Really pretty cabinet. I would be happy just having such a nice looking unit on my shelf even if it didn't work. The fact that you've returned functionality is just icing on the cake!! Nicely done.
Pha Q Yes I like it. Pye are not that popular on this side of the pond. It is the first one I have found. Lots of rca, Rogers, and electro home around. Grundig, Pye, Normende less common. I have a Normende as well to overhaul some day . It's actually sitting next to me in the workshop I just can't t getting at it because there are a few tvs in front of it that need to go.
Normande is one I am looking forward to doing. My wife is pressuring me for that one as it was her parents radio and she remembers it well when she was growing up. It is sitting right behind that work table in my garage, but it has a bunch of things stacked beside it, so I have to dig it out. Have a few flat screen TVs to deal with and then I will have room to move it.
I still have my P75 which I commandeered from my parents when I was a kid in the '60s. My Dad put a long wire aerial up in the roof and one day I tuned in WNYW from New York (to me in London UK). That was it - been hooked on radio ever since! Nice video, thanks.
I just got 2 of these I usually work on Bush Dac90s , there are a few more signal caps you've missed that make a difference , the one on top of the audio transformer makes a difference , I paid £5 each for my p75s , really easy to work on , I'm only trying to add to the knowledge ,my great work (we do call them valve radios in the UK )
PYE is basically Philips and was well-built back in the day. Servicing was standard and parts were readily available. A relatively straightforward repair and restore compared to a large console radio made just after WW2.
Yes this is true but got sarcasm for saying it, there was no difference between the 2 brands, they used eachothers parts and cabinets for many years since 1967 the full takeover happened. my uncle had a tv repair shop in north staffordshire UK for 50 years and told me this years ago. both excellent and very well made brands that were built to last.
Theyve always had something to do with eachother, they often used eachother parts and designs going back before 1967, thats how companies used to be in those days, and not trying to close eachother down like they do today, they actually helped eachother and gained massive respect from doing so.
i've never yet seen any pre late 60s pye radio or tv using philips parts, or vice versa...they are easy to spot once you know them....and i have radios from both firms from the 30s to the 70s, which models?
Nice find and fix. Please go ahead and make a video of adding the step up transformer to this radio, I think it will make an interesting video. Cheers from Sydney Australia!
I'm glad the broken speaker wire was long enough to resolder. I've had some decent luck replacing those with solder braid. You have to hold the end of the solder braid tightly with needle nose pliers to prevent the solder from actually wicking up the whole braid.
I think I would do an alignment on that radio after getting the proper voltage on it. It certainly is a worthy addition to your collection and deserving to be made to work as well as it possibly can. Also since we don't see many of the UK vintage radios here, I think it would be educational as well. ATB Doug.
I never looked in a Pye, They look like a bridge between European and North American. The paper capacitors were not used in German radios, those metal electrolytic types were. The radio looks like an old German radio but no buttons on the front. Cool stuff.
The German radios might not have used the paper caps, but they did use those axial lead epoxy caps that also were known to go bad. Can't wait to get into my old Normende to see what is in that one. It has FM, and there is a button for FM stereo on that one which would make it a mid 60's radio I think. Not sure if the stereo was an adapter or not, or if it even has the adapter if it was an adapter type. Will be interesting to service that one as the record player had been removed, but I have located the original record player from the unit so I will be reinstalling it.
Very sweet old set, I would love to have one of those in my wall cabinet it would be right at home next to my 52 inch flat screen, well it would offset it nicely.
The rectifier and output valves (the two taller ones) in fact all of them I think are replacements which don't have the metal base covers on them. I have seen lots of these glass only valves crack with the pressure from the circlip on the socket. They are at their most vunerable when removed and replaced and it is common for the glass pip to be cracked at this time. I always remove the circlips and recommened that you do this. The valves do not need this extra security which was developed for high vibration environments.
Wow ! That reminds me of my parents old valve radio from the 1960s - a British Mullard brand set. It finally comked out when the BBC started their new Radio channels Radio One, Radio Two etc. and the old Light Programme bit the dust. Radio One was meant to capture the audience away from "pirate" radio stations such as Radio Caroline.
I've got an old Thor electric drill with box. I did research and it's actually early 1900s they made motorcycles too. There's a video of a valve grinding machine, made by thor. Perhaps a museum peice. As many things have memories , for hobbiest. And events not known.
The “valves” are known in the UK as Rimlock types. Very difficult to find a tester with that socket on it. The only one I have found is a classic AVO which sell for silly money.
The glass nipple on the tubes (valves) is quite a novelty...never seen anything like it before. If you made the other video you mentioned, would you please put a link to it on here?
