So What Have I Got Here Boys?
 

I picked this up yesterday as non-working and sure enough it lives up to its billing. Being a Telefunken tubed unit apparently made for the domestic market I can't read anything on it as it's in German, other than recognizable city names on the dial.. Is this a shortwave?

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...r/IMG_1169.jpg

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...r/IMG_1170.jpg

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...r/IMG_1171.jpg

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...r/IMG_1172.jpg

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...r/IMG_1173.jpg

Looks like std broadcast band & shortwave.

Wow! Beautiful find there! Absolutely a prime candidate for a complete restoration. And yes, that's definitely a shortwave radio. I'm no Telefunken scholar but I'd guess that it probably dates from probably 1956 to 65

Radio is from 1948/1949 according to: http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/telefun...a_8h64gwk.html

A schematic is available at:
http://www.tsf-radio.com/nav.php?rc=tome0/Telefunken

It's a beautiful radio. Best of luck with it.

Homebrew help?
 

Oops...wrong place. New thread started. DA

yep, its an older one. notice the use of real wood versus pressed termites with veneer on top.

... and longwave as well, being an European market unit. The marking
of the shortwave scale in meters (wavelength) only and the other two scales
in frequency only is interesting! Good luck with this project!

VERY COOL FIND! :thmbsp::thmbsp:

There's some history behind that beauty!

Its about 1949, and a basic model. From around this time, many German sets started to include vhf-fm. Nice clean set!

Thanks folks, she is a beauty for sure. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it as I am unable to restore it myself. I love the look of it though and after a good cleaning it will look even better.

Translation
 

Although no technical specialist, here is a rough translation of the text on the rear panel:

Upper right, next to tube diagram: "Beleuchtungslampe" (Illuminating lamps)
18 V 0.1 A.

-- "Sicherung" (Fuse) 0.5 A

Antenna - ("Erde" -- earth or ground)

"Gleich - und Wechselstrom" (DC - and AC) 110 V/ 125 V; 220 V : appears to be a two position radial switch below this script.

"Tonabnehmer" (Sound pickup) 2. "Lautsprecher" (Speakers)

"Nuer fuer Tonabnehmer nach VDE Bestimmungen" (Only for sound pickups which meet standards set by the the Association of German Electricians)

"Nuer fuer Lautsprecher nach VDE Bestimmungen" (only...speakers meeting...Electricians)

Switch at bottom right: Sound Pickup
"Aus" Off

"Ein" On

"Vor Naesse Schuetzen!" (Keep unit dry -- literally: Protect or keep away from wetness)

"Vor der Abnehmen der Rueckwand Netzstecker ausziehen." (Pull the plug before removing the rear cover)

Dave

Two corrections:

Lautsprecher (speaker)
Naesse (moisture)

A couple notes on the cities if you're unfamiliar with the German names: (Muenchen) Munich, (Strass..), Strassburg/Strassbourg, Mailand (Milan), Wien (Vienna). RIAS Berlin (Radio in the American Sector, Berlin), Mosk (Moscow).

One more --Beromuenster-- I think is Minsk.

Beromunster is in Switzerland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beromunster

Yet another radio with a damn bloody live chassie.

No, its not a live chassis set, it has a power transformer in it, that's how its able to switch voltages! You can't switch voltages otherwise, and besides most if not all European radios I've ever seen (e.g. Grundig, Telefunken, Saba, Blaupunkt, etc.) Were almost always cold chassis sets (they had a transformer in them) which is how they are able to have more than one selectable voltage, otherwise they couldn't change the voltage without having a transformer.

I think you need to do your research better before just assuming that every single Radio from that time period was a hot chassis radio, when that actually wasn't the case, hot chassis radios (also known as AA5/AA6 radios) were purely an American design that was designed to cut manufacturing costs and that style of radio came about in the early 1950s and was usually only used on "cheap" plastic table-top radios (and later on in cheaper wooden tabletop radios in the early 1960s towards the end of the tube era in America).
Most Higher End/High End radios and record players still had power transformers in them and were even fused with at least 1 A fuses, the Europeans at that time absolutely despised anything designed by the Americans at that time including radio designs and it showed in the fact that their radio designs all throughout the tube era were exceptionally high quality and no cost cutting in the designs including using a fused cold power supplies (they didn't want to stoop to the cost cutting design low that America sunk to).

