Just purchased a Dynatron Elan "project radio" here in the States.

[simpsons]

Hi John

What an interesting project report. Did the attached ARF video take as long to produce as the repair to the Dynatron!!

The sound quality from your AM pantry TX is very good and the choice of recording matched the radio's pedigree perfectly.

The poor quality of the rexine cover was soon to be matched by Roberts Radio on their expensive DAB equivalent to the pretty but awful sounding Revival 250 radio. A sign of things to come from Sangean, now the OEM for Roberts Radio.

The ARF site is an early Christmas present! Lots of interesting stuff and food for thought on site navigation and content. Baby Snooks and Daddy? Pardon!!

Chris

[60 oldjohn]

Hi John, Pleased you are able to add your Elan to your growing list of early / top end British sets, success stories. Keep your eyes open for a Pam 710 or more affordable Hacker RPC1, (Hackers only Radio Cassette) For your next project.

John.

[Graham G3ZVT]

A very good restoration, and sensitively executed.
Your observation of a tuning scale calibrated in Meters for listeners, but IFs in MHz and kHz for techs is an irony that we probebly wouldn't have seen, before it was pointed out.
I liked the twizzle stick you transformed into a twiddle stick, but as to why American toilet seats require the former will have to remain rhetorical

[McMurdo]

Very nice rescue, and its nice to hear opinions of these things from across the pond.

[paulsherwin]

Good job, it's smartened up a treat.

You can probably extend the FM coverage by tweaking the oscillator if you don't want to listen to anything at the LF end of the band, though the dial calibration will then be incorrect.

[xrhonda91]

Thanks much to all for the comments.

Chris---the video was quickly done using my old iPhone 8. Used phone editor to crop out some of the background, but for some reason the computer wouldn't play it, so converted original to Mp4 for report. The transmitter is a home-made, compact portable unit with a built-in USB Mp3-player module that operates on 5V so that a rechargeable "Power-Stick" or any clean USB source can be used for power. Have posted all my projects on ARF since 2009---hundreds... Not as active as it once was, but still see interesting posts.

John---Wonder if anyone here in the States even has a Pam 710? I visit the on-line sales sites multiple times a day, so maybe sometime one will "pop up"?

Graham---It is amazing how many companies offered bizarre promotional items for their products here back in the '60's and early '70's. The other side of that swizzle-stick states the old Olsonite motto, "Tops For Bottoms"...

Kevin---Am glad to have these few examples of U.K. technology. Very interesting to examine the differences in engineering & production.

Paul---This Dynatron actually covers the entire band as it tunes well past the 107 on the dial. But my Hacker RP72 only goes to 101 mHz.

John

[paulsherwin]

By the time your Dynatron was built, Europe was transitioning to using the full US style FM band rather than the 87.5-104 range used in the 60s (before that it was only 87.5-100). You could still hear police traffic around 101 until the late 80s.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by xrhonda91

Paul---This Dynatron actually covers the entire band as it tunes well past the 107 on the dial. But my Hacker RP72 only goes to 101 mHz.

John, in case you don't already know, in the UK, police, fire service and the like were allocated the top half of the VHF band above about 97MHz (using AM in the main).
This was mostly cleared by mid 1989.

<Edit>
(Sorry Paul , I missed your post).

[Bob_Moss]

Thanks for sharing this with us John, I have an Elan (the wooden cased version) which has been waiting repair for quite a few years (AM module issue). This may spur me on to get it finished!
Cheers,
Bob.

[xrhonda91]

Thanks Paul & Graham---interesting, then, that this Dynatron which came out in 1969 had the full FM (VHF) band while the later Hacker Sovereign lll (RP72) from 1973 only went to 101 mHz.

Bob---You're welcome. I very much like the Elan with wooden cabinet and it could be refinished to improve appearance if necessary. Not fun to remove and service the AM module, but definitely worth the effort. Good luck!

John

[paulsherwin]

Both Hacker and Roberts were conservative manufacturers and were late to incorporate the band extensions. In fact, it remains technically illegal to listen to transmissions 'not licensed for broadcast' in the UK to this day (though I'm not aware of this ever being enforced). Despite this, there were never legal band restrictions on radios (unlike in some other European countries) so there was no legal reason for manufacturers to restrict coverage. Maybe coverage was restricted simply because there was nothing to listen to 'up there'.

Oddly, the (tube) Hacker Mayflower I (1961) tuned to 108: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/hacker_mayflower_rv14.html

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Maybe coverage was restricted simply because there was nothing to listen to 'up there'.

Oddly, the (tube) Hacker Mayflower I (1961) tuned to 108: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/hacker_mayflower_rv14.html

Rightly or wrongly I've always imagined that to have been an incidental consequence of buying in an internationally marketed tuner head from Görler.