Really? I always thought Pye was Pye, and Philips was Philips. Philips made in the Netherlands, and Pye in Cambridge, but then what do I know right. Philips did eventually buy them out in 1976, but this one is from 1953 and was most certainly an original.
yea same brand just different name here, pye originally did radio and philips did tv so they merged together and kept the name, however it was next door to eachother factory wise, as is cambridge audio
Smashing, another radio lives again :-D I never did understand why they used wavelength in metres, big numbers perhaps?. But (300 / wavelength) = freq in mhz. Who bothers to measure the wavelength?? very odd. Im supprised it worked at all with the wrong supply, but valves/tubes are very forgiving, but you need the h.t L.t to be higher, the step up transformer sounds ideal :-D Pye made so many things, police radios too, "pye pocket phones" were an odd little thing, and later as the police changed to newer radios, hams used them for cheap transceivers. Those valves/tubes are a very odd design, i personally like the normal gapped type, but it was the era i was born in perhaps. B7 8 ?? can't remember.
PileOfEmptyTapes, Yep i've never seen the point, but i had to know it for the times i needed to calibrate radio scales, they can be a pain with all the trimmers. I have to ask, Were you looking at a pile of tapes when you created your youtube channel? :-)
Alan Cordwell, my brother was a radio ham and he had a pye pocketphone, he modded it for one of the ham bands, it worked well :-D. I have seen other pye communication equipment but i wasnt a ham so i didnt pay attention to the models. Was the pocket phone a PF1?, it was an old bit of kit.
Yes I remember the days when you had to have a licence in the UK to have a radio. If I'm right you had a combined licence for radio and tv in later years, but can't remember when you no longer had to have one for radios. I very nice radio and in good condition too.
The valves are B8A 'Rimlock' and were only hanging about for a decade or so (popular in radios) and just in the UK. EDIT: They had HARD pins and would crack the glass if you tried bending them like you would a B9A. Re. 220/240V and 110/120 - Never run valve heaters at this low voltage for any extended period as the cathodes don't like it too cold. +/- 5% is considered OK. The cathode will 'poison' from any prolonged use at less than specified voltage. You can bring back emission from poisoned cathode with a hot blast (+20%) for a few 10s of seconds supposedly.
I am running it at 240v. See part 2. I got a step up transformer. I doubt this radio saw much if any action after whoever brought it over switched the plug only to find that it only whispered. It has probably been sitting on a shelf for many decades, and when the owner passed away the estate ended up in an antique shop waiting for me to find it. Works perfectly now, and i have listened to it quite a few times in the past week. I don't have an AM radio in the house, so I turn this on to hear the news.
That must be why some of the old TVs had a thermistor in the B+ circuit to delay the plate voltage until the tubes had warmed up. When I was about 8, my neighbor's TV caught fire right near the power switch and it burned a hole through the top of the wood case; I've since learned that that's where they put said thermistor on some RCA sets.
You are going to want to get ECC*** series vacuum tubes. and you will need to replace them if any have gone milky white, That unit was made in the PYE factory in Larne(Corran Works Ltd ), Northern Ireland. From 1947 based in Larne, Northern Ireland and intended as a lower cost radio production facility to serve export markets, Those tubes are Loctal type, can you select 120V on the voltage selector.
Beware that brown Hunts cap to the right of the 25uf electrolytic - they were notorious for leakage! B8A (Rimlock) valves were quite common in the UK and Europe and were the forerunners of B9A. I have one of these Pye P75 (recapped) and the EL41 (6CK5) was replaced with an ECL86 (6GW8 - pentode section) years ago as they were almost identical apart from the base, the B8A and B9a were the same size... The short wave band was quite good on these - a transistor radio beside it used to be my BFO for resolving SSB, FAX and CW.
0.05 / 160v istr (0.047 is ok) it's that brown thing. My Pye is in the loft and I'm not going up there at night. Since replaced by a Lowe HF150 :) that radio probably came over there with some Brit expat... Pls show the step up conversion. www.vintage-radio.com/repair-restore-information/valve_capacitors.html
It's the .1 that is between ground and one of the lugs on the transformer right. I changed that one off camera before putting it back together. If it's the brown one right under the antenna jack seen at 13:09, I did swap that one one off camera. I spotted it after shooting.
pretty much all those brown or black hunts 'plastic' cased things should be replaced on sight if they are across high voltage parts of the circuit or in critical high impedance section such as agc, and also if they have cracks in the casing (very common), if used as a cathode resistor decoupler, or low voltage negative feedback/tone control you can usually leave alone,....these things were notorious for trouble 😉
Great video! I have the same radio and am about to do a similar restoration so you helped me out a lot. Mine is missing the 2 X bulbs. Any chance you can tell me what's in yours so I can start looking for some suitable replacements? Thanks.
Yes let me open it up and look at them. I know the are 6.3v rated, but I will pull one and get the number off it. Its a great radio, certainly fills the house with sound. I listen to the news station on it almost every day.
Yes ! I wish people would STOP plugging in old electronics! So many get get stuffed doing that. I bought a old 50s radio awhile back and i said to the guy dont plug it in and i explained why, well he still did it and when i got it home i looked at tge chassis, blown out put transformer , burnt resistors and buldging E caps ! ... lucky i had a matching OP transformer at home in the shed, but wow people need to get the message ,dont turn it on
Now, I suggest looking up the original data sheet for the transformer, so you know the voltage it outputs. Should be a current limiting resistor on the HT, changing (or possibly removing if you’re brave) would give you more HT, may make your life a fair bit easier and less expensive!!
