PYE P25

Click to enlarge the specifications.

This is a PYE P35 manufactured for England and the European continent. It runs on 210 to 250 VAC and needs a step up transformer here in the states. After restoration this radio is rather sensitive. Bands start at 2000 meters (150 KHz) Long Wave (LW) and goes up through 18 MHz.

Interestingly the Mid Wave (MW) band and the low end of the "Trawler" (as refered to in the alignment procedure) MSW band cover the US broadcast band. The LW and MW band is labeled in meters so one must do a conversion from frequency to meters when locating a station.

Wavelength (or Lambda) in meters = 300,000 / f (frequency in KHz.)

300,000 / 1020 KHZ (KDKA Pittsburgh)

294 meters on the MW dial scale

The challenge with this chassis was the broken oscillator coils. Two were out of their metal retainers. I suspect the plastic has shrunken over time and shipping broke loose the fine hair like wires. The antenna coils were loose also. So after some delicate soldering, with no coffee, the coils were repaired.

Pitch or tar was used to secure the aluminum and pressed iron powdered tuning slugs from detuning from vibration. That was a point of focus. A heat gun was used to soften the pitch and several alignment tools were employed from plastic, fiberglass to carved wood to perfect the alignment.

Once the radio was fully restored and aligned it received well on an external antenna. There is no internal antenna so a long wire antenna is a MUST for strong Long wave Broadcast and Shortwave reception. (If you live near broadcast stations then a few feet of antenna wire on the floor may be all you need. But you will need some lenth of wire.) A suitable ground may also be needed.

Unfortunately, I do not know a source for the British pins that plug into the antenna, ground, speaker and PU receptacles. I used snugly fitting (slightly zig zag bent) stubs of solid copper house wire. I will be keeping my eyes open for a properly fitting pin jack. I suppose one could have them fabricated from Hobby Shop brass tubing or rods.

The copper wire stubs worked well for the PU or Phono Pickup connection. Keep in mind this is near a line level input looking for a crystal or ceramic phono pick-up. I connected a CD player into the PU connections using an old headphone cable and alligator clips. Connect both Left and Right to the upper PU connector. The Shield goes to the lower connector (gnd).

Service information can be found on line from http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/pye_p35p_3.html.

Click on a picture to enlarge.

This inside. Pretty clean.	The broken oscillator coils.	Dislodged antenna coils made with "Unobtainium".	A stub of wire was coaxed from around the retaining mount and a new lead wire was soldered.
And the second coil which is a transformer. Replacement coils are not made. These are either repaired, rewound or salvaged from other donor units.	This is a new replacement capacitor of the same capacitance but double the working voltage. What a difference advances in materials makes in electronics.		The original 1/4 watt 20% resistor on top compared to the new 1/2 watt 5% resistor on the bottom.
Rear view.	Front view.	Dimmed room lights.	A scan of the dial glass with alignment points marked.
This is the Homebrew Step-up 1.5kva transformer. Isolated primary and secondary. This box is bigger than the PYE and is on it is own wheels.	Heavy stuff. Properly switched and fused. It was originally wired for 600 volts output to run a linear RF power amplifier.	An imported 1000VA step-up autotransformer.	It runs the unit just fine with no line isolation. It is not UL rated. but perfect for the shop. This unit is much smaller than the PYE.

This cabinet is to be refinished.

One challenge is to reproduce the logo decal on the top of the cabinet. I could not find a vendor that supplies British logos.

Measure and photograph the original before stripping.		Import picture into Visio	Create an outline to be filled in using MS Paint.	Re-import filled in image into Visio, set final size and duplicate.
Duplicate	Make mask for gold painted background.	Make many decals with laser jet decal paper. The ink jet just did not want to work for me. about 10% of the images were good.	Fill in gold background.	Looks bad.
Test different gold backgrounds on scrap finished wood.	Background too big. Make a smaller mask.	Final placement on the refinished radio cabinet. Use Decal setting solution from the hobby shop.	I am sort of proud of this logo. A lot of work went into reproducing this decal. It is a good thing computers and printers are available.

Refinishing steps.

Take everything off of the cabinet and mask off openings.	First application of stripper.		Old finish stripped. Original stain maintained.
			The veneer is chipped.	Press in wood filler.
	After shaping and sanding stain the filler to closely match the veneer.	A little closer.	Deodorized mineral spirits temporally darkens veneer for a test.	Closer still.
The cabinet has received approximately 6 to 8 coats of clear lacquer.	The filler has been touched up with grain lines and two shades of Mohawk Toning Lacquer to blend the wood filler into the veneer.

Final pictures of the refinished and restored PYE

Before cabinet refinishing.	After 6 to 8 coats of lacquer, grill repainted to match the logo and some gold fill in the knob lettering.			The grill received a good scrubbing and painted with the same gold paint as under the logo.
	There was not much left of the lettering depressions to fill with gold paint. But some filler remained.	This was taken with the Florescent shop lights with flash.

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