ValveRadio – M0AWS Amateur Radio

22 April 202523 April 2025

1946 Philips 170A-15 RadioBerry Receiver Project

Back in January 2025 I wrote an article about a little RadioBerry Project I’d started that was based around a very old Philips 170A-15 receiver from 1946.

The idea of the project was to build a nice shortwave receiver for the radio shack based around the RadioBerry HAT on a RaspberryPi 4 housed in a vintage receiver cabinet.

The project has taken longer than I imagined due to getting side-tracked by other projects that I already had ongoing.

1946 Philips 170A-15 Shortwave Receiver Internal View

With the original internals removed there’s plenty of room inside for the RadioBerry, RaspberryPi 4 and the small 15w audio amplifier. The audio is delivered via a pair of Celestion speakers that I had that were originally part of an old surround sound TV system.

Power distribution is achieved very simply using a multi-plug adapter that also has USB A connections in it. The whole thing is then powered via one 240v mains cable.

The screen fits over the original opening for the glass tuning display and is held in place by two mounting screws on the rear of the LCD panel.

I purchased some new speaker grill cloth from Amazon and remade the speaker grill front with cut outs for the speakers. It looks really tidy and matches the rest of the bakelite cabinet nicely.

1946 Philips 170A-15 Shortwave Receiver RadioBerry HAT on RaspberryPi 4

To finish the project off I need to purchase 3 rotary encoders so that I can have a VFO knob and two more knobs for other things (to be determined). The Volume control is already in place with the original knob fitted to it. It will be nice to complete the 4 knob line up.

1946 Philips 170A-15 Shortwave Receiver Rear Panel

I had to make a couple of fittings top and bottom to hold the original rear panel in place but, it worked out just fine and I only had to fit an SO239 antenna connector and ethernet RJ45 port so that it can be connected to my local LAN.

Receiving radio Caroline on 648Khz

The audio quality from the little RadioBerry and 15w amp is pretty good. With the speakers hidden nicely behind the refurbished speaker grill the project looks quite tidy!

It also makes a great receiver for the HAM bands with it’s coverage of 100Khz to 30Mhz.

The DL1YCF Enhanced fork of PiHPSDR works really well on the touchscreen and provides a modern control interface to the RadioBerry HAT.

Listening to the 20m HAM Band

I’ll drop a final article once I have purchased the 3 rotary encoders to fill the 3 remaining holes in the front of the cabinet.

More soon …

29 January 202529 January 2025

Breathing new life into a vintage receiver

Sometime back I purchased a RadioBerry HAT for my RaspberryPi 4 single board computer (SBC) to use as an experimental platform to test PiHPSDR software modifications and to test changes to the actual RadioBerry software. With these two projects completed I decided that the receiver on the RadioBerry was so good it would be a shame not to put it to good use.

For many decades I’ve been an avid Short Wave Listener (SWL) but, haven’t had a general coverage receiver for many years. The RadioBerry fills this gap in my radio lineup perfectly but, needs to be put into a suitable cabinet with speakers, display, control knobs and antenna connections.

Rather than just buy another bland square box I decided it would be nice to repurpose an old, vintage radio receiver from a bygone era and bring it into the 21st Century.

1950 Philips valve radio receiver — 1946 Philips valve radio receiver

After much searching on the popular auction sites online I eventually found the perfect old receiver for the project, a vintage Philips 170A-15 valve receiver from 1946.

This lovely old Art Deco looking receiver is made from Bakelite which was an early type of plastic made from phenol-formaldehyde resin, obtained from coal tar and methanol.

The full specification for the receiver can be found on the Radio Museum Website.

Sadly this is a non working example of this lovely old receiver and so I don’t feel so guilty stripping it out and replacing it’s internals with the RadioBerry.

1946 Philips receiver Serial Number plate

1946 Philips receiver Licence Plate — 1946 Philips receiver Serial Number plate

Having the original serial number and Licence plate on the radio is nice, it also makes it easy to search for information about the old receiver.

