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Old 4th Nov 2018, 10:06 pm   #21
paulsherwin
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

That's a very impressive effort.

I think what has happened here is that Philips Eindhoven passed an unmodified export radio design to Philips Ireland so they could build it for the Irish market with a modified tuning scale. It may well have been the first set produced by Philips Ireland after the liberation of the Netherlands and the end of WW2. It's notable that it uses B8B Loctal valves rather than the smaller B8A Rimlocks used in almost all postwar Philips sets from 1948 until the mid 50s.

Variations on the same design appear to have been built by a number of Philips national subsidiaries including Philips Belgium and Philips Finland.
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 3:53 am   #22
Maarten
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

It was indeed customary at Philips to sometimes share designs between organisations and/or factories. In this case it was a somewhat older design that might have been shared for cutting costs to quickly produce a 'new' model (possibly including case moldings or manufacturing equipment, since it may not have been produced anywhere else by that time). Or it might have been shared before, in which case Philips Ireland may have manufactured the 658U as well and just carried on producing it for another model year. I think I've seen pictures before of 658U sets of which I couldn't establish where they were produced.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
Philips country codes indicate the country of manufacture - 'G' is the UK, 'D' is (West) Germany, 'IF' is Ireland etc. Philips export sets were normally made in Eindhoven and have an 'X' country code.

Philips had factories all over the world at one time. To some extent this was to tailor products to specific markets, but a more important factor was the hefty import tariffs imposed on radios by most countries before the 70s. Local manufacture avoided these. Pye had a big factory on the outskirts of Dublin for the Irish market.
I believe my below explanation is accurate, but since it is mostly a product of reverse engineering I don't guarantee this.

The letters in the model number don't indicate the country of manufacture or destination directly, even though there is some correlation especially in case of 'smaller' national organisations such as the Irish one. When in case of such a set, no letters are printed in front of the serial number and no execution number (suffix behind a - or a /) is present behind the model number, the set was probably specified, designed and manufactured in a single country (the one indicated by the letters in the model number).

In general:
- Letters in the model number indicate the national organisation that specified the set.
- Letters in front of the serial number indicate the factory (or in some particular cases the distribution center in which a final assembly or packaging step was performed). May have been omitted for some smaller factories.
- The suffix behind the model number indicates the destination market and is omitted or /00 in case of a set for the general market or the local market of the specifying organisation.

Last edited by Maarten; 5th Nov 2018 at 4:21 am.
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 3:57 am   #23
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rod H View Post
I have attached a copy of the scale reproduction, which for convenience I exported from Open Office as a pdf. I have also attached a copy of the damaged original scale for comparison.

Rod
What a wonderful result!

Is there any chance of reading what's left of the markings on the side? There might be a code number, a reference to the set model and a reference to the destination of the dial.

Last edited by Maarten; 5th Nov 2018 at 4:23 am.
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 7:40 am   #24
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Hi Rod
Well done for the redrawn dial, it looks very good, that wavy line at the bottom looks like it took a while to do.
In my limited experience the results from printing from inkjet or laser printers comes out fairly pale compared to a silk screen printed dial printed with real solid paint.
It may be advisable to experiment making the colour darker, at the moment the new dial looks very pale, almost orange, compared to the original. (at least on my PC screen it does)

Mike
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 9:40 am   #25
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maarten View Post
The letters in the model number don't indicate the country of manufacture or destination directly, even though there is some correlation especially in case of 'smaller' national organisations such as the Irish one. When in case of such a set, no letters are printed in front of the serial number and no execution number (suffix behind a - or a /) is present behind the model number, the set was probably specified, designed and manufactured in a single country (the one indicated by the letters in the model number).
Picture of the identity plate is attached - serial number has numerals only.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maarten
Is there any chance of reading what's left of the markings on the side? There might be a code number, a reference to the set model and a reference to the destination of the dial.
There is very little left of the markings on the edge - picture attached of what remains.

Quote:
Originally Posted by crackle View Post
Hi Rod
..... that wavy line at the bottom looks like it took a while to do.
..... at the moment the new dial looks very pale, almost orange, compared to the original. (at least on my PC screen it does)
Mike
Open Office comes with lots of handy shape tools and the stepped effect was in fact one of the easier parts to achieve using repeated copy and paste. The trickiest bits by far were the waveband switch symbols on the far right, which needed to be built up in a series of superimposed layers - again the custom shape tools came in handy. I love these kind of challenges!

Also, thanks for the advice on trying different colours - yes the colour is in fact one of the many orange shades available in Open Office. The existing printed letters on the original scale are in fact a pale yellow (although the uploaded scan makes them appear brown!). However, working against a white background the contrast ratio is so poor it's hard to see what you're doing, so it was easier to work in orange. When I eventually do the printing I'll test a full range of colours to find which works best.

