Roberts - which one to get next?

[ambit-r]

Hello all, I have two R600 (early and late), R505, RFM3 and three R250 revivals. All are in everyday use (well except for one of the R250s).

I am just wondering which one would you recommend to get next? The absolute must is VHF band and ideally up to 108MHz.

Has R600 been the Roberts flagship back in the day? The early R600 (black buttons) is my favorite piece from my collection - looks and sounds great.

[crackle]

Roberts are to transistor radios as Dansette is to record players.
Why not get a Hacker, you will never look back at a Roberts and think the build and audio quality is as good.

Mike

['LIVEWIRE?']

All I can sat to that is that Roberts, over many years, must have been doing something right, having survived, albeit through several changes of ownership, long after other famous names, including Hacker, went to the wall. Not knocking Hacker, Dynatron, or any other brand, just stating a fact, besides which, some Roberts Radios, IMHO, were of decent quality in design construction and performance.

[ambit-r]

Originally Posted by crackle

Roberts are to transistor radios as Dansette is to record players.
Why not get a Hacker, you will never look back at a Roberts and think the build and audio quality is as good.

Mike

Which hacker would you recommend me to look at then?
I must say I am not a great fan of Hackers - at least not yet. Their's radios look kind of boring.

[60 oldjohn]

I would say a Roberts collection is not complete without the RT1 and R200. Yes MW / LW only, but used with one of these https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=137154 FM to 108 is possible. The above post has a lot to read through, this is the article mentioned http://www.i4cy.com/M0oox/fm2am/. I can help out with most of the parts if needed.


John.

[music-centre]

The Roberts R900 are quite well built , a fairly late model but with a decent size speaker.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/roberts_r900r_90.html

Steve.

[Herald1360]

Looks a bit like a Hacker clone, though....

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/hacker...p25brp_25.html

[Thyristor]

To me, Hacker and Roberts are very 'Granny' in styling; I always imagine Sister Dolly making sure Private Godfrey places his RT1 on a doily....

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by ambit-r

Has R600 been the Roberts flagship back in the day?

I think that role passed from the R700, 1966 and Roberts' first set with FM, to the larger R707 when that came out. Memory's telling me that, while the R700 does tune to 108 MHz, at least some R707s stop at 104.

The best Roberts sets for audio performance are probably the R707 and R900, but it's not easy to find a fully working R707 or to get one repaired that's not, as much of the circuitry is inside modules bought in from Mullard. The first synthesised tuning model, the RCS80, is a good performer too: expensive in its day (£130) and a complex radio with a lot to go wrong. The R800, which came just before the 900, is quite a large set too but uses a lightweight plastic 'speaker and is a disappointment because of that.

Have a look at the Hacker Hunter, Sovereign II and Sovereign III. The Sov. II's style is very different from the others, and any of those should sound as good as or better than the very best Roberts sets. There aren't, though, any Hacker portables tunable to 108 MHz except for a couple of late models when the company had changed hands and build quality was in decline.

Paul

[BRASSBITS]

the Hacker super Sovereign rp75
best radio ever

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by BRASSBITS

the Hacker super Sovereign rp75
best radio ever

I wouldn't want to be without one. But they tend to sell for a lot more than a Sovereign III, and really they're just a Sov.III in a bigger cabinet with the addition of a couple of short wave bands, so if you're not seriously into Hacker and aren't interested in short wave listening (which isn't nearly as useful as it used to be) there's not much motive to get one. And if you are drawn to short wave listening there are much better portables, a Grundig Satellit, Nordmende Globetrotter, Transoceanic, even a Vega Selena would be more rewarding by far.

Paul

[ambit-r]

Originally Posted by Paul_RK

I think that role passed from the R700, 1966 and Roberts' first set with FM, to the larger R707 when that came out. Memory's telling me that, while the R700 does tune to 108 MHz, at least some R707s stop at 104.
Paul

Paul, thank you.

I don't consider myself a collector neither SW listener.

Please note, I am not in the UK. The only two radio stations I listen to are above 104MHz and i re-transmit BBC Radio 4 at 107.9MHz which is the only quiet place in the whole band.

Hacker - I am sure these are great sets but without the top VHF band of very little use for my needs. There is also something in the design that Roberts sets have (the older ones) and Hacker sets lack. Just a personal taste I guess. SW bands are of no use for me.

RCS80 - that is a big no. I want a radio without digital circuits

R800 - looks awful. So no.
R900 - perhaps in the next 20 years. Too recent for my taste. And I prefer the look of a leather handle.
R707 - I was considering this in the past but the missing top of VHF band is a real bummer. Also, it uses (strange to me) 6V batteries. That does not match my flotilla of PP9 radios.