I got a small bag of o;d components that look like they are from the 50,s or 60,s some look like they have been used some look like they might be unused i also have some old valves somewhere that i believe are for battery operated radio.s .
they usually had special 'export' variants for that, i have a few of various brands, one well known one was the Pye 'cambridge international', PE80, big beast with loads of bandspread ranges, tuned rf stage and push pull output .., there were a few with 'hidden' 110 tappings, no 110 position on the voltage selector but there was a tag on the mains transformer
The HT still seems a little low. Heater voltages should be dead on 6.3 volts. Make sure to change the decoupling capacitor on the HT feeding to the EL84(?) as it’d kill cook it.
it will most probably be full of 'hunts' plastic cased caps, (common in the late 40s to the early 60s here in the uk)they should be changed on sight if they are in a critical part of the circuit such as output coupling or across ht, as they are notorious for going bad, especially if their case has split..
Madness832 Well they clear them valves. Considering that the valves in this are totally different from domestic tubes. Some may wonder why the orientation pin on the glass as opposed to the pin configuration. Just a guess but I think it has to do with patents. Rca patented their tube sockets and base design and the European manufactures had to come up with their own design that was different enough to avoid patent disputes.
I suppose that getting something from Europe and plugging it into a wall socket here wouldn't damage it at all. But if you tried to plug a North American device into a European wall socket without converting it...
the shorter the wavelength the higher the frequency. that's why it goes from 200 to 600 meters. and people still work in wavelengths all the time if you're an RF engineer or a radio amateur operator.
Right, but these days, with the exception of hams, most people don't think in terms of meter bands, as that is just too general. You say the frequency. 1440 am not 300 metres. Sure 1440 is in the 200 metre band, but today we think of it as the MW band. Just as 300 meters and is in the LW band, and 49metres is in the shortwave band. in fact that is how the bands were named. The length of the wavelength.Again, most people do not think of the wavelength, they think of a specific frequency as it is more precice.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwave . you might be to do some DX'ing on that Band, LW here in the UK gives us BBC Radio 4 LW on 198 Khz and RTE Radio 1 on 252 Khz, some French stations come through as well
Hi !!! I'm traying to fix my PYE Radio Receiver Type PE 70, but I need the diagrama for do It. It work, but i can't listen any radio station. Justo a white noise. When i increase the volume, starts to oscilatte.🤔 I saw your insteresting videos, searching any information that could help me. I saw that you show one schematic (diagram) of another Type. But I tnink that could be of great help.🤔 I DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH ! Could you please, send me by e-mail that schematic in PDF format or another formato. I would be very grateful whith you for any suggestion ! 👍
jess ede What do you think I did. The paper caps are the bad ones. The mica caps rarely give trouble and the electrolytic tests fine at this point. Just because electrolytic caps are old doesn't mean they are bad. Most of these old ones were oil filled many with pcb oil and unless they are physically leaking they are fine. It is the water based ones that replaced the old oil filled caps that dried out. (Water evaporates oil doesn't). Replacing every cap will certainly fix any problem and inexperienced will just shotgun and replace them all. Experienced techs know which ones go bad and which one topically don't fail unless they are severely overloaded. I bet thus radio hasn't seen much use since coming across the ocean. When someone changed the plug they would have found low volume from. The low b+ and probably put it on a shelf. It ended up in an antique shop up the street from me likely from an estate sale. Anyway it is in pretty good shape and now goes into my collection.
You're repairing a British radio, it doesn't have tubes, it has valves! Medium Wave is basically what Americans call AM and note the chart marking out and naming the stations you could have received and their wavelengths that they were on in the UK at the time.
Yes I know the Brits called them Valves. It probably had something to do with trade marks and patents. I am sure RCA would sue anyone that tried to use the words "Electron Tube" on anything they didn't make. They sure stuck it to Philo Farnsworth. He invented the scanning television camera tube, and invented electronic television. RCA basically stole his invention and put him out of business. We called it Medium wave here too, and Long Wave and Short wave. AM was the way the signal was modulated, and it was associated with the MW band, but in reality all broadcast in the LW through SW bands has historically been AM. For that matter so was the picture on analog television. The television modulation was Vestigial Side Band, but it is still a form of AM. The big difference is on that side of the pond they showed the frequency in the meter band as opposed to the transmit frequency.
Interestingly I found a 1940 50s Pye96 vintage radio.. Am trying to renovate.. Anyway am completely lost since I couldnt manage to get the valves.. Daf96 df96 dk92 dl96 can anybody assist in this! Where I can find.
