# A Vintage-Style 3-Valve Radio Receiver



## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Some weeks ago, I designed and built this set using mainly modern components disguised as "vintage." The coil cans are stainless steel salt sellers. I have now produced a U Tube presenation of the build from the initial rough design to the completed receiver.
Bob 
https://youtu.be/GbarwQ-uRAI


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

A neat job Bob. The UX4/5 based valves make it appear really authentic: just shows - don't believe everything you see on TV.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Will it pick up "Round the Horn" and "The Navy Lark"?

John T


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Thanks. 
The valve-holders are B4 and B5, not UX4/5!
No Round the _Horn_ or _Navy Lark_ - It is not a time machine!(Jester)
Bob


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

trotterdotpom said:


> Will it pick up "Round the Horn" and "The Navy Lark"?
> 
> John T


They frequently can be picked up on DAB via BBC Radio 4 Extra. Time you thought of moving back to Middlesbrough JT.


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

That, Ron, has been in the back of my mind for some time. My first radio was built in a chess set box at the age of 7 (with Pa's help, of course). It managed only to pick up telephone conversations but there was still something for it to receive.

Once AM has gone and we are all Dab-dab-dabbing will the schoolboy be able to leap directly into processor based sophistication? It might fit more neatly into the chess set box but how will he hold onto the principles in his head (and, forever it seems).


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

My first one was on an upturned cardboard shoe box using a 210DDT. It would only work with my fingers spanning between the top cap and the top of the variable capacitor. Years later, I found out why. It was a double diode triode with a grid top cap. What I thought was the grid on the base was one of the diodes!
I doubt if AM will die out within the next couple of decades or so as DAB doesn't seem all that popular. And even if it does, there will still be lots of AM coming over from the continent on MW AM, as well as the inevitable "pirate" AM stations that will spring up.
Bob


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

It's a great looking set. (Thumb)

When I was a kid I built a crystal set that worked after a fashion with a long aerial. Then I found if I wrapped the aerial around the Rediffusion cables that went all round our estate (you may remember that service, you had one knob, A, B, C ... and so on, each being a station such as Light Programme, Home Service, Third program etc..) then I got a terrific signal with lots of stations, unfortunately I got them all at the same time .... [=P]


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

He has given us one somewhere on another thread I think, along with a question about the front end coupling.


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## holland25 (Nov 21, 2007)

Ron Stringer said:


> They frequently can be picked up on DAB via BBC Radio 4 Extra. Time you thought of moving back to Middlesbrough JT.


No need Radio 4 extra readily available over the internet.


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Circuit is in here somewhere:
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=153922
Bob


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

#5."Time you thought of moving back to Middlesbrough JT"

Maybe when Global Warming really kicks in.

John T


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

posted by Shipbuilder:


> _It would only work with my fingers spanning between the top cap and the top of the variable capacitor_


.

Top cap _not_ the anode: very rare indeed.

In common with BobClay I also built a crystal set; no soldering (we didn't have electricity), just screw terminals and twisted wires. My mother kept asking "where is the cat's whisker". It would only pick up the Home Service somewhere in the MW band, but then I found that by connecting the earth wire to the same terminal as the aerial I could get the Light Programme on 1500M.

Never looked back!


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Reading that and looking at Shipbuilder's "mistake" on the input which worked better made me think of those days when we pumped up inductive and capacitive reactance calculations with strange beasties like operator J using an imaginary square root of -1, makes me think of a famous quote from Thomas Huxley:

There is no sadder sight in the world, than to see a beautiful theory killed by brutal fact.
-- Thomas Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)

[=P]


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Shipbuilder said:


> My first one was on an upturned cardboard shoe box using a 210DDT. It would only work with my fingers spanning between the top cap and the top of the variable capacitor. Years later, I found out why. It was a double diode triode with a grid top cap. What I thought was the grid on the base was one of the diodes!
> I doubt if AM will die out within the next couple of decades or so as DAB doesn't seem all that popular. And even if it does, there will still be lots of AM coming over from the continent on MW AM, as well as the inevitable "pirate" AM stations that will spring up.
> Bob


An idle wonder. Has modern floppy packaging stifled the enthusiasm of youth for building electronics. Perhaps we need to bring back decent wooden crates to re-ignite this thoroughly decent form of geekism.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Shipbuilder said:


> My first one was on an upturned cardboard shoe box using a 210DDT. It would only work with my fingers spanning between the top cap and the top of the variable capacitor.


Do try to give up that habit before you decide to build a valve transmitter. An 807 will give you quite a different experience!


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