Not that that's wrong if anyone wants to do it, but as this thread shows there are quite a few of us to whom it doesn't appeal.

I've a few pre-war electric heaters in use, but in general I've changed nothing about them aside from replacing mains leads where necessary. On the radio side of things, valve sets did sometimes require service in the course of their intended working lives, but almost always the requirement was for like-for-like replacements - a valve or capacitor fitted say in 1940 to a 1932 radio would be doing the same job as the original, not doing it in a different way or to a higher standard. I can't think of many electronic items that tended at all to be "improved" from their original design by the people who kept them going, unless you count the many radiograms in which 78 rpm turntables were replaced by three- or four-speed decks to refresh their usefulness.

There's also a difference between manufactured items that give the impression they were built to last forever, and any intention on the part of their manufacturers that they should! My memory's vague, but I think I've seen trade publications from the latter half of the 1930s devoting considerable space to the matter of how to persuade owners to replace their radios from the start of the decade: often not too difficult, at least when the owner could afford it, because radio design was advancing at a breakneck pace.

Paul
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