Flea market find: Goplana Tube Radio - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Maxamillion · #1 08-31-2008, 10:15 PM

I found this cool Polish radio at a flea market today - paid $20 for it. It is really clean and very feature packed! It has:

5 Tubes: ECC85, CCH81, EBF89, ECL82, and EM61 eye tube

An adjustable voltage dial with 240V, 220V and 120V settings

Inputs for Tape and Phono

AM, FM, SW1 and SW2

Output for an external speaker

An Eye tube for tuning (one of my favorite things!)

The pictures really don't do it justice, it is really quite striking in person. the inside is very clean as well, with no obvious leaking caps or burnt resistors. All the information inside is in Polish, which I don't speak. There is a date on the inside, written as 3.09.6L, anyone speak Polish? I'm thinking early 60's here.

I haven't tried to fire it up on the Variac yet, but was wondering if anyone here has any info on this model. I searched the web and found a few pictures, but not many details. Any info is appreciated!

jeffsod · #2 09-01-2008, 10:31 PM

No info on that one but it sure has an interesting/unique layout. Nice clean looking set thanks for sharing...

jdandy · #3 09-01-2008, 11:23 PM

Fire it up. As clean as it looks, it'll probably jump right to life. With a long wire antenna, those two short wave bands will be interesting to listen to, as well. Very nice.

Sandy G · #4 09-02-2008, 05:32 AM

Kewl lookin' set-Looks to be a Polish copy of the German Emud/SABA/Grundig/Telefunken style. I'd wager it'll sound pretty good & be a decent performer.

Old1625 · #5 09-02-2008, 08:09 AM

Except for the vertical configuration, one which I don't remember having seen before, the unit is much like the other brands just listed. I also agree that you could probably fire the set up without benefit of a variac, and it would probably play. I'm more cautious these days than once I was, so I'd probably "light bulb" the thing on the first try with about 100W for the current limiting lamp--just in case the input filter might have a dead short...or something of the sort.

Big issue with all those old German sets is that the pushbutton contacts get tired and cranky, and that you might have trouble with it until some DeOxIT and gymnastication are applied.