A lot of European countries had fairly strict electrical regulations, a hot chassis set may not have met them. Less room for error at 240V!

Your wrong! AA5 hot chassis radios date back to the early to mid 1930's.....The first ones did not drop the entire line voltage in the tubes, but instead used a resistor in the cloth cord to drop the needed voltage that the tube string did not.....They had a penchant for their cords catching fire and were often referred to as "curtain burners". The first AA5s predated octal and their tubes had 2-3 digit ID numbers. If you doubt me I have a 1938 Philco that is a later example of that early design and it's tube compliment I could show you.

IIRC there were some euro AA5 like designs....Rare but I do believe they existed. Not all of europe was always 240v 50Hz.....They had various voltages in the beginning.

What he said - the way you can tell a euro set is live chassis, is when the tubes start with a letter other than E, E meaning 6.3 Volts. Usually other letters like U or P or etc means a series string connection typical to live chassis design

:thumbsdn: I've seen a few too many of this poster's insults , Telling folks "Do your research" all snooty like , when it is HIM who is WRONG himself !

Enclosed please find a picture of my 1940s Grundig 5 tube hot chassis set that was built for the European market as it has no English writing on it whatsoever (it's all in German)

Look Kid , I know your excited about this great new hobby you've discovered , and sometimes youthful exuberance can be mistaken for arrogance , but you really do need to backpedal on calling folks out based on the limited knowledge you appear to possess about your new hobby .

One thing I've ALWAYS MARVELLED at is how much PERFORMANCE, & richness of sound the Germans were able to coax out of these type of sets...I have 3 or 4 of 'em.. As many of 'em as I've seen 50 odd years down the road, EVERY GI in Germany must have brought home 4 or 5 of 'em.. These Bad Boys were as big of a part in the vaunted postwar "German Economic Miracle" as their cameras, & cars..

European live chassis set
 

Hello!

O.k. it seems there is some confusion about european sets with live chassis. The reason for european set with live chassis is easy:
Here in Vienna for example some districts had DC mains voltages others had AC back in these days. In Germany the situation was not much different. BTW: Max Grundig started rewinding burnt out power transformers which were connected to DC after the owner moved from a city with AC mains to another city with DC.
I own 2 sets from 1936 which are both universal sets with live chassis. On the photos of the backpanel of one set you can see how many line voltages can be selected to solve this chaos. In this case the universal set was more expensive than the transformer set with parallel heaters. Otherwise collectors usually prefer pure AC sets without live chassis. This causes that sets with live chassis were parted out to save and repair the AC sets. I guess a set with a live chassis is now much rarer because of this fact.
To make confusion perfect: I own a Radio from 1954 that has E tubes and a power transformer only for the heaters but a live chassis.

Greetings Josef

Wow people way to over react to my post! First of all I'm not "new" to this I've been working with vintage and antique electronics since I was in jr high and I'm 27 years old now, so that tells you that I'm not a newbie when it comes to this hobbie, I've successfully fixed everything from Cassette players, Record players, TV sets, VCRs, Stereo Equipment, clocks, tube radios, and even 8-track players, and the reason why I said hot chassis design radios were strictly an American Design was because of the fact that the AA5/6 Designation Stands for ALL AMERICAN FIVE/ ALL AMERICAN SIX which means that the design originated here in America, And in Europe when and if such a hot chassis design ever did exist it would of just been called a "hot chassis" design because for obvious reasons the AA5/AA6 designation would NOT work in Europe, seeing as its not America. And the only reason why I assumed that hot chassis designs didn't exist in European radios was because Most European Radios I've ever seen had power transformers in them where you switched the voltages in them, and I've always been told that all of Europe always was 220/240 volts AC and that 110/120 volts was only used in North America, with Japan being the only other country in the world to use an AC voltage that comes the closest to 110 (100 Volts AC).
So no I'm not misinformed about anything.
And seriously what made everyone and their brother jump the gun as far as commenting on this thread that was previously dead for almost two years just because I had commented on it? I have previously made comments on previously long dead threads before and no one ever jumped the gun to post comments on them before like this.

