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Old 13th Sep 2011, 11:45 pm   #1
Hybrid tellies
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Default Wien 2

Not much of a restoration I know but I received this 8 transistor Wien 2 Hong Kong special today. I was going to use it as a donor set to try and get one of 4 other cheapy 1960's far east trannys going. First impressions were not good the tuning dial was loose and although the set was working the speaker sounded very shakey. I dismantled the set and found that the tuning gang was only held in by one screw which was about to fall out. I found a suitable sized minature screw from one of my scrap sets. As for the speaker again one of the mounting screws was loose. So with the tuning gauge and speaker now firmly in place it was time to refit the PP3 Battery and give it a try. All the available stations on both long and medium wave bands were picked up clearly and the RF alignment was spot on. All the IF coils looked untampered and still sealed. There are a few oscillation squeaks heard on tuning though the bands with a few medium wave stations appearing on the longwave band, but as this was not interfering with any of the national or local stations I am leaving well alone. I suspect this is quite normal for sets of this calibre. Refitting the pcb back into the small case proved to be a bit fiddly but we got there. I gave the set a good clean, inside and outside the case and it is now blasting out the late show from Radio Bristol as I write this. It's a bit tinny but not unbearable as some sets of this size can be.
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Old 14th Sep 2011, 12:06 am   #2
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Default Re: Wien 2

Most of these 60s Hong Kong pocket sets use pretty conventional circuitry and perform quite well. That one may even have Si transistors. I think Wien was a house brand for one of the Dixons / Currys / Rumbelows brigade in the 60s - they all went through a phase of using Germanic sounding house brands before moving to pseudo Japanese names in the 70s.

I suspect it originally had a leather case.
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Old 15th Sep 2011, 4:23 pm   #3
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Default Re: Wien 2

Does that say '8 Transistors' on the front? That's a lot for a little pocket set!
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Old 15th Sep 2011, 5:23 pm   #4
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Default Re: Wien 2

They were almost all conventional 6 transistor superhets, though some used an additional AF preamp transistor. The extra transistors were used instead of diodes or sometimes not used at all, and sometimes faulty or subspec transistors were used. The number of transistors was a selling point at one time regardless of the actual impact on performance.

It's analogous to the number of 'jewels' in cheap wind up watches of the same period.
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Old 16th Sep 2011, 9:30 am   #5
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Default Re: Wien 2

Yes Paul, I've been studying the photo of the innards and it seems one of the transistors may be used as a detector and the other as temperature compensation in the output stage. Hard to tell just from looking, but that's the impression I get.
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Old 16th Sep 2011, 9:51 am   #6
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Default Re: Wien 2

I have one of these where someone has disconnected all the leads from the ferite aerial coils from the pcb! I have no idea now where to solder them back to on the pcb.

This one is badged as "Boots" though but pcb looks the same as Hybrid Tellies radio.
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Old 27th Sep 2011, 6:02 pm   #7
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Default Re: Wien 2

Hi Simon
I have a Wien 22. look the same from the outside (except the extra 2 in 22) but uses 2 AA batteries. PCB is a slightly different layout and the transistors are different. Radio gives good results. They were supplied with a leather look case black with white stitching and red velvet lined.

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Old 30th Sep 2011, 9:12 pm   #8
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Default Re: Wien 2

I am sure this set uses Ge transistors with a Mullard OC81D used as the audio driver transistor, I don't think this can be original but it works well enough. In fact it works very well for a set of this era giving very clear reception on all available stations. It reminds me very much of my first medium wave only 6 transistor radio that I was given when I was a boy with the same tinny output but this set is much more sensitive and has long wave. I must admitt that because of the memories that it evokes from my younger days I have been happily using it every day.
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Old 30th Sep 2011, 9:19 pm   #9
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Default Re: Wien 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by michamoo View Post
I have one of these where someone has disconnected all the leads from the ferite aerial coils from the pcb! I have no idea now where to solder them back to on the pcb.

This one is badged as "Boots" though but pcb looks the same as Hybrid Tellies radio.
I can try and take a better picture of the PCB if it will be of any help.
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Old 1st Oct 2011, 11:00 am   #10
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Default Re: Wien 2

Thank you as that would be very helpful but please dont risk breaking your set for me !
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Old 2nd Oct 2011, 8:32 pm   #11
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Default Re: Wien 2

The first transistor radio I ever owned was a Wien.
I inherited it from my grandmother after she died in 1969. From memory, I believe it was purchased from a catalogue,possibly Great Universal, a few years before.
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Old 4th Oct 2011, 3:02 pm   #12
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Default Re: Wien 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by michamoo View Post
Thank you as that would be very helpful but please dont risk breaking your set for me !
I will try and get pictures up asap, but due to its small compact case the pcb is a bit tricky to shoe horn back in.
We use to use either Great Universal or Burlington mail order companies. The Burlington catalogue always had a better write up or review of their radios. As a kid I spent hours thumbing through the radio section of their catalogue looking at the latest transistor radios and dreaming the dream.
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Old 6th Oct 2011, 9:28 pm   #13
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Default Re: Wien 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by michamoo View Post
Thank you as that would be very helpful but please dont risk breaking your set for me !
I managed to dismantle the set again and took pictures. Hopefully they are clear enough apologies if they are not, they are the best I could do with my 4 year old phone camera. Whilst doing this I noticed one of the ferrit rod leads to the wavechange switch the solder connection was looking a bit dry. A carefull and cautious peice of soldering hopefully solved a potential problem. If you have one of these radios take great care when refitting the pcb back into the tiny case, it really is a shoehorn job.
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Old 6th Oct 2011, 11:21 pm   #14
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Default Re: Wien 2

Thank you so much for doing that! I am sure that your pictures will be a great help to me.
Thanks again and regards Jon..
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Old 17th Oct 2011, 12:17 pm   #15
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Default Re: Wien 2

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
They were almost all conventional 6 transistor superhets, though some used an additional AF preamp transistor. The extra transistors were used instead of diodes or sometimes not used at all, and sometimes faulty or subspec transistors were used. The number of transistors was a selling point at one time regardless of the actual impact on performance.

It's analogous to the number of 'jewels' in cheap wind up watches of the same period.
I think you are spot on Paul the extra transistor possibly being the detector diode, other than that it is a normal 7 transistor line up.
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Old 13th Nov 2011, 8:52 pm   #16
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Default Re: Wien 2

I managed to sneak this little radio down with us when we had a few days break in west Cornwall very close to where I was bought up. This little Wien was so like the little radio that I owned when I lived down here I was intrigued to see how well it would work. Back in the early 1970's such radios would pick up Radio 4 on 1052KHz from Start Point and Radio 2 from Droitwich on 200Khz, at night it would pick up the stronger continental stations including Luxembourg on 208m or 1440KHz. Well this one performed as expected picking up clearly BBC R5L on 693Khz from Start Pont on BBC R4 from Droitwich on 198Khz and RTE1 from Clarkstown on 252Khz. I could also just hear BBC R4 ON 756kHz BBC R Cornwall on 630Khz and Absolute on 1215Khz all from Redruth. At night the medium wave band was awash with European stations making tuning very critical, just like it was on my little radio all those years ago. This did bring back a few happy memeories.
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