Rod
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 11:16 am   #26
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Quote:
Originally Posted by rambo1152 View Post
"Droitwich" is marked at 1500m fair enough, but what is "England" doing at around 1800m?
Thinking back, as a lad, in the 1940s, I could hear the early evening BBC transmissions to Denmark on long-wave on our trusty Marconi 272. I cannot remember the wavelength,though.
It was quite likely that the spot on the dial referred to was the wavelength.
I'm sure it was on long wave. Tony.
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 8:51 pm   #27
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rod H View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maarten View Post
The letters in the model number don't indicate the country of manufacture or destination directly, even though there is some correlation especially in case of 'smaller' national organisations such as the Irish one. When in case of such a set, no letters are printed in front of the serial number and no execution number (suffix behind a - or a /) is present behind the model number, the set was probably specified, designed and manufactured in a single country (the one indicated by the letters in the model number).
Picture of the identity plate is attached - serial number has numerals only.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maarten
Is there any chance of reading what's left of the markings on the side? There might be a code number, a reference to the set model and a reference to the destination of the dial.
There is very little left of the markings on the edge - picture attached of what remains.
Thank you! A low serial number without letters in front, is typical for some smaller factories. I think we can safely assume this set was made in Ireland (later they used the letters PE in front of the serial number). Also the other printing on the type plate (code number 28 597 35.2 and the spelling of Nr. versus No.) can be interesting for future reference.

The markings on the edge, even if incomplete, show at least one interesting fact. The code number starts with A3 219, which indicates that the dial was designed around 1947/1948 (so in line with the model year, not an old 658U dial) in The Netherlands. It seems the existing product was adopted for production and marketing in Ireland without any - or with very little design effort on part of the Irish factory.

Last edited by Maarten; 5th Nov 2018 at 9:18 pm.
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Old 5th Nov 2018, 9:34 pm   #28
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

The code number could also start with A3 218, which would place it around 1946/1947 in which case it could have been used in some version of the 658U.
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 1:00 pm   #29
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Looks to me like a danish dial.
It has Göteborg and Tröndelag spelled with the correct ö letter.
And it has Copenhagen spelled (in correct danish) as Kobenhavn with a / through the o, which is the danish version of the ö letter.

Martin

Last edited by Dillen_de; 7th Nov 2018 at 1:06 pm. Reason: Info added
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 1:44 pm   #30
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Is it not an attempt to spell everything as a native would?
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Old 7th Nov 2018, 2:31 pm   #31
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

I suspect the tuning scale shown in #1 (which is not the OP's Irish radio) was made by one of the Philips Scandinavian factories.
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Old 9th Nov 2018, 8:02 pm   #32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by julie_m View Post
I can see both "Bruxelles" and "Brussel" among the station names; I guess the former would be French-speaking and the latter Belgian-speaking.
There is no such language as Belgian! French is spoken in Wallonia in the south of the country and, although the spoken language in Flanders to the north is Flemish, this is actually a collection of quite different dialects so the high level language understood by everybody and used for all broadcasting is Dutch.

There was an exception a couple of years ago - a woman who'd featured in one of these modern talent programmes - Belgium's Got Talent or some-such - was asked to commentate on an awards ceremony being held in Antwerp.

Being a local girl, she did it in her local dialect - which around two thirds of the viewers couldn't understand!
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Old 10th Nov 2018, 3:26 am   #33
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The scale in the opening post looks like a general Western Europe scale to me. Could have been fitted to a Dutch set. If I haven't missed one, every city is spelled in its native language.

When looking through the 658U partslist, I did encounter something a bit more worrying though. It seems to use a piece of asbestos cord in the scale holder. The BIF may or may not, but I would be careful.
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Old 10th Nov 2018, 3:15 pm   #34
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rod H View Post
If O.C stands for shortwave, I like the theory that these would be SW stations also being broadcast on MW. How on earth Joe public would know the meaning of "O.C". on the scale of an Irish set beats me though!

Rod
Things weren't as dumbed-down as now, and if terms were used like that, people would find out what they meant. Ironically, with the world's resources of knowledge in their pocket now, most people today are much more idle and ignorant than their forebears were.
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Old 11th Nov 2018, 1:37 pm   #35
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"with the world's resources of knowledge in their pocket now"
Only the summary and most is trivia, cats or porn. There is some good stuff, but almost hidden in the noise!
OC on a MW scale won't be for Shortwave stations on MW.
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Old 11th Nov 2018, 2:24 pm   #36
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

I agree with Mike about O C.

What is noticeable about both Philip's dials featuring this strange designation is that they seem to refer to a band of frequencies as the bars on the scales are about three times the length of all the other station bars. Also, the three bars on the dial in Post #1 cover exactly the same range, indicating that this was a shared range of frequencies.

I tried to compare it with the dial that Lawrence linked to in Post #13 but it comes up 'Error'.

