159
Item nr.
Remake of successful Model C.
| Production | England, 1950. |
|---|---|
| Bands | LW MW. |
| Tubes | DK91, DF91, DAF91, DL92.. |
| Cabinet | Transparant material with back paint, Wood frame. Size 26x32x20 cm. Weight 4.6 kg. |
| Power | Battery 75 and 1.5 V combined. |
The design goes back to circa 1946, when the original Model C was launched, equiped with battery Octal tubes DK32, DF33, DAC32, DL35. This can still be seen from the chassis, which has holes much larger than necessary for these miniature tubes.The cabinet of this radio is quite remarkable. The case looks yellowish, but it isn't: the outside is made from an early form of transparent plastic, painted on the inside. Except where the dial is. Yes, the dial glass and cabinet are indeed moulded in one piece, but is simply unpainted in front of the dial. It is not possible to feel where the dial glass is.
The radio now has very small batteries of the Otto Tuil recipe: just connect a bunch of 9V blocks together. But it had extremely huge ones originally. The reason was that with larger batteries the current draw is relatively smaller so that the battery is used more economically. Basically spoken, a battery twice as big costs twice as much, but lasts more than twice as long.
| Obtained | 6/2000 from Piet Hoen. |
|---|---|
| Condition | 8. |
| Disposed | Sold 7/2012. |
The dial was severely wiped out, and moreover, not the original one: the one shown here had the LW information printed in red, while this radio ought to have an all black dial, which I was able to reproduce quite satisfactorily.
I replaced a few capacitors, but the real problem with the radio was the alignment.
The set plays well, but high volumes are much distorted. I found that the output tube runs only a very small current (less than 3mA), due to the resistor in the negative lead of the high tension battery being much too high. As I never play radios at very high volumes I decided to leave this as it is, because I like the reduced battery drain (about 4mA total). Actually, if you do not insist on playing your sets loud, this series of tubes is very flexible in using less power. You can play these sets on about 24V, and then they draw only 2 or 3 mA. The chassis picture shows the replaced output transformer in the lower right corner (original was mounted on the speaker).