Pygmy 701

[Refugee]

There has been some activity in this part of the forum so hare is my offering from Friday and Saturday.

I thought it was time for an easy restore as a change from all the usual.
So it is a little 1960s french transistor portable.
It has all SGS Ates transistors SGS140, SGS139, SGS139, SGS109, SGS109, SGS270, SGS270.
They are all black lacquered TO5 types so there are no tin whiskers.
The cabinet is in very good condition and it has got quite a respectable speaker.

It is a regular 7 transistor superhet with a couple of little differences.
There is a car antenna socket that unlike many other sets has a switch so that the internal antenna does not pick up as much ignition noise when it is in use.
There also appears to be a manual switch on the AGC line and another switch for tone.
The audio is the type with a phase splitter transformer and a split power supply and no speaker coupling capacitor.

The battery connector was a real French connection that would take cycle lamp batteries.
I simulated the tabs on these and hooked them up to two 3-packs of NIMH cells and powered it up.
I made the battery tabs from a chopped up binder tab and Varo board.

The IF gain was poor and there was a mess on the IF board. It was easy to fix though messy.
A Callins capacitor had run all of its electrolyte all down the wiring.
It was a total strip down to get to the other ends of the fixing screws as they had been painted and just spun from the top.

[Refugee]

Now it is time for the cabinet.
The vinyl was loose around the edges and needed a little bit of PVA fed under the edges.
What is the record for the most paper clips that have ever been clipped onto a radio cabinet.
I kept them on for the minimum time needed so that they did not mark the vinyl.
It bulled up very well and with a real Rubycon capacitor in it is now getting good reception and a good sound.
It is almost as good as the classic British TR82 now.

[Radio Fixer]

Quite an attractive looking set: I like the simple lines of it.

I seem to remember that there were a number of sets that doubled as a portable and a car radio back in the days when transistor sets were expensive. A friend had a VW where the radio actually slotted into the dashboard.

Nice job getting it back to working order.

Gary

[Refugee]

The simple lines are just on the skin.
It has a tuning pointer that can be read from the front or top and a dial light with a push to make switch.
I was once asked to put a load of stuff on E-bay that included a car radio that pulled out of the dashboard and ran as a battery set.
This one is battery only though.