27-11-2015, 05:23 PM
O.K. thoughts and observations......
Firstly, apologies in advance that I don't have time at the moment to comment on any former posts. I just got to the library and was totally soaked by a massive downpour of rain. It's nearly 1700 p.m. and the library closes at 17.45.
I believe the approach I took to this radio has been justified by sufficient success in the point I've now got to. I'm a firm believer in not rushing this kind of work. The approach I took involved very cramped soldering and huge amounts of frustration because I chose not to dismantle the mounting strip-board which hosts about 20 connections to chassis points, tube pins and I.F. cans. I wouldn't recommend clipping out that many connections in cramped space unless you're sure you can put it all back with no error. Sure, it means you can make a tidier soldering job but, for me, at the time it was too risky.
The manufacturers had used pliers as well as solder and I had to snip parts out and only use solder to put the new parts in. I started to the left and worked my way to the right and tended not to remove more than 3 capacitors in one day. This was to avoid any mix-ups.
I take the point about RF hiss and long leads (which I used). Long leads are best avoided but I did the best I could.
I wonder why HMV used this stripboard method? Most radios just solder straight between tube pins so it makes repair 10 times easier. From the design point of view I was impressed by the way they fused the transformer mains supply and wonder how effective that was? They also mounted the rectifier on a platform and both the rectifier and the output KT61 were screened to chassis (I have yet to put this back in place).
Plans for the future? My plan is to specialise in tube radios as I feel I'm better on this than I am with silicon transistorised equipment. My immediate plan is to start work on a 1939 TRF which was an unfinished project. Eventually I hope to get into vintage German radio work as well as making my own HAM receivers hopefully.
For the meantime, I still have the case to fix up and the slats + tuning mechanism to work on.
Firstly, apologies in advance that I don't have time at the moment to comment on any former posts. I just got to the library and was totally soaked by a massive downpour of rain. It's nearly 1700 p.m. and the library closes at 17.45.
I believe the approach I took to this radio has been justified by sufficient success in the point I've now got to. I'm a firm believer in not rushing this kind of work. The approach I took involved very cramped soldering and huge amounts of frustration because I chose not to dismantle the mounting strip-board which hosts about 20 connections to chassis points, tube pins and I.F. cans. I wouldn't recommend clipping out that many connections in cramped space unless you're sure you can put it all back with no error. Sure, it means you can make a tidier soldering job but, for me, at the time it was too risky.
The manufacturers had used pliers as well as solder and I had to snip parts out and only use solder to put the new parts in. I started to the left and worked my way to the right and tended not to remove more than 3 capacitors in one day. This was to avoid any mix-ups.
I take the point about RF hiss and long leads (which I used). Long leads are best avoided but I did the best I could.
I wonder why HMV used this stripboard method? Most radios just solder straight between tube pins so it makes repair 10 times easier. From the design point of view I was impressed by the way they fused the transformer mains supply and wonder how effective that was? They also mounted the rectifier on a platform and both the rectifier and the output KT61 were screened to chassis (I have yet to put this back in place).
Plans for the future? My plan is to specialise in tube radios as I feel I'm better on this than I am with silicon transistorised equipment. My immediate plan is to start work on a 1939 TRF which was an unfinished project. Eventually I hope to get into vintage German radio work as well as making my own HAM receivers hopefully.
For the meantime, I still have the case to fix up and the slats + tuning mechanism to work on.