One nice thing I did discover during the disassembly of the receiver was the signature of the person that put the radio together during manufacture on the inside of the Bakelite cabinet.

Getting the internals out of the cabinet was fun, so many little screws holding the old valve electronics and tuning display in place.

1946 Philips Receiver - Internal View — 1946 Philips Receiver – Internal View

1946 Philips receiver - removing the original control knobs — 1946 Philips Receiver – Internal View

Once the electrical part of the radio was removed I gained access to the old speaker that was fitted to the front panel of the receiver. Unfortunately the speaker cone had a tear in it rendering it useless so I’ll need to get a new speaker(s) for the rebuild.

Once I got the speaker and fittings removed I set about cleaning the cabinet inside and out to remove the 79 years worth of dirt and grime that had collected within. The fascia of the receiver cabinet seems to have lost it’s shine and will need to be polished to get it back to it’s original beauty.

79 years worth of grime and dirt to be removed!

Washing the Bakelite receiver case — 79 years worth of grime and dirt to be removed!

It took 5 lots of fresh water and washing up liquid to get the cabinet clean. The first three lots of water looked like mud in no time at all such was the state of the cabinet.

With the cabinet now cleaned and put to one side to dry thoroughly I have started to search for the best type of polish to use to put the sheen back onto it.

Once I’ve got the cabinet looking good again I’ll start fitting the new internals. I also need to find a source for a new piece of material to cover the speaker hole at the front of the cabinet as the original material is looking somewhat tired.

The old Philips Emblem from 1946 on the receiver case

More soon …

3 September 20233 September 2023

My old valve radio station

Going through some old photos today I found a few great memories from the past of my old valve radio stations that I’d restored over the years.

These old radios gave me some wonderful moments over the years and a fair few hours of restoration to get them into operational condition. They sounded great on air and I often got comments from other amateur stations about how warm the audio sounded. Some did also mention the drift of the transmitter with temperature changes but, you just have to accept that when using vintage radio equipment.

M0AWS FT101E Transceiver, FL101 Transmitter, FR101B Receiver and TS520S Transceiver.

Above is my old FT101 line up. It consisted of the great FT101E transceiver, a complete standalone solution that was extremely popular in its day. Below it is the FT101 line up made up of the FT101 transmitter, FR101B receiver and matching speaker.

Top right is the lovely Trio TS520S with the matching digital frequency display which is incredibly rare and very sought after today.

These radios gave me a lot of pleasure for many years and I wish I still had them today.

My second Yaesu valve line up took a lot more restoration than the 101 series and was quite challenging at times but, with a lot patience and time spent sourcing parts I got them back to as close to new operational condition as was possible.

M0AWS FLDX400 Transmitter, FRDX400 Receiver, FL2000B Amplifier and FTDX501 Transceiver.

The Yaesu 400 series line up consisted of the FLDX400 transmitter, FRDX400 receiver and was finished off with the FL2000B amplifier. These 3 pieces of radio equipment looked beautiful in the flesh and were wonderful to operate. Taking a good 15mins to warm up and become stable you couldn’t rush getting on air. This line up was my favourite by far even though they weren’t as good as the 101 line up.

Above the 400 series is the later FTDX501 transceiver with matching speaker. This was a great radio in its own right but, not as much fun to operate as the 400 line up. To the right of the FTDX501 is the matching Yaesu Microphone for the 400/500 series. This mic is incredibly rare and I had to visit many radio swap rallies to find it, worth the effort though.

Top right you can see my old SWL receiver, the great Drake SW4A. I never had a Drake line up as they are quite rare in the UK but, it certainly would had made a great addition to the station.

M0AWS FLDX400, FRDX400 & FL2000B Station being operated by M1ACB and G6ALB

Finally this is a photo of two friends of mine, Steve Thomas M1ACB (Current General Manager of the RSGB) on the right and Andy, G6ALB with whom I spent many hours sending and receiving morse with to get our Class A licences. We had a fun day together operating the old radios and taking it in turns to handle the pile ups!

More soon …