I don't know why you didn't adjust the voltage on the transformer 120 volts input the transformer should be rated it from 100 volts up to 250 because the transformer has a voltage tapping and the reason why they did that because every town in England had a different voltage for each town and also some towns in England were on DC
There are two kinds of "leakage" in capacitors. One refers to the gradual loss of charge in the capacitor. The other kind of leakage happens when the capacitor physically leaks its liquid electrolyte. There are many ways to tell when a capacitor is leaky, shorted or open, including visual inspection and using various test equipment (e.g. ESR meter, voltmeter, CRO, multimeter, capacitor checker, etc.). When replacing caps, test the new ones (if possible and measure its ESR) to be doubly sure they're good before installing them. Brand new Nichicon 105°C electrolytic caps are recommended as they are low ESR/low leakage and good quality.
jess ede The paper in them (paper caps) breaks down and becomes acidic. They then become electrically leaky and act more like a resistor. When used as a coupling cap to block the DC from the plate of the previous tube this leakage will bias the next stage into conduction and burn out a tube or transformer. The real bad one in this radio was the small one I replaced with the 2 .022 in parallel. That one could burn out the audio output stage. I will be changing that small one on top of the audio output transformer before putting this radio into service.
That is a really nice radio with a few oddities to it. You mentioned the video from "Mr. Carlson's Lab" that explained the outside foil issue of the capacitors ( ruclips.net/video/BnR_DLd1PDI/видео.html ), but I guess you didn't watch the one where he explained that when you measure the capacitance of a capacitor and it is higher than labeled, that it usually is because it is leaky and needs to be replaced. I mention that because those electrolytics in this one that you didn't replace measured higher than labeled.
Hi , man , i watched , probably half of all of your vids ,basically its on the run constantly here , just want to say that that speaker looks real shady , i mean that magnet is small , and its probably lost its strength a bit if that is possible , i really doubt the sound will be good , off course no one is going to care , but if someone is going to listen that maybe its better to put new speaker in . I mean for such a device , that is really low price speaker .
Sir, you must be more gentle with the product. while keeping the radio on your working table on its polished surface, you must use some soft article like a piece of cloth or towel etc.! Thank you.
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Beautiful vintage radio fully restored. Good job
That's a great old radio,and it still is working.Unbelievable,tubes that old and still rockin.Those Mullards are pretty tuff.👍📺📻
Really pretty cabinet. I would be happy just having such a nice looking unit on my shelf even if it didn't work.
The fact that you've returned functionality is just icing on the cake!! Nicely done.
Pha Q
Yes I like it. Pye are not that popular on this side of the pond. It is the first one I have found. Lots of rca, Rogers, and electro home around. Grundig, Pye, Normende less common. I have a Normende as well to overhaul some day . It's actually sitting next to me in the workshop I just can't t getting at it because there are a few tvs in front of it that need to go.
I am certainly looking forward to seeing the Normende repair.
BTW/ I love the content you provide, please keep them coming!!
Normande is one I am looking forward to doing. My wife is pressuring me for that one as it was her parents radio and she remembers it well when she was growing up. It is sitting right behind that work table in my garage, but it has a bunch of things stacked beside it, so I have to dig it out. Have a few flat screen TVs to deal with and then I will have room to move it.
In the days of bakelite cabinets, and glowing valves. Transistors ? - never heard of 'em !!
I still have my P75 which I commandeered from my parents when I was a kid in the '60s. My Dad put a long wire aerial up in the roof and one day I tuned in WNYW from New York (to me in London UK). That was it - been hooked on radio ever since! Nice video, thanks.
Would love to have the skills to do these types of repairs, another great vid, thankyou for sharing.
Bring back many happy memories of my childhood.
Beautiful radio nicely restored. Looking forward to the next one. Regards, Dave
I just got 2 of these I usually work on Bush Dac90s , there are a few more signal caps you've missed that make a difference , the one on top of the audio transformer makes a difference , I paid £5 each for my p75s , really easy to work on , I'm only trying to add to the knowledge ,my great work (we do call them valve radios in the UK )
Amazing that it works as well as it does on half its line voltage! Looking forward to the followup.
PYE is basically Philips and was well-built back in the day. Servicing was standard and parts were readily available.
A relatively straightforward repair and restore compared to a large console radio made just after WW2.
Yes this is true but got sarcasm for saying it, there was no difference between the 2 brands, they used eachothers parts and cabinets for many years since 1967 the full takeover happened. my uncle had a tv repair shop in north staffordshire UK for 50 years and told me this years ago. both excellent and very well made brands that were built to last.
pye wasnt philips until around 1967...
philips had nothing to do with this set and pye did not use philips parts until at least the mid 60s...
Theyve always had something to do with eachother, they often used eachother parts and designs going back before 1967, thats how companies used to be in those days, and not trying to close eachother down like they do today, they actually helped eachother and gained massive respect from doing so.
i've never yet seen any pre late 60s pye radio or tv using philips parts, or vice versa...they are easy to spot once you know them....and i have radios from both firms from the 30s to the 70s, which models?
Beautiful radio nicely restored
Yes it is, works great now. Fire it up every month or so to listen to.