And really what doesn't make sense to me is why telecolor would be so concerned about whether or not a radio is a hot chassis versus cold chassis design or not, the way I see it if you plan on getting into the tube radio hobby then you're assuming the risks of having to come across or work on hot chassis desingned radios whether you like it or not. As long as you work on it with it unplugged and as long as you operate the unit with with the chassis inside its original cabinet with its original knobs in place there's no risk of getting shocked, but if you're just being an idiot and trying to repair the unit while its plugged it and turned on and or try to use the unit without its chassis in its cabinet and without the knobs attached then obviously you're going to get shocked, I see Telecolor's "concerns" as being rediculous, unfounded, and unnecessary.

Yes, but having a switched power supply has nothing to do with being able to run a radio off of DC Current vs AC Current, A Radio with a power supply that switches voltages from 110v-240v is an AC ONLY set, DC Powered radios weren't switched and usually only ran off of either 6v, 12, or 32v DC, or were battery operated up to 64v DC, anyways if you were to try and power a DC Powered Radio off of AC you'd fry the electronics or transformer, or if you tried to power an AC Radio off of DC you could also fry the electronics and transformer. Most of the time if a radio has voltage switching when I've seen it in foreign made radios (like the Japanese and German imported radios that were made for the North American Market) they usually had a fuse that you had to change out to a different amphere rating depending on which line volatge you were using, and usually had a power transformer in them which was a safety feature to make sure that the unit didn't blow up in your face if you accidentally tried running it off the wrong voltage when you got it and plugged it in, whereas if you had voltage selection on a hot chassis design with no fuses at all you could easily start a fire or blow up the radio by accidentally plugging it in and attempting to run it off of the wrong voltage, which is more than likely the reason why if there was a hot chassis design in European radios it didn't last very long (not nearly as long as in the American market which at that time we were making our radios for domestic consumption only so we didn't have to wory about having voltage switching power supplies, like the European radios did).

:nono: Please stop stating things as fact , when in reality you are wrong . The Grundig radio I pictured in my earlier post does indeed have a voltage selector switch , and no power transformer , and IS able to operate from AC or DC power ! It uses a very large , tapped ceramic resistor which the voltage selector switch chooses the appropriate tap from depending on which voltage it selected .

:thmbsp: Just so you know , I'm NOT looking to argue here , but I just can't let inaccuracies such as you have printed remain unchallenged . You say you have been at this for 15 or so years , and you seem to think you've seen all there is to see in our hobby . Well , at somewhat over retirement age , and having worked back in the 1960s and 1970s in TV / radio repair , I can with all certainty tell you there is a LOT you haven't seen yet , and that the learning is supposed to be part of the fun of the hobby .

Maybe not but Some people on here are looking to start an arguement, and anyways when I said that stuff I wasn't trying to start an arguement, I have seen quite a few different styles of old tube radios over the years (and thankfully I haven't ever came across a "curtain-burner" type radio) most of the radios I've ever come across were cold chassis type radios with the exception of a small handful of small 1950s and early 1960s vintage "AA5" designed radios that were either Bakelite or wood which are a lot safer to use than the old 1930s vintage "AA5" radios (yes I did know that the "AA5" design for tube radios dated back to the 1930s but I just forgot because I have heard of the "curtain-burner" cords that they used on them before but I just forgot that they were used on hot chassis radios from that time period), and I knew that at least in America we had "universal" as you call them (AC/DC As we called them here in America) but I didn't realize they had such a thing in Europe because I would of figured that such a design would of been considered too unsafe for them over there and that they would of preferred a cold chassis design over a hot chassis design for safety reasons (which like I said is more than likely why they didn't use the AC/DC hot chassis design for very long in their radios). And also usually (at least here in America anyways) if you had a cold chassis designed radio it was usually considered more high end than a hot chassis designed radio so really I would think that this would of applied to European radios as well, which would mean that any of those European radios you have that are "hot chassis" designed are more than likely BOTL models that they were probably cutting corners on.

