Ar88

[Alan Bain]

Thanks to much help over a long period my onetime complete wreck of an AR88 is working once again, with a tuning flywheel, potentiometers that work (from Blore-Edwards, although I found a vintage RS one for AF gain and have to say this feels nicer to use) and an output transformer taken from an old record player. HT smoothing capacitors are original.

The aerial coils needed some attention - some loose and broken wires and homemade coil dope (polystyrene disolved in a suitable solvent) was very helpful here.

New Mica caps (from Hifi collective) in the RF section and film everywhere else and most resistors > 10 ohms had changed in value so much that they needed replacing.

So many people have helped along the way and the course of about 25 year that I'm sure I have forgotten someone but thanks to Ray in Santa Barbara for filling my luggage with spare valves duly packed inside my socks (and no thanks to my travel insurers for subsequently objecting that they were "computer components"), David in Cambridge for showing me how to braze new studs onto the back of the front pannel (in the days before I had oxy-acetylene equipment), H.F. Lewis of Ealing for replacement gears for the tuning assembly, deliverance for the flyweel, gezza123 for showing me what an AR88 should look like and some sketches of the paxolin board wiring and a source of replacement potentiometers with metal shafts, g6tanuki for hints on output transformer protection and replacing the bathtubs with suitable pcbs and turret tags.

Photo shows current state. I'm aware that some of the knobs are still incorrect (tuning especially, but also the top two which should be smaller!) and the tuning lock is missing, but it's a nice friendly working radio now.