Nice find and fix. Please go ahead and make a video of adding the step up transformer to this radio, I think it will make an interesting video. Cheers from Sydney Australia!
Tommy Oz
Well it might just be a plug in wall wart. Depends on the style they have at the store.
I'm glad the broken speaker wire was long enough to resolder. I've had some decent luck replacing those with solder braid. You have to hold the end of the solder braid tightly with needle nose pliers to prevent the solder from actually wicking up the whole braid.
Such a beautiful cabinet and you drag it over the bench top with who knows what is lying there. Just Saying.
I am from the UK and my Late Mother got one of these sets for me at a Jumble Sale in the Early 70s.
I think I would do an alignment on that radio after getting the proper voltage on it. It certainly is a worthy addition to your collection and deserving to be made to work as well as it possibly can. Also since we don't see many of the UK vintage radios here, I think it would be educational as well. ATB Doug.
I never looked in a Pye, They look like a bridge between European and North American. The paper capacitors were not used in German radios, those metal electrolytic types were. The radio looks like an old German radio but no buttons on the front. Cool stuff.
The German radios might not have used the paper caps, but they did use those axial lead epoxy caps that also were known to go bad.
Can't wait to get into my old Normende to see what is in that one.
It has FM, and there is a button for FM stereo on that one which would make it a mid 60's radio I think. Not sure if the stereo was an adapter or not, or if it even has the adapter if it was an adapter type. Will be interesting to service that one as the record player had been removed, but I have located the original record player from the unit so I will be reinstalling it.
Very sweet old set, I would love to have one of those in my wall cabinet it would be right at home next to my 52 inch flat screen, well it would offset it nicely.
Long ago, I had an unusual BARLOW WADLEY radio, way kewl, I'd like to get another, but they're rare and pricey on epay.
The rectifier and output valves (the two taller ones) in fact all of them I think are replacements which don't have the metal base covers on them. I have seen lots of these glass only valves crack with the pressure from the circlip on the socket. They are at their most vunerable when removed and replaced and it is common for the glass pip to be cracked at this time. I always remove the circlips and recommened that you do this. The valves do not need this extra security which was developed for high vibration environments.
Wow ! That reminds me of my parents old valve radio from the 1960s - a British Mullard brand set. It finally comked out when the BBC started their new Radio channels Radio One, Radio Two etc. and the old Light Programme bit the dust. Radio One was meant to capture the audience away from "pirate" radio stations such as Radio Caroline.
Ah pirate radio. We have had a few of those around here over the years.
BEHOLD the speaker SPEAKS once again !!!! She sounds GRRRREEEEEAAAAAAAAAT !! Liked that music too!! John Bellas KC2UVN
I've got an old Thor electric drill with box. I did research and it's actually early 1900s they made motorcycles too. There's a video of a valve grinding machine, made by thor. Perhaps a museum peice. As many things have memories , for hobbiest. And events not known.
Upside town Downtown
I have an AMF Harley Davidson light timer! Now that's pretty rare.
The “valves” are known in the UK as Rimlock types. Very difficult to find a tester with that socket on it. The only one I have found is a classic AVO which sell for silly money.
The glass nipple on the tubes (valves) is quite a novelty...never seen anything like it before. If you made the other video you mentioned, would you please put a link to it on here?
pye were philips here in the uk, very nice radios these were had good bass
Really? I always thought Pye was Pye, and Philips was Philips. Philips made in the Netherlands, and Pye in Cambridge, but then what do I know right.
Philips did eventually buy them out in 1976, but this one is from 1953 and was most certainly an original.
yea same brand just different name here, pye originally did radio and philips did tv so they merged together and kept the name, however it was next door to eachother factory wise, as is cambridge audio
I've seen a Pye Video2000 VCR made by Philips. So that's probably true...
Yep exactly the same make m8
Yep they merged in 1967
Smashing, another radio lives again :-D
I never did understand why they used wavelength in metres, big numbers perhaps?.
But (300 / wavelength) = freq in mhz.
Who bothers to measure the wavelength?? very odd.
Im supprised it worked at all with the wrong supply, but valves/tubes are very forgiving, but you need the h.t L.t to be higher, the step up transformer sounds ideal :-D
Pye made so many things, police radios too, "pye pocket phones" were an odd little thing, and later as the police changed to newer radios, hams used them for cheap transceivers.
Those valves/tubes are a very odd design, i personally like the normal gapped type, but it was the era i was born in perhaps. B7 8 ?? can't remember.
It's just very, very oldschool. The only place where wavelength terminology has stuck around is shortwave and lower VHF band names.
PileOfEmptyTapes, Yep i've never seen the point, but i had to know it for the times i needed to calibrate radio scales, they can be a pain with all the trimmers.
I have to ask, Were you looking at a pile of tapes when you created your youtube channel? :-)
No, it's just the requisite Obscure Album Reference(R) and I thought the name happened to fit my interests quite well. ;)
I used to work for the two-way radio division, Pye Telecom :-)
Alan Cordwell, my brother was a radio ham and he had a pye pocketphone, he modded it for one of the ham bands, it worked well :-D.