I've tried going back to the home page and working forward from there but all of the links to dial pictures come up with the same message, so there must be something wrong with the website.
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Old 11th Nov 2018, 6:10 pm   #37
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I've stumbled on that picture by accident whilst doing a search.

This link works: http://www.bendijkman.nl/images/BX272U.jpg

There are five more on that site for other models with the same or similar markings, one of which turns up several times with different colour markings and this one which goes in the reverse direction to convention:

http://www.bendijkman.nl/images/BX180Ud.jpg

Here is a Spanish one: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--DrlSQaowO...25281%2529.jpg

The same frequency band but this time marked O C Español.

On this one: http://www.hupse.eu/radio/images/Philips_990X_Dial.jpg the same band is marked Post Belges - note that although the Home Service transmitter are marked, there is no trace of the Light Programme on either 261 or 1500m.

Here's a clearer example: https://www.qsl.net/sm5dff/915x-dial.jpg Again, no 261m which, after all was a synchronised lowish power network but 1500m has appeared.

And finally, the weirdest one of the lot: http://tonsoldradios.com/imgs/forsale1/b5x_05l.jpg

All of the others are from the 40s as the frequencies shown predate the 1948 Copenhagen plan but this one most certainly isn't! It has FM, for a start but, with only 42 channels, assuming they are 200kHz channels, that is only 7MHz, so it is the original 87.5 - 94.5MHz European band and I don't think the MONO STEREO refers to the radio!.

The station markings are very odd. some have white bars of varying lengths whilst others have none. There is no apparent rhyme or reason for this that I can see - it doesn't seem to have any geographical significance. Apart from SW, there are no wavelength or frequency markings except for the Mc/s mark at each end of the FM scale.

However, at the end of the MW scale right at the top, there is our old friend O C INTERNAT.! Looking along this top row you can see cutouts in the black paint - a long one, again, for the mystery name and smaller ones for the other names.

Presumably these other names only spring into life when the scale is illuminated and the scales also appear at the same time (in very small figures!)

The dial markings are in Dutch and French, also the band selector buttons (wave is golf in Dutch, so MG, LG and KG are Midden Golf, Lange Golfand Korte Golf respectively. So was this set aimed at the Belgian market or France, Belgium and the Netherlands?

Again, of course, note that it is a Philips.
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Old 12th Nov 2018, 10:05 pm   #38
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Probably 88 to 100MHz, the pointer can be positioned beyond the canal scale and there should be MHz numbers which are hardly visible in the picture. The model was from 1960, so it was standard to go up to 100MHz.

I'm not sure about the destination of the set, but if it's a plain B5X04A without execution number it would likely have a scale for Netherlands+Belgium, Netherlands+Belgium+Swiss or Netherlands+Belgium+Swiss+France.

The lack of band spread and station names on the SW would suggest it isn't an export set. Also, a set especially for France might have more station names on the LW.
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Old 4th Jan 2019, 12:06 am   #39
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Thanks to everyone for the useful information contributed to this thread late last year. I have now completed the refurbishment of this Irish built Philips set, model BIF 372U (circa 1946/7) which is a variant of the more common 658U.

Dealing with the damaged tuning scale, on which more than 50% of the original lettering had been washed away, has been nothing but a labour of love! As the set belonged to the mother of a family friend who lived in Ireland, and hence has much sentimental value , I was determined to produce something that looked presentable and as faithful to the original from the point of view of station markings, accepting that I would never be able to reproduce the 'see through' look of the silk screened original, the only options available being what can be done on a home printer. I know the purists might not like this, but I could see no other way without a considerable outlay for screen printing, etc.

So this was the method I followed: I produced the screen artwork and printed it as a mirror image on adhesive inkjet transparency paper. This was stuck to the back of the glass and then sprayed with white lacquer, having first masked of a couple a couple of sections through which the dial pointer would show through. I then finished it with a coat of matt black, as the rear of the scale is visible depending on how it is positioned. The masking was then removed and the transparency paper trimmed to the edge of the glass all the way round.

One main snag with producing a scale by this method is that the lettering does not show up as brightly from the edge illumination compared to directly printed letters. I think the original screen printing must have used some form of special paint with a 'glow' quality. However, I don't think this matters greatly.

Other than that, the set needed one new RF valve, re-capping of the electrolytics and re-centering of the speaker magnet.

I have attached a few pictures, including the final scale artwork

Regards

Rod

PS Apologies for one of the pictures being upside down - don't quite know why that happened!
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Last edited by Rod H; 4th Jan 2019 at 12:15 am.
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Old 5th Jan 2019, 8:22 pm   #40
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Default Re: Philips Radio and Tuning Scale Mystery

Excellent work.

OC Internat.
The Copenhagen plan set 202m and 188m (the two frequencies perhaps explaining the length of the bar) as international common waves. This, in French would be 'Onde Commons' - OC (or similar)

The plan also gave various 'common waves' 'OC' to various countries- I think the aim was for low powered use at multiple sites.
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