R700 - I was not aware of this model. From a quick research on the internet it seems there are two cosmetic variants. One with black scale similar to R600 (I presume it is a later model) and one with grey strip on the bottom third of the scale (i presume an early one).

R700 looks like a good choice. The former one looks like a big brother to R600. It adds treble and bass control from what i can see. I think R700 & R600 might have evolved into R707 & R606. They too show similarities.

I had a look into the traders service sheet and it seems R700 is powered with two PP9. PP9 is good. Although, I would like to ask why these "big" sets like R700 and R707 are not happy with 9V and need more?

Roberts did not fit Mullard modules into R700. Not sure if that is a huge advantage though. I recently replaced AF116s in the R600 IF module. Despite the horrors i read on the internet I was able to remove the IF module without removing the pushbutton assembly and actually it was a pleasant job to do. It didn't take me longer than an hour.

Re PP9 - these batteries are completely unknown in my country. I bought one PP9 from either Farnell or ebay for each of my sets. Whet they got flat I dissected them and fitted 6xAA holder inside the PP9 canister. I was happy with that for couple of years - the battery waste was growing though. Then I found better solution. I fitted 3x 18650 li-ion cells with a cheap BMS into the PP9 canister. The full charge voltage is 12.0V but none of the Roberts sets complains about it. R600 and R505 quiescent current at 12V was adjust to match the trades sheet though. I also made a simple li-ion charger based on LM317 for my custom PP9 packs. That is actually the reason I would like to stick with PP9 batteries.

[Nickthedentist]

Or, if you can manage without FM, go for one of the really solid valve models, e.g. the P5A: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/roberts_unknown.html

[ambit-r]

Originally Posted by Nickthedentist

Or, if you can manage without FM, go for one of the really solid valve models, e.g. the P5A: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/roberts_unknown.html

As much I like these I am not in the market for a piece of furniture. At least not yet Also, VHF is a must.

[Paul_RK]

Yes, an R700 does seem much the best way for you to go in the Roberts range. There are at least four (fairly minor) variants of dial, with as you say a white band at the bottom on earlier sets, and changes in the station markings as the BBC's Light, Third and Home were renamed Radios 2,3 and 4 within the production run of the model. It's just a bit bigger than the R600, and was only made in black vinyl with teak sides.

Not many British 1960s radios were tunable to 108 MHz, as all the available domestic FM stations then were beneath 100 MHz. One other exception was the early (1961) Dynatron Commodore, another high quality set which may appeal if you like its visual style at all:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/dynatr..._tp15tp_1.html

[Nukeybrown]

Originally Posted by crackle

Roberts are to transistor radios as Dansette is to record players.
Why not get a Hacker, you will never look back at a Roberts and think the build and audio quality is as good.

Mike

Couldnt agree more mike, well said

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Nukeybrown

Couldnt agree more mike, well said

Seems a bit harsh to me, depending on the period we're considering. Cabinets and general build standards of Roberts' valve portables are a cut above most UK competitors, where Dansette products were never outstanding in any department at all. In the early transistor days Hacker were just more ambitious, making generally larger and more up-market radios than Roberts: from the middle '60s on, in my view, Roberts' standards began to slide. But they did what it took to stay in business, while Hacker for some time maintained build quality that the market wouldn't support, and so went into liquidation.

Admittedly cost-cutting in Roberts production seems to have reached a ridiculous point now, with recent Revivals being covered in such hopeless stuff that after two or three years they mostly look scruffy alongside an averagely well preserved 1950s or '60s model.

[raditechman]

The Roberts 606 MB has bass and treble controls. It covers VHF to 104MHz but you could easily make it reach 108MHz.
Early UK VHF sets only went to 100Mhz as the frequencies above 100Mhz were used for communication, and in London it was a police band.

John

[Herald1360]

Just a thought.....

If you only listen to VHF stations above 104MHz, a simple LO tweak (and maybe aerial circuit too) will shift the coverage of the set from 88-101MHz to 95-108MHz. The tuning scale will be off by 7MHz but function will be fine.

Depends how far out on the "spectrum" you are whether you could live with the error

[Mike. Watterson]

Originally Posted by Paul_RK

Admittedly cost-cutting in Roberts production seems to have reached a ridiculous point now, with recent Revivals being covered in such hopeless stuff that after two or three years they mostly look scruffy alongside an averagely well preserved 1950s or '60s model.

Roberts hasn't existed for ages. It's cheap Chinese OEM stuff (some no-name Chinese is better). It's merely a badge owned by Glen-Dimplex. I believe they kept the UK cabinet production for a while. Current models seem x8 over priced.

Akai, Grundig, RCA, Bush, Murphy, Swan, Morphy Richards and others are really just badges.