Warning:
It has been decided to keep this thread but to add this note as a warning to all genuine vintage radio collectors.
There are numerous guitar enthusiasts who are hell bent on obtaining this radio and its RGD equivalent so that it can be dismantled and used to make a less than 1 watt guitar amp.
They claim to be eager to buy the radio, or amp or just the transformers to repair their radio (or so they claim). My research over the last week has revealed otherwise. It would be a pity if we lost our radio heritage to these dismantlers.
I have managed to get hold of one of these KB "International" sets after about 5 years searching Ebay and other places online.
I dont think many could have been sold in the UK, but my dad bought one as our first FM radio. *
It was made in Rhodesia, and has no long wave but does have MW, FM covering to 108MHz, and 2 SW ranges covering 3.2 to 21.8 MHz, a large dial and good gearing and a fine tine knob for the SW bands. The dial can be illuminated by 2 small bulbs at the push of a button.
There is also an RGD version of this radio, the RR214 which is very similar in appearance.
* (It may actually have been the RGD version which Dad bought us, I am not too sure now)
Service manual available here.
The chassis of the radio is steel making the radio fairly heavy. It is divided up into modular circuit boards, FM tuner, RF and switching board, IF board and AF board.
It has 3 AF116 transistors in the IF stages, so yes you guessed, it was not working, on any wave band.
Removing the IF and RF boards to get at the 3 AF116 transistors was only very slightly easier than dismantling a Roberts 707.
The RF/switch assembly finally removed:
One of the original AF116 transistors had already had its screen lead disconnected, so the radio has been repaired at some time in the past, but I changed all 3 transistors for AF125 types.
Part of the IF board, showing someone has removed one of the screen legs.
The tuning capacitor/FM RF module was seized, it looks very similar to the German types used in Grundig radios.
Heat from a soldering iron on the spindle managed to soften the hard grease enough to get it to move but it was not freeing easily so I decided to remove the 3 screws holding the spindle bearing in place. This caused the small spring tensioning the 2 drive gears to drop out.
I cleaned the spindle and bearing housing and greased them ready to resemble. It was very fiddly but eventually I was happy that everything was located in the right place.
It looks innocent enough, but it is surprisingly difficult to replace this small spring.
After re-assembling the boards onto the chassis it was time to test the radio. I hooked up the original 35 ohm speaker to the AFamp and connected a 9 volt supply. Nothing worked, then I noticed 2 wires had broken loose from the headphone socket. Once these were re-soldered the radio worked, very well on MW and FM but it was not picking up much on SW's but then I only had a short patch lead as an aerial.
I will do some more tests tomorrow on SW to see if it can be improved, and do some cleaning of the cabinet.
Mike
It has been decided to keep this thread but to add this note as a warning to all genuine vintage radio collectors.
There are numerous guitar enthusiasts who are hell bent on obtaining this radio and its RGD equivalent so that it can be dismantled and used to make a less than 1 watt guitar amp.
They claim to be eager to buy the radio, or amp or just the transformers to repair their radio (or so they claim). My research over the last week has revealed otherwise. It would be a pity if we lost our radio heritage to these dismantlers.
I have managed to get hold of one of these KB "International" sets after about 5 years searching Ebay and other places online.
I dont think many could have been sold in the UK, but my dad bought one as our first FM radio. *
It was made in Rhodesia, and has no long wave but does have MW, FM covering to 108MHz, and 2 SW ranges covering 3.2 to 21.8 MHz, a large dial and good gearing and a fine tine knob for the SW bands. The dial can be illuminated by 2 small bulbs at the push of a button.
There is also an RGD version of this radio, the RR214 which is very similar in appearance.
* (It may actually have been the RGD version which Dad bought us, I am not too sure now)
Service manual available here.
The chassis of the radio is steel making the radio fairly heavy. It is divided up into modular circuit boards, FM tuner, RF and switching board, IF board and AF board.
It has 3 AF116 transistors in the IF stages, so yes you guessed, it was not working, on any wave band.
Removing the IF and RF boards to get at the 3 AF116 transistors was only very slightly easier than dismantling a Roberts 707.
The RF/switch assembly finally removed:
One of the original AF116 transistors had already had its screen lead disconnected, so the radio has been repaired at some time in the past, but I changed all 3 transistors for AF125 types.
Part of the IF board, showing someone has removed one of the screen legs.
The tuning capacitor/FM RF module was seized, it looks very similar to the German types used in Grundig radios.
Heat from a soldering iron on the spindle managed to soften the hard grease enough to get it to move but it was not freeing easily so I decided to remove the 3 screws holding the spindle bearing in place. This caused the small spring tensioning the 2 drive gears to drop out.
I cleaned the spindle and bearing housing and greased them ready to resemble. It was very fiddly but eventually I was happy that everything was located in the right place.
It looks innocent enough, but it is surprisingly difficult to replace this small spring.
After re-assembling the boards onto the chassis it was time to test the radio. I hooked up the original 35 ohm speaker to the AFamp and connected a 9 volt supply. Nothing worked, then I noticed 2 wires had broken loose from the headphone socket. Once these were re-soldered the radio worked, very well on MW and FM but it was not picking up much on SW's but then I only had a short patch lead as an aerial.
I will do some more tests tomorrow on SW to see if it can be improved, and do some cleaning of the cabinet.
Mike
