1957 Ekco U319 VHF/AM 6 valve AC/DC compact table radio

[howard]

Hello again,

This is another set from the December Wootton Bassett auction and I won it for £8. It was in a poor state, filthy dirty, its brass trim was badly tarnished and it had obviously been owned by a smoker. It had a nasty scratch in the ivory painted front but apart from that the cabinet under the dust and dirt was absolutely unmarked, with no scratches or chips whatsoever. I had a look inside when I got it home and again it was in a poor state with a thick layer of rust on the top of the FM tuner unit, white specks of tarnish all over its aluminium components and a layer of dust, dirt and wax over most of the top surface of its chassis. I tinkered with this original chassis and got it sort of working but it was soon apparent that the AM/FM tuner unit was too rusty to repair so I acquired a second set cheap which had a much better chassis in it. I see that the U319 has not received much enthusiasm on the forum so I wondered if it was worth spending time and money on this model but as I was sure I could build them into one nice set so I went ahead. Both Ekco and Trader service sheets are available for the U319 on Paul Stenning's DVD and website above.

One can get at most of the components with the chassis still in its case so with the back cover off ...

- the worst of the dust was brushed off and waxy grime cleaned off with white spirit
- the audio coupling capacitor was replaced
- the mains wax capacitor between the on/off switch and smoothing capacitor was replaced with an X2 safety capacitor
- a couple more large wax capacitors were replaced with nice chunky 1.5kv LCR caps
- the volume/tone potentiometers, valve pins/bases and tuning capacitor earth springs were cleaned with Servisol 10
- the FM aerial wire on the back cover was refitted to the original plug
- a new mains plug with 3A fuse was fitted

I switched it on and it worked but not well, I checked all the valves by swapping in NOS ones and only a new UL84 made a small difference. So I proceeded to replace the plethora of Hunts capacitors in it with US sourced polyesters hoping that would improve things but the set just got quieter and quieter. I checked all the HT/LT voltages on all the valves and all were fine. So I left it and started on its case.

I dismantled the set with the better case, prised off the knobs (which were stuck on really tight), and the loudspeaker baffle, brass trim and dial were removed. I stripped the white paint off the front with Nitromors and then cleaned the case with white spirit, and the loudspeaker fabric and the glass dial with upholstery cleaner. I masked off the front and resprayed it with Antique White Gloss paint which is a new colour in the Plastikote range and it's a perfect match for this set (and many other sets too). I carefully cleaned off the overspray around the edge of the front and polished the case with Brasso and Beeswax in Turpentine polish. I removed the brass trims from the knobs and removed the tarnish from them and the front trim with a Brillo pad and polished them with Brasso and varnished them with Rustins metal varnish. The long brass trim across the front was seriously tarnished so I used wet'n dry to remove the deep pitting, then a long polish with brasso followed by a coat of Rustins metal lacquer.

I returned to working on the chassis, realigned AM including adjustment of the extension dial cord which runs into the FM tuner as it had become slack but that made little difference. So I took it over to Ron Bryan for evaluation. He discovered that there was a fault within the tone control which was loading input into the UL84 grid so I whipped out the one from the other scrap chassis which was found to be OK, that was fitted and the set then worked considerably better. Ron also found that the C53 50uF 12 volt UL84 cathode bypass electrolytic capacitor was leaking badly so we stuffed a new one inside the old case. This was achieved by drilling tiny holes through the aluminium tag rivets either end, cutting the capacitor case neatly in half with a pipe cutter, removing the wadding inside, fitting the new capacitor inside the case with its wires fed through the new holes either end and then closing the case using clear tape. The repair wont show as a clamp goes over this capacitor. That was connected up and full volume was at last achieved.

I like this radio whatever others think of it and it was worth spending quite a lot of time and money on it. It may well be just another 1950s AC/DC valve radio but it works very well with no hum and even its dial lights are bright, it sounds very good for a compact set and it picks up everything on MW/LW, and VHF up to 100 MHz. It's well spec'd with a revolving aerial and numerous sockets and it's a nice neat compact design. It's now back in pristine condition but I daresay if I hadn't acquired it at the Wootton Bassett auction then it may have ended up broken up for spares. My thanks again to Ron Bryan for his help in sorting this one out !

Howard

[Steve_P]

Had one for 12 years now. They came in wood too, and do sound very good. Also available under the Ferranti brand name, but these are rarer.

Another one done to your usual standard.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[howard]

Hello Steve,

Glad to hear someone else thinks these sound good.

I've found a pic of it as acquired in the auction ....

Howard

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by howard

I've found a pic of it as acquired in the auction ....

That really is impressive

[paulsherwin]

I've got one of these in the 'to do' pile. I'm now inspired to move it to the top of the queue

Paul

[michamoo]

I also have two of these. The larger wooden AC only version and the above AC/DC version. I must get round to making one decent version from the two. It says on this site that they sound better with the output valve cathode bypass capacitor removed from the circuit!

[howard]

Originally Posted by michamoo

I also have two of these. The larger wooden AC only version and the above AC/DC version. I must get round to making one decent version from the two. It says on this site that they sound better with the output valve cathode bypass capacitor removed from the circuit!

We tried doing that, it's arguably slightly better sounding without it but at the same time it loses quite a bit of volume.

Howard

[geofy]

Excellent work Howard, on all your recent restorations, it is amazing how these sets keep turning up. The cathode cap is, of course, there to provide correct audio signal decoupling while maintaining correct dc bias via the cathode resistor.

Geof

[Nickthedentist]

I saw this in the flesh yesterday. It does indeed look brilliant. And it plays VERY loudly too

[ronbryan]

Originally Posted by howard

So I took it over to Ron Bryan for evaluation. He discovered that there was a fault within the tone control which was loading input into the UL84 grid ....
Howard

A few days after Howard's visit, I dismantled the Egen dual concentric tone/volume pot to see why the resistance varied in such an unexpected manner. After removing the wire circlip and prising up the tabs on the outermost (tone) pot casing, the track and wiper boards were removed from the spindle and inspected. The fault was caused by a blob of black conductive material (carbon?) shorting the track to the centre slip ring. This had the effect of making it like a tapped pot, with the tap joined to the wiper. I scraped the blob off off and the pot behaved normally after that.

Ron

[Nickthedentist]

Very interesting Ron. What a strange fault.

I always try to repair pots before replacing them, especially as replacements are getting scarcer all the time.

Nick.

[jay_oldstuff]

i have the wooden cased AC version, one of the first valve radios i got and one of my very first restorations the screw for muting the internal speaker can prove troublesome bypassing this got mine working, i used it like this with no other repairs for over 12 months before discovering this site and then replaceing all the old hunts caps. thay do sound very good. well done with yours.

jay

[michamoo]

Not me or my set but this is the model..


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo0rdan4P50

[howard]

Yup, that's the one ..... once it got going it worked really well !

Howard