Eddystone Restoration

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My interest in radio began when I was a young lad in the late 1940's building crystal sets and one and two valve radios. My first encounter with Eddystone was gazing into the window of Webb's Radio in Soho Street whilst buying some WW2 surplus bits from the emporiums in Lisle Street and the surrounding area . The Eddystone receivers were of course well out of reach of a young lad with meagre pocket money, but one could only dream!

The first Eddystone that I managed to acquire was an 888 model amateur bands only bought when I was a teenager. The ALL WORLD TWO came to my attention years later when I purchased an Eddystone Short Wave Manual at a BVWS rally. Full constructional details were amongst other interesting articles. I also found out that the AW2 was used by some VI'S (Voluntary Interceptors) during WW2, keeping track of German transmissions because of the shortage of communication receivers.

Being a two valve battery set it also fired my interest taking me back to my younger days. I decided I would like to have a go at building a replica using as many Eddystone original parts as possible. Collecting the parts took quite a long time but I was very fortunate in buying off my very good friend Norman , G0AES, sadly now a SK, the bandset and bandspread condensers complete with the tuning dial. The six pin coils and base and valve-holders I managed to get at various vintage rallys, I now have a full set. The two valves were obtained from Rod Burman of Valve and Tube Supplies on the Isle of Wight. and I already had a pair of SG Brown High imperdance headphones. I gutted a bakelite cased block condenser and installed inside a couple of 1mFd 500v to try and preserve a little authenticity, the rest of the components were eithe war surplus or modern types unfortunately. The metalwork- chassis and case I made myself, I was then able to start construction.

After wiring was completed, following the instructions in the manual, I checked it over at least twice to make sure there were no errors. It was now ready for testing, but of course batteries were now no longer available, so I set about building a suitable power supply . The HT unit I built from an article by Stefan Niewiadomski, published in Practical Wireless. The LT supply was built using the popular LM317T voltage regulator. Once the PSU was built and tested I was ready to connect up and test. When this was done I plugged in a 40 metre band coil and was ready to switch on, this I did with some trepidation, but I was rewarded with receiving quite a number of SW stations at excellent headphone volume . The reaction control took the set into oscillation very smoothly . Finally I must say that the hours of work and also the time to collect the bits and pieces, not forgetting the enjoyment of course, was really satisfying to hear a set that was designed by Eddystone back in the 1930's working so well.

Joe K9LY from Chicago needed a new 888A dial plate for a restoration project. A friend of his, Mike - KA9CLP, was kind enough to lay out the dial scale on his computer for him. The original scale was in truly terrible shape. Nearly half the original scale (including the base paint) had been rubbed off by some overzealous cleaner. Then a very non-original looking paper scale had been stuck over it! A local sign-making shop had a large-format printer that printed the new scale onto a sheet of thin, gray, self-adhesive plastic. Then Joe applied it to the metal plate and carefully cut out the opening for the fine-tuning scale window. Joe thinks this layout could be of use to other 888A owners if they have a seriously bad-looking dial plate.

Click on the following to see the finished results.