I have seen other pye communication equipment but i wasnt a ham so i didnt pay attention to the models.
Was the pocket phone a PF1?, it was an old bit of kit.
Yes I remember the days when you had to have a licence in the UK to have a radio. If I'm right you had a combined licence for radio and tv in later years, but can't remember when you no longer had to have one for radios. I very nice radio and in good condition too.
The valves are B8A 'Rimlock' and were only hanging about for a decade or so (popular in radios) and just in the UK. EDIT: They had HARD pins and would crack the glass if you tried bending them like you would a B9A. Re. 220/240V and 110/120 - Never run valve heaters at this low voltage for any extended period as the cathodes don't like it too cold. +/- 5% is considered OK. The cathode will 'poison' from any prolonged use at less than specified voltage. You can bring back emission from poisoned cathode with a hot blast (+20%) for a few 10s of seconds supposedly.
I am running it at 240v. See part 2. I got a step up transformer. I doubt this radio saw much if any action after whoever brought it over switched the plug only to find that it only whispered. It has probably been sitting on a shelf for many decades, and when the owner passed away the estate ended up in an antique shop waiting for me to find it. Works perfectly now, and i have listened to it quite a few times in the past week. I don't have an AM radio in the house, so I turn this on to hear the news.
That must be why some of the old TVs had a thermistor in the B+ circuit to delay the plate voltage until the tubes had warmed up. When I was about 8, my neighbor's TV caught fire right near the power switch and it burned a hole through the top of the wood case; I've since learned that that's where they put said thermistor on some RCA sets.
If your ever in England in Manchester there are some memorabilia shops that have reel to reel to reels radios ect, if your interested.
Good little radio .
You are going to want to get ECC*** series vacuum tubes. and you will need to replace them if any have gone milky white, That unit was made in the PYE factory in Larne(Corran Works Ltd ), Northern Ireland. From 1947 based in Larne, Northern Ireland and intended as a lower cost radio production facility to serve export markets, Those tubes are Loctal type, can you select 120V on the voltage selector.
As far as I’m aware, they are connected in parallel for this radio, so unless they’re all black and burned up, I suggest leaving them.
"Sneaker speaker"...LOL Nice job!!
Beware that brown Hunts cap to the right of the 25uf electrolytic - they were notorious for leakage! B8A (Rimlock) valves were quite common in the UK and Europe and were the forerunners of B9A. I have one of these Pye P75 (recapped) and the EL41 (6CK5) was replaced with an ECL86 (6GW8 - pentode section) years ago as they were almost identical apart from the base, the B8A and B9a were the same size... The short wave band was quite good on these - a transistor radio beside it used to be my BFO for resolving SSB, FAX and CW.
I will look into that brown hunts cap. Do you know the value?
0.05 / 160v istr (0.047 is ok) it's that brown thing. My Pye is in the loft and I'm not going up there at night. Since replaced by a Lowe HF150 :) that radio probably came over there with some Brit expat... Pls show the step up conversion.
www.vintage-radio.com/repair-restore-information/valve_capacitors.html
It's the .1 that is between ground and one of the lugs on the transformer right. I changed that one off camera before putting it back together. If it's the brown one right under the antenna jack seen at 13:09, I did swap that one one off camera. I spotted it after shooting.
pretty much all those brown or black hunts 'plastic' cased things should be replaced on sight if they are across high voltage parts of the circuit or in critical high impedance section such as agc, and also if they have cracks in the casing (very common), if used as a cathode resistor decoupler, or low voltage negative feedback/tone control you can usually leave alone,....these things were notorious for trouble 😉
Nice looking radio
I never repaired a speaker. I used to tear them up to get the magnets. I have a bunch of speaker magnets. (Just mostly slugs)
im jess from helland in cornwall in the uk i can remember this radio but my dad has taken it away to his house wish i still had it
Great video! I have the same radio and am about to do a similar restoration so you helped me out a lot. Mine is missing the 2 X bulbs. Any chance you can tell me what's in yours so I can start looking for some suitable replacements? Thanks.
Yes let me open it up and look at them. I know the are 6.3v rated, but I will pull one and get the number off it. Its a great radio, certainly fills the house with sound. I listen to the news station on it almost every day.
Awesome time travel!
She is a beauty !👍
Since you've been under her skirt already,. clean her up & get her a new wardrobe. I bet she'll entertain you for years to come!
Yes ! I wish people would STOP plugging in old electronics! So many get get stuffed doing that. I bought a old 50s radio awhile back and i said to the guy dont plug it in and i explained why, well he still did it and when i got it home i looked at tge chassis, blown out put transformer , burnt resistors and buldging E caps ! ... lucky i had a matching OP transformer at home in the shed, but wow people need to get the message ,dont turn it on
@21:20 the makers spec on ht is 216v at the cathode of the EZ41 and 205v at the anode of the EL31
Great video, just a small suggestion, the intro music is way too loud, it's hard to make out what you're saying.
