Motor tuning in post war sets.

[skodajag]

Until a few years back I'd assumed motor tuning was confined to pre war sets. Wrong of course. A few high end post war Grundigs deployed it, most notably their flagship 5050, about which there have been recent postings here under a different thread. The Philips BX998 also used it. Both the Grundig and the Philips use it mainly for wave changing, but the HMV 1612 radiogram has two motors, as per pre war practice, for both wave change and tuning. Are there any other sets post war which use motor tuning?

[Andrew2]

Rigonda produced a number of variations of their 'Symphony' radiograms which used motor-tuning. It also applied AFC via the motor which felt somewhat disconcerting! There has been a thread on these quite recently I think.

[elanman99]

In about 1970 I bought an upmarket radio for my car which has motor tuning (I still have it!).

Its an Autovox (Italian) RA191 and has L, M, 49m and FM bands.

I wonder how many other manufacturers were still making motor tuned radio's by the 70s

Ian

['LIVEWIRE?']

IIRC, Blaupunkt were still making motor-tuned car radios well into the seventies - the last one I recall was either a Koln or Coburg in the then standard DIN 'D' size case 9approx 7 x 5 x 2"). This had FM(VHF), MW, LW, & 49Metre SW Bands. Quite how they crammed all that, including the then standard 5 push-button mechanical tuner, into such a small case is a miracle.

[MotorBikeLes]

Not fully "motor tuned" in the sense being discussed here, but my Grundig Satelit 600 portable (not really) radio has electronic tuning by frequency selection thro the keypad, all of which are stored in memory. Alternatively, any station's frequency can be selected using the flywheeled tuning control, then stored. Stations on FM are selected simply by selecting the station's stored location, press enter and voila. However, for AM (LW, MW and a very wide SW), the radio has a preselector. So, select MW, the first stored location (on my set is 1368KHz Manx Radio) is instantly displayed, but it must then have the preselector tuned. Pressing the button in the centre of the tuning knob will immediately motor the preselector to the correct position more or less. "Unpress" the button, and fine tune if required. It can save a lot of knob spinning is you choose a high frequency end station, then move to one at the LF end.
Les.

[Goldieoldie]

Hitachi made a transistor portable TH 800 in the 60s
The tuning is via a clockwork motor !
It has an auto seek mode which when a signal is detected trips a relay which stops the motor !
Cheers Pete

[emeritus]

Some radios tuned by clockwork motors are discussed in this thread:


https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=140384

[Freya]

The HMV 1200 with the Marconi 880 alias are motor tuned, the gramophone versions are HMV 1600 and Marconi 881. These date from 1939

I bought a 1200 at RWB last December which is undergoing a full rebuild on the bench, generally it was the usual sticky grease on the tuning motor and gearbox and a few leaky capacitors throughout.

[skodajag]

The HMV 1200 with the Marconi 880 alias are motor tuned, the gramophone versions are HMV 1600 and Marconi 881. These date from 1939

Indeed, as were many other prewar sets. My post was about the survival of motor tuning into the post war period.