I always thought, all the German radios had power transformers. The sets sold here, for the north American market, always seemed to have them.
I was surprised to see, so many of their TV's were series string, hot chassis sets, with some of the strangest tube types.
The last of the German tube type Tv's were straight 220 volt design.
When people brought them to the US, they had to be equipped with a step-up transformer. 120/240, auto-transformer type. :scratch2:

Hello!

At first I want to point out that nobody should be offended because of anything. Honestly I don't know everything about american sets, otherwise I know a lot about our european sets.
So it is definitely true that the mixed mains voltages caused a real chaos here in Europe. In some districts of Vienna DC mains were present until 1957. So the set I posted before is definitely able to operate with 110 to 240V AC and DC without a switching PSU of course. What I didn't mention was the fact that this circuit has significant disadvantages:
hot chassis, much heat because of the serial resistor in the heater chain at higher voltages like 220 and 240V, poor performance at 110V because of the lowered plate voltage, mains plug has to be pluged in in the right position at DC otherwise the set will not work.
Here you can download the schematic if you are interested:

http://www.4tubes.com/SCHEMATICS/Rad...x_img/374U.jpg
by init4fun

@dieseljeep: Most, but of course not all, of the german and austrian TV sets had serial heaters and hot chassis also the sets from the mid 50s. There are many reasons for this: safe costs and weight for a power transformer. AC and DC compatibility and so on.
My own combo which I itroduced here: http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=256949 also has a serial hot chassis and is AC and DC operational. If you really wanted to supply the set with DC a tube DC/AC converter was available as a feature to feed the AC motor of the Dual record player.

Greetings Josef

:thmbsp: I'm glad you didn't see my post as an attack against you personally , because it was not you I was addressing , as much as it was the misinformation that all selectable voltage sets had power transformers/cold chassis . I want you to know that in my younger days I'd develop such notions myself , based on the sets I kept seeing in the shop where I worked , and then wouldn't ya know next week I'd see a set on my bench that a week earlier I'd have bet didn't exist . Weird stuff like a TV that had a transformer for the tube's heaters only , and a hot chassis voltage doubler power supply using selenium rectifiers , or conversely , seeing a set with series heaters and transformer equipped B+ supply cold chassis .

You will see many things like this in the course of your hobby , and to me it's cool to ponder what oddity of engineering would lead to such deviations from the "normal" way most sets were wired .

Among all the other BS I have seen here in this thread, a knew that someone had to step forth and elaborate on this topic; performance. I have a Lowe Opta-Venus that I have owned since I found it in Germany (Bamberg) at an army post second hand store. Not once has it ever failed to amaze me in frankly all regards that one might expect from a good radio. It is ultra sensitive as far as bringing in stations where you might think there are none. On top of that, the sound quality is amazing with only a single speaker. Some of this model or a similar model had a mid on each side. There is separate bass and treble control to boot.

When I look on Ebay a rarely see one exactly like it and if I do they are pricey. What I have always thought is odd is that there are quite a number of European radio companies and they all seem to have very similar if not the same parts like knobs, dials, etc. I'm not sure about internal parts. Many look almost identical. Perhaps our member from Vienna can elaborate on this. Thanks and to those who know so much, but have seen so little all I can say is: HOBBY-H O B B Y- HOBBY :thmbsp:

Don't let yourself fooled by something that might have a transformer... some of the transformes might be autotrasnformers - no electric seperation between the electrical network and the electricity inside the device, so if you're not carefoul, bîzzzzt, you may get yourself "fried". Some of the devices do not permit groundig, but other do (the do have separation capacitors).
In Germany thed did used 180 Volts?