Now, I suggest looking up the original data sheet for the transformer, so you know the voltage it outputs. Should be a current limiting resistor on the HT, changing (or possibly removing if you’re brave) would give you more HT, may make your life a fair bit easier and less expensive!!
Ed's Studio Workshop
Step up transformer was 12 bucks and now it operates on 240 the designed voltage. I want to keep this as original as possible.
theres no current limiting resistor in these sets, transformer winding straight to rectifier anodes..
I got a small bag of o;d components that look like they are from the 50,s or 60,s some look like they have been used some look like they might be unused i also have some old valves somewhere that i believe are for battery operated radio.s .
These British radios have multi taps on the mains transformer on the primary from what I remember.
Dambuster
For 200-226 and 227-260
some sets had many more, even 110/120...
These radios were exported all over the world so it made sense to have multi taps
they usually had special 'export' variants for that, i have a few of various brands, one well known one was the Pye 'cambridge international', PE80, big beast with loads of bandspread ranges, tuned rf stage and push pull output .., there were a few with 'hidden' 110 tappings, no 110 position on the voltage selector but there was a tag on the mains transformer
OK on the hidden tappings one thing that is all so interesting the american am band wavelength is different to the British am band.
Good work...☺
11 meters is CB Radio. 17 - 50 is ham radio. Hams go by meters mostly.
The HT still seems a little low. Heater voltages should be dead on 6.3 volts. Make sure to change the decoupling capacitor on the HT feeding to the EL84(?) as it’d kill cook it.
very rarely 'dead on' , as mains voltages can vary, plus your testmeter will have a 'tolerance', i think the 'official' 6.3 tolerance was +/- 5%..
and the output valve is (should be) an EL41
these are quite good radios, i have one, and its 'big brother' ,the P76 is even better
a lot of pye radios from around the years this was made developed open circuit output transformer primaries
the 2 metal cased electrolytics look original..
it will most probably be full of 'hunts' plastic cased caps, (common in the late 40s to the early 60s here in the uk)they should be changed on sight if they are in a critical part of the circuit such as output coupling or across ht, as they are notorious for going bad, especially if their case has split..
ht /b+ should be about 216v
schematic.. www.doctsf.com/documents/schematheques/radio_anglais/PYE/P75.PDF
If it's British, wouldn't it be a valve radio? ;)
Madness832
Well they clear them valves. Considering that the valves in this are totally different from domestic tubes. Some may wonder why the orientation pin on the glass as opposed to the pin configuration. Just a guess but I think it has to do with patents. Rca patented their tube sockets and base design and the European manufactures had to come up with their own design that was different enough to avoid patent disputes.
It was to do with safety, here it is very strict
I can't wait to hear it with the step up transformer, but even without the right voltage it sounds fantastic
I suppose that getting something from Europe and plugging it into a wall socket here wouldn't damage it at all. But if you tried to plug a North American device into a European wall socket without converting it...
the shorter the wavelength the higher the frequency. that's why it goes from 200 to 600 meters. and people still work in wavelengths all the time if you're an RF engineer or a radio amateur operator.
Right, but these days, with the exception of hams, most people don't think in terms of meter bands, as that is just too general. You say the frequency. 1440 am not 300 metres. Sure 1440 is in the 200 metre band, but today we think of it as the MW band. Just as 300 meters and is in the LW band, and 49metres is in the shortwave band. in fact that is how the bands were named. The length of the wavelength.Again, most people do not think of the wavelength, they think of a specific frequency as it is more precice.
Why add a step-up transformer?
Can't you just set the voltage jumper on the back of the radio?
David Perkins it’s from 200 to 240 volts. So sadly this wouldn’t work
Weird. I guess it's a 'Brit thing' ;)
YOU ARE THE BEST
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwave . you might be to do some DX'ing on that Band, LW here in the UK gives us BBC Radio 4 LW on 198 Khz and RTE Radio 1 on 252 Khz, some French stations come through as well
Does it make the Canadian DJs speak with an English accent ??
No, but I was listening to a program on CKNW and there was an announcer with an annoying Australian accent!
Hi !!!
I'm traying to fix my PYE Radio Receiver Type PE 70, but I need the diagrama for do It.
It work, but i can't listen any radio station.
Justo a white noise.
When i increase the volume, starts to oscilatte.🤔
I saw your insteresting videos, searching any information that could help me.
I saw that you show one schematic (diagram) of another Type.
But I tnink that could be of great help.🤔
I DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH !
Could you please, send me by e-mail that schematic in PDF format or another formato.
I would be very grateful whith you for any suggestion ! 👍
I no longer have the schematic. It was on an old computer hard drive that won't read anymore.
