Philips B4X23A
This radio came in today, from a client wondering if it could be brought back to life.
The first thing I looked for was a working tuning system. The AM and FM sections are separate and if either cord sets break or become tangled, it is a nightmare. Luckily, all was okay. This model, which is one of the later sets in the B4X series has a VHF tuning heart that covers 87.5 to 108 MHz. Earlier sets only went to 101 MHz, meaning that you could not listen to the stations that play music to go mugging by.
The radio was filthy inside, all valve bases needing to be cleaned and a good vacuum. Very poor audio was due to an open circuit 10M Ohm resistor around the EABC8, a couple of electrolytic capacitors and a black liquorish Philips capacitor needed replacing. The rest of the coupling and decoupling capacitors fitted are the Philips-Mullard mustard types so will last for ever. The chassis is all hand wired and everything is fiddly to access. The reception was now good, but little treble. This was due to the tone control buttons not working correctly, which control conditions around the audio feedback circuits. Fitting a new dial lamp requires the removal of the front glass plate as trying to do this from the rear of the set runs a risk of snagging the tuning cords. The customer didn’t was to go ahead with a new EM80 magic eye tuning indicator, so a reasonable used one was fitted.
The HT smoothing capacitors proved to be in good order after being reformed so were left in place.
Reassembled and left on for a couple of hours. Before being returned to its parents.
