Sunday, February 10, 2013

A very nice Sunday Pye

I recently acquired a 1953 Cambridge International radio made by Pye. This fine old radio offers complete coverage of the shortwave spectrum and all of mediumwave which means no adjusting will be necessary to find the Dutch pirates on 186 metres. This morning I was having a closer look at it. After cleaning away a lot of dust inside and sorting out a few minor problems I hooked it up to the shortwave dipole and had a tune about to see what I could hear. Within a few minutes I had found some pirate stations on 48 metres - first up was our friend the Technical Man from the eastern side of the Netherlands. I made a video of the reception . . .


2 comments:

  1. Hi there!

    On shortwave yesterday (10th), just managed to pull in Radio Merlin with a poor signal, and a better one from Radio Delta (Netherlands). Not too bad for an old Realistic World Band receiver. Large signal from KBC on 6095 kHz from the Radio Detusche-Welle transmitters.

    Two Dutch AM pirates heard on the evening on our old transistor set, mainly playing continuous music. Not the best signals I've heard from Holland, but perfectly listenable. No positive ID's, I'm afraid!

    BTW, my folks recently acquired an old PYE Fenman receiver from the late 1950's. It looks smashing, but needs repairing to make it work. I was thinking of emailing the internet operator 1940's UK Radio station [http://www.1940sukradio.co.uk/], which is linked to a vintage technology centre for some advice. Do you know of any good traders who repair old kit? Drop me a line!

    Have a great week!

    Terry

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  2. Hi Terry. Many thanks for your words. The Fenman sounds interesting - Ive just had a look on the internet and it looks great in the pictures. There are a few repairers out there who specialise in these great old radios but they seem to be very expensive. The parts, on the other hand, can be acquired quite cheaply off the net and I like to tinker about myself, replacing valves here and there. Mind you, that could be why I have a number of old sets in the loft that are in a worse state now than when I bought them!

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