Us Brits Made thing last back in the old day
will you have to realine the tuner on this
jess ede
It is tuning in am stations find. I will test it with an external antenna once I get the step up transformer.
it needs to be recapped
jess ede
What do you think I did. The paper caps are the bad ones. The mica caps rarely give trouble and the electrolytic tests fine at this point. Just because electrolytic caps are old doesn't mean they are bad. Most of these old ones were oil filled many with pcb oil and unless they are physically leaking they are fine. It is the water based ones that replaced the old oil filled caps that dried out. (Water evaporates oil doesn't). Replacing every cap will certainly fix any problem and inexperienced will just shotgun and replace them all. Experienced techs know which ones go bad and which one topically don't fail unless they are severely overloaded. I bet thus radio hasn't seen much use since coming across the ocean. When someone changed the plug they would have found low volume from. The low b+ and probably put it on a shelf. It ended up in an antique shop up the street from me likely from an estate sale. Anyway it is in pretty good shape and now goes into my collection.
You're repairing a British radio, it doesn't have tubes, it has valves!
Medium Wave is basically what Americans call AM and note the chart marking out and naming the stations you could have received and their wavelengths that they were on in the UK at the time.
Yes I know the Brits called them Valves.
It probably had something to do with trade marks and patents. I am sure RCA would sue anyone that tried to use the words "Electron Tube" on anything they didn't make. They sure stuck it to Philo Farnsworth. He invented the scanning television camera tube, and invented electronic television. RCA basically stole his invention and put him out of business.
We called it Medium wave here too, and Long Wave and Short wave.
AM was the way the signal was modulated, and it was associated with the MW band, but in reality all broadcast in the LW through SW bands has historically been AM. For that matter so was the picture on analog television.
The television modulation was Vestigial Side Band, but it is still a form of AM.
The big difference is on that side of the pond they showed the frequency in the meter band as opposed to the transmit frequency.
I have an old PYE tv and it's made in Japan.. ????
Interestingly I found a 1940 50s Pye96 vintage radio.. Am trying to renovate.. Anyway am completely lost since I couldnt manage to get the valves.. Daf96 df96 dk92 dl96 can anybody assist in this! Where I can find.
I found the one i needed at a antique electronics in New York.
I don't know why you didn't adjust the voltage on the transformer 120 volts input the transformer should be rated it from 100 volts up to 250 because the transformer has a voltage tapping and the reason why they did that because every town in England had a different voltage for each town and also some towns in England were on DC
The taps on the transformer are for 200 to 260v AC only. Sure it will run on lower voltage but not run properly.
live from England the BBC radio broadcast station
could you tell me why do caps leak many thanx
There are two kinds of "leakage" in capacitors. One refers to the gradual loss of charge in the capacitor.
The other kind of leakage happens when the capacitor physically leaks its liquid electrolyte.
There are many ways to tell when a capacitor is leaky, shorted or open, including visual inspection and using various test equipment (e.g. ESR meter, voltmeter, CRO, multimeter, capacitor checker, etc.). When replacing caps, test the new ones (if possible and measure its ESR) to be doubly sure they're good before installing them.
Brand new Nichicon 105°C electrolytic caps are recommended as they are low ESR/low leakage and good quality.
thank you
jess ede
The paper in them (paper caps) breaks down and becomes acidic. They then become electrically leaky and act more like a resistor. When used as a coupling cap to block the DC from the plate of the previous tube this leakage will bias the next stage into conduction and burn out a tube or transformer. The real bad one in this radio was the small one I replaced with the 2 .022 in parallel. That one could burn out the audio output stage. I will be changing that small one on top of the audio output transformer before putting this radio into service.
12voltvids thank you ever so much
12voltvids nice sounding radios I like them because they are better than modern ones
Time for a new laudspecker like they say in Germany
That is a really nice radio with a few oddities to it. You mentioned the video from "Mr. Carlson's Lab" that explained the outside foil issue of the capacitors ( ruclips.net/video/BnR_DLd1PDI/видео.html ), but I guess you didn't watch the one where he explained that when you measure the capacitance of a capacitor and it is higher than labeled, that it usually is because it is leaky and needs to be replaced. I mention that because those electrolytics in this one that you didn't replace measured higher than labeled.
Hi , man , i watched , probably half of all of your vids ,basically its on the run constantly here ,
just want to say that that speaker looks real shady , i mean that magnet is small , and its probably lost its strength a bit if that is possible , i really doubt the sound will be good , off course no one is going to care , but if someone is going to listen that maybe its better to put new speaker in . I mean for such a device , that is really low price speaker .
Sir, you must be more gentle with the product. while keeping the radio on your working table on its polished surface, you must use some soft article like a piece of cloth or towel etc.! Thank you.
It's my radio. It already has scratches on it.
I don't think that tube testers have sockets for those dodgy bloke bloody rotten valves.
umajunkcollector
European tube testers would but not north American.
Very messy and unorganised work bench, I bet you eventually lost the speaker washer you forgot to put on.
Dude, love the vid but the "L" is silent in SOLDER! (sädər) "Happy Everything"
leaking caps are horrible
Lisa
A license to own and listen to a regular radio. Communism at its finest
hunts caps are the worst.
Bad pigtail