c. 1968 Bush TR130 7 transistor MW/LW portable in red

[howard]

Hello again,

I bought this red Bush TR130 yesterday at the Rudgwick Steam and Country show which is about 15 miles south of here in Sussex. It was on a stand amongst bits of old car parts and in rather scruffy condition with a smashed perspex top, a little pitting on its chromework, but apart from that in good restorable condition, and it is a red TR130 which is not that common a colour down here, indeed I've been looking out for a decent one for years and this is the first one I've found at an event and I've not seen one on ebay for a very long time either.

I attached a battery, switched on and not a peep, so I checked to see if it was taking any current and it wasn't so I cleaned the volume pot/switch and it started to take a little current but still no sound. The TR130 is infested with 3 x AF117 transistors and so I tapped them and popping noises came forth and eventually the set started to work, but quietly and somewhat distorted. I replaced the AF117s with three AF116s which all tested good and which had been blasted with a capacitor a while ago to clear their internal whiskers. It still sounded distorted and quiet but was picking up all stations so the next most obvious place to check in this set was the output driver transistor which in this case was an AC128. I flicked it a couple of times and away it went ! I fitted a NOS AC128 and it now worked well. It wasn't quite picking up County Sound radio on 1566 kHz MW so I checked its 470 kHz IF alignment which was fine and then performed RF alignment and the set now picks up everything. I checked the quiescent current and that was fine.

I completely dismantled the case and cleaned it, and replaced the perspex cover using one from another scrap TR130. There's hardly a mark on it now.

At last I have a TR130 in red, which I think looks nicer than the tan and black models. It works very well as TR130s always do once their grotty transistors have been sorted. One of these days I might find the rarest TR130 of them all, a green one.

Howard

[JoshWard]

That looks fantastic

I used to have a TR230 in black which I regrettably sold on eBay for £2, also got rid of my Murphy B818 for only 99p

If I ever see a red TR130 I think I might have to buy it, really cool looking set

[Hybrid tellies]

Have never seen one with a red case, looks really cool. I have the tan one from 1966 and some friends of mine had the green or olive coloured one. The TR130 has to be one of my favourite radios and is certainly used the most.

[howard]

Originally Posted by JoshWard

That looks fantastic

I used to have a TR230 in black which I regrettably sold on eBay for £2, also got rid of my Murphy B818 for only 99p

If I ever see a red TR130 I think I might have to buy it, really cool looking set

Hello Josh,

The TR130 in red does look very nice. I shouldn't worry about having sold your TR230, it sounds much the same but internally it's nowhere near as well built as the TR130. If you see a TR130 in good condition grab it, they're as cheap as chips usually and are brilliant transistor radios once they're working, and if you're lucky you might find a red or green one.

Originally Posted by Hybrid tellies

Have never seen one with a red case, looks really cool. I have the tan one from 1966 and some friends of mine had the green or olive coloured one. The TR130 has to be one of my favourite radios and is certainly used the most.

I think one other red TR130 has turned up in Success Stories but they are definitely scarce. They are certainly one of the best transistor radios built in the UK.

Flicking OC81Ds or AC128s doesn't always bring them back to life, but this one did. After the AF115-7s, I've found the OC81D to be the next most unreliable transistor in 1960s sets, I wonder why that is ?

Howard

[JoshWard]

Hi Howard, Thankyou for reminding me actually what a shockingly badly made radio my TR230 was. I remember everytime I got it back together it fell apart again or just collapsed on a shelf. The cabinet clips were never robust on the TR130/B818 so when they were even flimsier on the TR230 it was asking for trouble!

Still regret selling the B818 though...

I'll have to keep an eye out for a TR130/B818 (as if I needed any more sets...)

[GJR 11L]

Originally Posted by howard

....I think one other red TR130 has turned up in Success Stories....

I seem to recall putting up a success story post about one of my red ones, probably some years ago as, according to the battery usage database I keep (), the set in question has been through no fewer than 4 PP9s since.
Nothing wrong with the set, but I use it frequently. I shall set the forum search facility off in a different tab while I write this, just to see whether that set is still out there for comparison's sake.

Yours looks terrific, Howard, but I'd be very surprised to see one of your restorations that didn't.

This thread shows the one I did. Seems it was back in 2007 and I still haven't kept my promise to myself regarding getting some more sets done.

Anyway, keep them coming please Howard, I would post some of my more recent ones, but too many alternative interests now are restricting my wireless-fiddling and forum posting time alas.

[howard]

Hello again,

I bought another red Bush TR130 at Tonbridge on Sunday in very good cosmetic condition. This one didn't work either so I took a look at the AF117 transistors to find that all three screen wires had already had the solder removed from where they connect to the PCB but the wires were still touching the track, so I yanked them well away from the track and away it went working quite well, although it did tend to drift a bit.

Rather than using AF116s, this time more reliable AF126s were used to replace the three AF117s which Ron Bryan very kindly fitted. The output balance was then checked by connecting a voltmeter across 3.3 ohm resistor R30 which measured over 33mV - it should be 23mV over 3.3 ohms which corresponds to a current of 7mA so it was much too high. Resistor R30 actually measured 3.8 ohms so a voltage of 26.6 volts (7 x 3.8) was achieved across R30 by adjusting preset resistor RV3.

The set was completely dismantled, all the dust brushed away from inside and the outer case cleaned with upholstery cleaner. The volume and the tone potentiometers and waveband switches were cleaned with DeoxiT and the nylon volume drive gears lightly lubricated with plastic grease. The red vinyl cover had shrunk slighly down one side of the chrome loudspeaker grille trim leaving a small gap so the trim was removed and the vinyl cover gently heated for a couple of seconds with a hair dryer and pushed back into place. The set was then reassembled.

This TR130 turned out slightly better than the one above and needed no spare parts other than the usual three replacement transistors. It's a lively little radio and in red it's much nicer than the tan and black ones.

Howard

[Andrewausfa]

Another excellent restoration Howard, hopefully I will find a red one one day myself.

Andrew

[robjkmannering]

That looks great! I have had a couple of black ones but the chrome was pitted on both. The red sets the grille off nicely. Great job!
Regards,
Rob

[Tim]

Another cracking restoration Gromit!

Seriously though, both of those are really, really good. I wish I could find things like that!
I like the bandspread on these, ideal for listening to those naughty Pirates who were around at the time the set was made, although obviously post 1967 as it shows Radio1(allbeit BBC1) on the dial.

[Hybrid tellies]

Another nice one Howard. Very fortunate to find two red ones.

[davegsm82]

Howard,

possibly a daft question, but can I have your broken transistors?

I want to cut one open and see the whiskers for myself.

Dave.

[mrp32Dave]

This maybe my first post, cant remember.
Very nice red TR130's, I like these very much and have been greedy
The three at the front have been fully restored, the one at the back is as found just cleaned. Only one needed the transistors replacing.

[neil29]

Again i like these radios too . but how many colours were availible? cheers neil.

[Nick_B333]

I (literally) stumbled across one of these in a junk shop on the Lincolnshire coast today. It seems to work and only requires the dial pointer repairing and a thorough clean. As a bonus I found it had been fitted with a new PP9 and it's been sat here on the bench with me listening to AFN Europe on 837kHz all evening. Still has the original AF117s though so I guess I can look forward to replacing these at some point.

Interesting reading the list of colours they were produced in. The sound quality of the set is astounding considering it's size, it may even replace my Dynatron Nomad as the R4 LW monitor!