As far as I know there was little or no regular broadcast activity on UK FM above 96 MHz before 1965, but the intent to extend the band may have already existed for some while. Some early FM receivers didn't reach at all beyond the range needed to receive the standard Light, Third and Home programmes, for instance

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/champion_835.html .

[Graham G3ZVT]

The UK government was also conservative (small "c") in allowing new stations to operate on FM.
Up until late 1967 only the three National BBC services were broadcast on FM on frequencies arranged in three neat blocks on the low end of the dial. After that date, some BBC local radio stations started to appear, they were run on a shoestring, (pun intended), and their output was, and still is, pretty mediocre.
It wasn't until late 1973 that commercial radio stations started to appear and the British public heard adverts on the wireless for the first time.

[dazzlevision]

Looking at a photo of the innards of this radio, I can see that the VHF module carries a Pye part number sticker, so supplied by Dynatron's parent company (at that time).

Pye (and Ekco, Invicta, Pam and Ferranti) UK made radios and radiograms in the 1960s invariably used these Pye VHF RF modules. The earliest used Germanium transistors but later versions used Silicon types.

These Pye modules invariably covered the full 88-108 MHz band, so they could also be used in their export market models. The Pye/Ekco group had a substantial export business, which continued for some years after the Dutch Philips multinational acquired a controlling interest in the group in 1967 (the UK government had insisted that Pye remain at "arms length" to Philips for ten years after the takeover).

[xrhonda91]

Thanks Paul, Paul, & Graham. Interesting that it could be considered "illegal" to listen to something received on a "legally" manufactured and licensed receiver. Remember many years ago picking up cordless telephone calls in my neighborhood on the old U.S. "Police Band" just above the AM broadcast band on a vintage radio and clearly hearing a neighbor making a "drug deal".

Dazzlevision---Thanks for the details concerning the Pye VHF RF modules as that solves the "mystery" of the full-length band. Have saved your post for my Dynatron folder.

John

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by xrhonda91

Thanks Paul, Paul, & Graham. Interesting that it could be considered "illegal" to listen to something received on a "legally" manufactured and licensed receiver.

Just to add to Paul's comments,
it's often said it's not the reception that's the crime per se, it's more about the disclosure of the messages to a third party.

Before 1971 we needed a radio licence to receive broadcasts at home (If you had a TV licence, then this covered you for sound radio too).
But, if you had a fitted car radio, you always needed a separate licence for it regardless


Clause 5 in this old specimen states

5. The Licensee shall not divulge or allow to be divulged to any person (other than a duly authorised officer of His Majesty’s Government, or a competent legal tribunal) or make any use whatsoever, of any message, received by means of the Station other than time signals, musical performances and messages transmitted for general reception.

Even though the tangible licence has gone, the above provision still remains in other legislation, so I would say that we are on safe ground listening to (say) air-band for our own amusement, but we would be ill advised to post a recording of an incident publicly.
This of course is my opinion only.

[paulsherwin]

As I said, I don't think this prohibition was ever enforced, and it would be very difficult to do so.

The need for an additional radio licence for a car is a major reason mass market car radios were slow to arrive in Britain, and most were fitted to expensive upmarket cars. Most people would use ordinary transistor portables, which were covered by a main radio or TV licence. That's why your Dynatron has a socket for a car antenna.

[xrhonda91]

Thanks for the interesting licence images, Graham---have saved them for folder.

Paul---I do understand that it would be next to impossible (and costly) to fully enforce that law. It is also interesting that car radios had a separate licence which explains why some portables have the antenna connectors. Some of the larger sets such as this one would have taken up a lot of space in the very small British vehicles.

John

[Boulevardier]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

As I said, I don't think this prohibition was ever enforced, and it would be very difficult to do so.

The need for an additional radio licence for a car is a major reason mass market car radios were slow to arrive in Britain, and most were fitted to expensive upmarket cars. Most people would use ordinary transistor portables, which were covered by a main radio or TV licence. That's why your Dynatron has a socket for a car antenna.

I had a vague idea that it was also a condition for use without a car licence that the radio was only powered by its internal battery (not the car battery). Is that right?
Mike

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Boulevardier

I had a vague idea that it was also a condition for use without a car licence that the radio was only powered by its internal battery (not the car battery). Is that right?
Mike

I've briefly tried, and failed, to find a definitive statement on this, but I'm guessing that the requirement for avoiding the need of a separate car license was only that the radio had to be capable of working under its own power outside the vehicle: otherwise such popular sets as the little Philips P3G38T

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/philips_car_portable_radio_p3g38t_00_05.html ,

which used an internal PP6 as a portable but was powered by the car battery when slid into its holder, would have required two licenses.

Paul