Westinghouse Radio Desk Set Speaker

[poppydog]

I have this Westinghouse radio desk set with telephone amplifier from the early 70s that I recently purchased however the speaker doesn't work. It currently measures 3mega ohm. I have been looking around on the internet this evening for a replacement. I found one at Farnells, it's a 50mm 8ohm unit. The dimensions are right but I just wondered if the 8ohm will be ok. Will this be alright as a replacement? The original has S-54 written on it - see picture.
Regards
Poppydog

[paulsherwin]

If the amp is transformer coupled then it will probably be OK. If the amp is transformerless then the required impedance could be anything.

[poppydog]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

If the amp is transformer coupled then it will probably be OK. If the amp is transformerless then the required impedance could be anything.

Thank you for the reply Paul Sherwin, yes it is transformer coupled, the replacement had to be item specific in dimension as everything is built more or less around and on top of the speaker. The replacement I found from Farnell is more or less identical. I didn't know what the numbers meant on the back of the original, whether they were a batch code or it was 54ohm. A lot of the small speakers I looked at that were similar to mine are used in headphones and the like and these were often very high impedance, that is why I asked the question. The radio itself works off a small 9v battery and has only one am band.
Regards
Poppydog

[camtechman]

Does the Westinghouse unit have a model name or number. I'm becoming quite a serious collector of intercoms, office communication & similar units and many of them use 25 Ohm speakers, some 8 Ohms. One or two have used 50 Ohm.

[poppydog]

Originally Posted by camtechman

Does the Westinghouse unit have a model name or number. I'm becoming quite a serious collector of intercoms, office communication & similar units and many of them use 25 Ohm speakers, some 8 Ohms. One or two have used 50 Ohm.

Its a RLA 3190A. Regards Poppydog

[camtechman]

WOW! That's a nice unit.

Seeing it now and that it's made in Taiwan, the speaker is most likely 8 Ohms.

[poppydog]

Well the speaker arrived the end of last week and was fitted and the radio works a treat.

Originally Posted by camtechman

Seeing it now and that it's made in Taiwan, the speaker is most likely 8 Ohms.

Yes camtechman it may be made in Taiwan but I have to say it is very well made (for an oddball/novelty item), especially the clock side of it. When I took the cover off the clock mechanism I didn't expect to see what I saw, it seems to be made in Japan.

There were lots of background noises when I first tried the radio but that turned out to be our internet hub and all the other rubbish that was on at the time. I took it upstairs and it was completely different, I picked up loads of stations and all very loud and clear. The clock was cleaned and oiled, it keeps very good time. I have a little bit of touching up to do on the base and some repairs to the tops of each of the two pens, however saying that it doesn't look like it has had hardly any use. It came in its original box with its literature inside and was even supplied with a little 'ear', one end you stick to the side of your old telephone and the other you stick into the back of the clock radio and you can have your phone as a speaker phone through the radio speaker, and it works.

Thanks to everyone who advised on the speaker.

Apologies for no photos of the radio side of things as I seem to have deleted them, but I may, once all the touching up has been done, put this in Success Stories and I'll carefully dismantle enough to take some pics (for those who are interested).

Regards
Poppydog

[camtechman]

(I'll) put this in Success Stories and I'll carefully dismantle enough to take some pics (for those who are interested).

As a keen collector of Clock radios, I'd be most interested.

p.s: It's good that shielded magnet speakers are still available, the ceramic magnets on later speakers don't fit earlier units (radios, tape players etc) where the pcb was designed to fit around the smaller shielded magnet.