ca 1968 Bush VHF81 AC/DC MW/LW/VHF 7 valve radio

[howard]

Hello again,

I bought a pair of Bush VHF81s for £10 at Harpenden last Sunday from the lady whose husband, and regular Harpenden seller, sadly died recently. One was in very good condition, the other, not so good. Apart from a crack in the middle of the plastic trim across the middle and some mild scratches the better of the two sets was in good condition and it had a plug fitted, an indication that it had been checked.

I got them home, plugged the better one in and away it went, working perfectly. I took it apart and looked inside and it was nice and clean and all but two of its original TCC supamold capacitors had been replaced. I cleaned the volume pot, waveband switches and valve pins with Servisol 10. I replaced the remaining TCC caps and some of the replacement caps which were odd looking square things with better looking yellow Vishay and US polyester axials and did random checks on the voltages to the UL84 and UCH81 valves and they were fine.

I took the plastic trim off the scrap set and fitted it to this one, cleaned the case, speaker cloth, knobs, push buttons and dial with upholstery cleaner and then polished the case with Topps medium scratch cover which did an excellent job disguising the mild scratching.

I see lots of these Bush VHF81s at BVWS events and they usually look scruffy and are always very cheap and I suspect rarely sell so just get binned. That I feel is a shame cos these are surprisingly competant, reliable and good sounding little sets and are of course the last valve model built by Bush. This example has BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4 on its dial so must have built after September 1967 and thus is the latest valve set I have. This one is in excellent condition, with just the usual marks on either end of the dial, it picks up Classic FM, a weak signal here, with just the aerial on its rear cover (not all my valve sets can do that) and it's a very pleasant sounding little set to listen to.

Howard

[itactics]

Good job Howard! Its amazing to think that valve sets such as this were still being manufactured so late in the game. You have saved another historically important radio!

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by itactics

Good job Howard! Its amazing to think that valve sets such as this were still being manufactured so late in the game. You have saved another historically important radio!

The VHF81 was in production for several years and it sounds as if Howard's is a late example. It sold in large numbers despite the dated technology. There were a lot of transistor refuseniks in the 60s (there still are, on this forum at least ) who actively sought out the remaining valve models.

They make a good choice for a first restoration - cheap to buy, easily obtainable valves, good performers, FM coverage (to 100MHz). They are an AC/DC live chassis set though.

Paul

[howard]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

The VHF81 was in production for several years and it sounds as if Howard's is a late example. It sold in large numbers despite the dated technology. There were a lot of transistor refuseniks in the 60s (there still are, on this forum at least ) who actively sought out the remaining valve models.

They make a good choice for a first restoration - cheap to buy, easily obtainable valves, good performers, FM coverage (to 100MHz). They are an AC/DC live chassis set though.

Paul

It deserved to sell well alongside 1960s transistor sets cos it sounds rather better than those and its FM performance is better than Bush's own VTR103 transistor model. Its vertical chassis looks identical to the 1960 plastic cased VHF80/VHF80C models but with a fuse fitted but sounds a little better in its wooden case. It's not a particularly pretty looking set and its case is not as well made as earlier sets but it works well and will probably continue to do so reliably for another 40 years.

Howard