For awhile, been thinking and reading [member=82]Family_Dog[/member] sticky re Internet Radio Stations. Thirty years ago, on medium and short waves, there must have been thousands of radio stations, even then, depending on your local you would only pickup a dozen or so. At night, then many more picked up depending on propagation. Now on short-wave only a handful of Asian stations heard.
So then, what to do with all the vintage valve radios ? Decided to see if I could convert a valve radio, to Bluetooth. I decided to use a PYE radio made in 1960, so 62 y,o, but modern by standards then, having one of the first printed circuit-board and using an EL84 audio output, driving a 6 x 10" elliptical speaker and two tweeters. Was an easy restoration, just replaced output with NOS Philips EL84 (microphonic) amazingly, all the original valves are all Mullard. I used this radio as it has a gram (phono) input that powers up the radio when selected. As seen on photo's I recon this is 9.5 - 10 after 60 years!
All that was needed was the BT receiver, micro USB lead, 5 volt charger and stereo min. jack-plug for audio output. Just plug-and -play really!
As shown, how I mounted the BT and power on the left back of radio away from mains transformer and heat.
And that was it! When gram is switched, radio and BT is powered up and when connected, audio output is connected to audio amp. Volume audio level is adjusted by volume control as normal, Audio sounds great with good base and treble due to the large speaker and large cabinet. Audio level from the single EL84 is sufficient if you want to have a party!
I guess you can pay for a real BT speaker, but now I can listen to all the thousands of internet radios on a real, vintage, radio and to me, just sounds right. :2thumbs:
So then, what to do with all the vintage valve radios ? Decided to see if I could convert a valve radio, to Bluetooth. I decided to use a PYE radio made in 1960, so 62 y,o, but modern by standards then, having one of the first printed circuit-board and using an EL84 audio output, driving a 6 x 10" elliptical speaker and two tweeters. Was an easy restoration, just replaced output with NOS Philips EL84 (microphonic) amazingly, all the original valves are all Mullard. I used this radio as it has a gram (phono) input that powers up the radio when selected. As seen on photo's I recon this is 9.5 - 10 after 60 years!
All that was needed was the BT receiver, micro USB lead, 5 volt charger and stereo min. jack-plug for audio output. Just plug-and -play really!
As shown, how I mounted the BT and power on the left back of radio away from mains transformer and heat.
And that was it! When gram is switched, radio and BT is powered up and when connected, audio output is connected to audio amp. Volume audio level is adjusted by volume control as normal, Audio sounds great with good base and treble due to the large speaker and large cabinet. Audio level from the single EL84 is sufficient if you want to have a party!
I guess you can pay for a real BT speaker, but now I can listen to all the thousands of internet radios on a real, vintage, radio and to me, just sounds right. :2thumbs:
