83
Item nr.


Vega 401 Turist

Well-made four band tube portable.


Data for Vega 401
ProductionNorway, 1953.
BandsLW (150-330 kHz), MW (510-1480 kHz), MB (1450-2350 kHz), SW (5.5-18 MHz)..
TubesDK92 DF91 DAF91 DL94.
Semi-
conductors
Diode for AC supply.
CabinetWood. Size 37x23x15 cm. Weight 3.5 kg.
PowerBatt (90 + 1.4 V), ACDC.
DocumentsSchema.

The Design

Open this picture of the dial separately to see the text in Norwegian.
The radio has a triple-mode power supply: it can be powered from batteries, and AC and DC mains supply, the latter in three voltages (120, 150, 220V). With four bands the radio is more luxerious than many radios of the same era. It also features tone control and fine tuning for SW.
Some noteworthy features: the filaments of the tubes can be switched between parallel connection (for 1.4V battery supply) and series connection (for 50mA mains supply). When switched between Medium Wave and Fisherman's Band, the oscillator coils remain the same! Each frequency on the Fisher's dial is exactly 904 kHz (twice the Intermediate Frequency) higher than the MW frequency. On MW the oscillator swings 452 kHz above the reception frequency, and on the Fisher's band 452 kHz below it.
The series of battery tubes introduced around 1950 contained two output tubes: the DL92 and the DL94. The first one was for low plate voltages (90V and below), the latter for high plate voltages (90V and up).

Obtained1/1998 from Antiekzaak Twijnstraat.
Condition7.
DisposedSold 7/2012.
Sound samplePLAY SOUND   Nederpop song Je loog tegen mij by Drukwerk made it to number 1 in the hitparade early 1982. Recorded from Radio 10 Gold on January 10, 2012.

This Object

The radio required the usual type of cleansing and repair, but no special difficulties occured during the process. It is just that the space under these battery chassis is very tiny, and soldering can be quite a stress.This picture shows what the radio looks like on the inside, and indeed this picture is typical for many other tube portables, too. Observe that the chassis is so small that it only occupies half of the cabinet. The large open space behind the speaker is for batteries and the small open space under the chassis is for the mains cord. Also note the large vertical white dropping resistor; it is in series with the filament when he radio is operated from the mains. These resistors tend to become quite hot, and often contain asbestos.
The radio is operating from the mains; I never tried it on batteries. The radio is complete with back, but the ivory-colored front was broken in one place and one knob has a piece broken out; already before the events descibed in the next section.

A nasty experience

The radio soon became one of my favorits and I used almost daily in my bedroom (where I have several radios actually). One day I received an email message from a person in the US; I won't lower myself to mentioning the name on this site but if the guy ever comes to this site and reads this story, he'll recognize himself. Let us call the person X. X wrote me that he liked this radio a lot, was very eager to add it to his collection of portable tube radios, and would like to propose an exchage. He mentioned several aspects that he liked about the radio, such as that it was Norwegian, and he didn't have a Norwegian set yet. At first I didn't want this, because I liked the radio so much, but later X offered me a Zenith TransOceanic in exchange, and I agreed. I had never offered the radio for sale, or proposed such an exchange in any way, but the initiative was completely and entirely on the side of X, who had approached me for this while I didn't know him at all. We agreed that we would both send the radio by mail under the usual condition that the receiver of a radio bears the transportation risk. I packed and shipped the radio, and received an email from X stating that he had shipped the TransOceanic as well.

A few weeks went by, and then I received an angry email from X, stating (1) the radio was damaged badly and didn't work, and X thought I had sent it that way; (2) even if undamaged, the radio wasn't in any good condition at all and I had misrepresented the set on my site; (3) X would roll back the exchange, and send me the radio back. My point of view was as follows. (1) This is unfortunate, but it happens from time to time with the US mail and it was covered in our deal: it was his risk. (2) As I had never had any intention to sell or exchange the set, I cannot be accused of any misrepresentation, and moreover, all signs of bad condition that X mentioned were clearly visible on the photo's on my site. (3) What should I do with the TransOceanic once it would arrive? In reply to the last point X said that he had taken the package back from the mail; as long as this is possible I don't think you can call a radio "sent" so X was a liar about point (3). A month later the postman brought me the Vega back, non-operative and cosmetically in the state depicted above.

I was very angry about this, and people I spoke to said this was a case of mail fraud and X is prosecutable. X is very lucky that I am a rich man and considered the lost value too small to make worth a transatlantic claim for fraud. I was so disgusted about the whole affair that I could do nothing but throw the radio in a corner and don't look at it for years. Only when I obtained a TransOceanic through other sources, my anger was reduced sufficiently to pick it up again. I repaired it and found it is still a very nice tube portable, even though the grille is badly damaged.


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