Valve radio repairers?

tc20

Hi all, jeeze the dust in here!!

Okay, so im clock watching in work, meant to drop in here before now, but here goes...
i recently came into possesion of one of those old radios, im guessing its a valve jobbie. I'll get more detials when i get home and look at it later, but for starters when it is plugged in, the backlight does work, but no sound.
Its got the A to Z listing of long forgotten european radio centres, comes in a nice wooden cabinet, its about 2ft wide, foot tall and 10" deep.
Anyone know if there are any repair shops for this kinda thing, or would it be more likely to find an enthusiast to do the same?
Im in the wicklow area

Cheers

bushy...

Maybe a hamradio club near you or maybe someone who used to be at television sets ?

It may be better not to plug it in at all until you get someone to look at it , afaik some of the condensers are made from layers of metal and paper that has been treated with something ( can't remember what ) . Anyway the magic something can dry out a bit and maybe send a lot of power where it wasn't intended to go .
If you go looking yourself , i think some of them had the metal chassis inside live , could be wrong though , but there would definitely be 100v + type stuff knocking around to feed the anodes of the valves.

tc20

Thanks bushy,
i had a closer look at it over the weekend, here's some more info -

Its a Bush Radio, AC mains receiver, Type AC81
There are 4 knobs on the front, going from left to right they do the following -
On/off/volume
Dont know
Tune
Switch bands (by turning this last knob, it illuminates each band on the vertical strip), im figuring MW/SW/LW

To the rear ,and apart from the mains lead, there are 3 ports.
One for Aerial and earth.
Next one for "Int LS and Ext LS" (whatever that is ?)
And "Pick up"

I havent removed the back panel, tho it states this can be done to change voltage i think

old boy

thers a german site cannot find the link, that gives all de info, even sells working ones of all types etc, i bought 1 there, maby google will find it for you, sorry i cannot help you any more

bushy...

It'll probably need a proper earth and antenna to work anyway. Is there a little wire with a small plug on it plugged into the "Int LS " ?
Afaik thats how you selected the internal speaker or external one.

tc20

bushy - in the port for "Int LS and Ext LS" (...ah, LoudSpeaker, the penny drops) there are, if im not mistaken, 3 little plugs, and very possibly the wire you speak of, with a little plastic cap on it. A plate beside this port states something along the lines of ..."you must plug into Int LS when not using Ext LS" or somesuch. Why would you have both an internal speaker, and an external one?
I'll take the back cover off and have a closer look
Thanks for your help guys

old boy

an old stunt that was used put cigarette paper tru the spikes on the valves then reseat, put dont take my word on it

Elfish

Newstalk 106 had a feature around December 2006 about a shop that was closing down in Dublin (can't remember exactly where ....). A father and son operation who fixed everything electrical - including old radios.

I think they said they would carry on the business informally doing it for friends, long time customers etc.

Maybe you could contact Newstalk - it was on in the afternoon.

tc20

Thanks for that Elfish, i'll give 'em a try