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Vintage Audio (record players, hi-fi etc) Amplifiers, speakers, gramophones and other audio equipment.

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Old 21st May 2021, 10:25 pm   #101
Aub
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

Well done. Keep going 🙂

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Old 21st May 2021, 11:10 pm   #102
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

so far 10/10 ,, i can understand how difficult it must get but very good
to see such lovely sets/grams getting working

thanks for the posts
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Old 22nd May 2021, 1:53 pm   #103
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

Thanks for all of the comments, advice and words of encouragement so far. It's definitely a milestone and I'm chuffed to bits with it. The amplifier just needs the modifications finalising as it's all a bit messy and strung up at the minute. Really I did want to find some early 1 meg grid leaks but they seem to be hard to come by now. Being as they'll be mounted under the chassis I'm sure I can live with fitting modern types.

The radio chassis seems to be generating a fair bit of hum so this will be back out for more work, I also need to get to the bottom of the slipping tuning drive as it's completely seized up again. Then I can power it back up and check voltages on all of the valves and see what's going on with it and whether I can get any life from the thing.

The Garrard still needs more attention, I did try just stripping down the motor and regressing then lightly freeing off and oiling the rest of the mechanism but it seems a though this will be a full strip down and rebuild.

Frankly this changer has seen a lot of use and some parts are very worn. For the sake of originality I'll be keeping it but if this was a standard gram I'd quite happily pull it out and replace with something better. I think this will give me the most trouble in order to get it working spot on.

I'll update with more photos soon and hopefully when it's working a little better I'll sort out a video.
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Old 3rd Jul 2021, 4:14 pm   #104
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

Hi all,
A little update on this thread. As with these sorts of projects I took a couple of weeks off and toyed around with some other bits and pieces. I decided to do more investigations with the radio having tested the valves earlier in the week, they all tested as good as new with some even slightly above spec.

Following the circuit back from the radio output valve I found that one coil was O/C with an intermittent connection and further back from this another coil had problems with one coil wire being disconnected and the connector pin wire trapped under the metal casing. Whether this was done for other reasons I don't know but I put it back to how it should be and powered up to be met with some life, finally!

I now have stations coming in on both MW and LW but it seems a little more 'deaf' than I would have expected. It easily picks up all of the strong stations (radio 4, talk sport, bbc asian network etc) but is completely silent otherwise. This is with a good aerial and earth. There also seems to be a fair bit of distortion and hum when tuning into stations but there is always a sweet spot where the sound is okay.

So plenty more to do but at least there is now something to work with which should make things a little easier.
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Old 24th Oct 2021, 2:56 pm   #105
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

For anyone interested I've uploaded a YouTube video of the radiogram playing. It is still an ongoing project but it's nearing completion. The worst has been the Garrard RC1 which has needed a lot of attention. This weekend I have finally sorted excessive play in the tone arm and it now drops correctly on a record. The final fault with the RC1 is a knock coming from the turntable platter itself when the weight of the pick up arm is introduced, it dissappears as it gets further towards the centre.

Everything else is almost spot on. I will need to give the cabinet some attention as some joints are becoming loose and it's a bit flimsy, probably caused by many years stored in a garage with varying humidity.

This has probably been one of my most challenging projects to date, it's spent the odd month here and there completely idle while I entertained myself with other things and I nearly considered changing the RC1 with a later deck as it's been such a nasty thing to work on, but I've persevered and I'm finally happy with how well its coming along.

https://youtu.be/2C9cO6-7d1U
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Old 24th Oct 2021, 3:21 pm   #106
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

Great video and good choice of music. Well done!
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Old 24th Oct 2021, 5:07 pm   #107
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

That's good! Super work!

How's the radio side of things?
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Old 24th Oct 2021, 6:11 pm   #108
EF80TVVALVE
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

Thanks both, the radio does work okay, I'd have expected it to be a little more sensitive than it actually is (I have a 3 valve battery TRF that is much more sensitive) but it does pull in all of the stronger stations easily and clearly. I'll probably look at this more closer towards the finish line but for now I'm quite happy with how it performs.
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Old 29th Oct 2021, 5:41 pm   #109
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Default Re: What exactly have I just bought?! A 1930s Radiogram

I think you've done exceptionally well with this, even better than I expected - is that an awful thing to say? You should certainly give yourself a very big pat on the back!

I'm not really surprised that the radio is a bit mediocre, I suspect that it never worked well from when it was first put together all those years ago, but you never know, once you've got the whole thing completed, you could return to the radio part and see if some design improvements could be made.

Very well done so far!
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