receiver – M0AWS Amateur Radio

2 May 20262 May 2026

Bring your old handheld to life with an AIOC

I’m sure there are many radio amateurs around the world today who have an old handheld radio sat on the shelf that works perfectly but, has been replaced by a new, shiny, all singing, all dancing model that gets used on a daily basis. I for one have fallen into this trap with the recent purchase of a very nice Wouxun KG-UV9K full duplex 2m and 70cm handheld.

On my shelf there is a cheap Retevis RT85 that gave sterling service for a number of years and even today is ready to continue that service, if only I had a need?

Well now I do!

Currently I have an AllStarLink node running on a RaspberryPi 3b connected to a SHARI device that operates on the 70cm band. This node works great and gives me the ability to chat with people all over the world from my trusty handheld. It does of course also give me access to the weekly Matrix AllStarLink Net that happens on our Matrix node ( 642332 ) every Thursday evening at 20:00 UK time, a great way of bringing the Matrix HAM Radio community together regardless of propagation.

For some time I’ve been wanting to bring another AllStarLink node online so that I can have a connection to HUBNET/FreeNet whilst keeping my current node connected to the Matrix node for our regular daily chats. Since my new Wouxun handheld is a full duplex unit it makes sense to bring a new node up on the 2m band as I can then monitor both at the same time easily. I do have a spare SHARI node however, it’s a UHF only unit and I don’t want another node on the 70cm band. This is where the old Retevis RT85 comes in to play.

The All In One Cable ( AIOC ) board is a very neat little CM108 compatible sound card and serial interface that is sold by Steve, KM9G of YouTube fame ( Temporarily Offline ) that plugs into any handheld radio that has the now pretty much standard Kenwood ‘K’ type mic connector.

The AIOC board really is tiny but, beautifully put together. The four large solder pads on the top and more on the underside are positioned such that the TRS plug solder lugs line up perfectly for soldering. Attempting to do this by hand would be impossible as it’s critical that the spacing between the two connectors matches that of the spacing of the sockets on the radio.

Searching online I found a very handy soldering jig on Github that enables you to hold both the TRS connectors and AIOC board in the perfect position for soldering.

Downloading the .STL file I quickly printed off a solder jig on my Bambu Lab A1 Combo 3D printer and fitted the components into place ready for soldering.

Fitting TRS connectors into the AIOC solder jig

Fitting AIOC board into the solder jig. — Fitting TRS connectors into the AIOC solder jig

Everything fitted rather snugly into the jig and I soon had the board and connectors soldered together. Test fitting to my Retevis RT85 I found the TRS plugs lined up perfectly and it slid into the sockets with ease.

I then thought about designing a case for the AIOC board so that the bare circuit was nicely protected but, quickly searched online and found that NA6D has already designed a case and made the .STL available publicly for download on Printable.com. I quickly grabbed a copy of the file and punted it off to my 3D printer to get to work on.

Once the print was complete I fitted the AIOC board and snapped it together ready for testing.

Fitting the AIOC into the 3D printed case.

AIOC case with 2 x TRS connectors in place. — Fitting the AIOC into the 3D printed case.

Now that the AIOC was production ready I moved on to getting the latest version of AllStarLink onto my RaspberryPi 4 that I had taken out of my RadioBerry based shortwave receiver that I am going to upgrade to a Hermes Lite 2 in a later project. The RaspberryPi 4 is perfect for AllStarLink 3, a 64bit app and operating system.

Using the RaspberryPi Imager I pulled the image down onto an SD card and slipped it into my Pi4. ( Instructions on how to do this are on the AllStarLink website here )

Booting the Pi4 for the first time I found that it went through a number of reboot and configuration cycles before it was ready for use.

Once ready I went through all the normal configuration of the Pi4 namely, static IP assignment, timezone config, security, port forwarding etc etc.

Having configured an AllStarLink node for myself and only just a few days ago for another HAM I was pretty familiar with the setup. Wanting to make sure there were no “gotcha’s” I also watched a couple of KM9G’s videos on Youtube to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

Using the asl-menu command line app as user root I set about configuring Asterisk to work with the AIOC board. Much to my frustration I could not get Asterisk to recognise the AIOC board as an available sound device. I checked and double checked all the settings ensuring that I had selected “AIOC” in the available devices menu but found that Asterisk constantly errored saying it could not find the selected audio device. This went on for a whole day without success and so, I decided to put it to one side and come back to it later, a method I found that often worked.

A couple of days later I revisited the problem and had decided to take a different approach. Rather than continue going through the asl-menu app I decided to drop down to a lower level and go through the asterisk config files in the /etc/asterisk directory.

It wasn’t long before I found a file called res_usbradio.conf. Inside this file was the config for the AIOC board however, it was all commented out which meant it was disabled.

I’m guessing here but, I imagine this is what should get enabled when selecting AIOC in the available devices menu in the asl-menu command line app but, for some reason it doesn’t happen.

[general]
;usb_devices = 1209:7388    ;comma delimited list of usb
                            ;descriptors to allow.
                            ;format vvvv:pppp in hexadecimal
                            ;vvvv=vendor id, pppp=product id
                            ;
                            ;1209:7388 = AIOC (all in one cable)

Above is the disabled configuration which is easily edited to enable the AIOC device as shown below.

[general]
usb_devices = 1209:7388    ;comma delimited list of usb
                            ;descriptors to allow.
                            ;format vvvv:pppp in hexadecimal
                            ;vvvv=vendor id, pppp=product id
                            ;
                            1209:7388 = AIOC (all in one cable)

Once the updated file had been saved and I restarted Asterisk using systemctl the AIOC burst into life and Asterisk recognised it immediately. The Retevis RT85 switched between TX and RX and I was ready to check out the audio.

Setting the volume levels for both RX and TX via the command line tuning app I connected the node to my already existing node. Sure enough the two nodes connected without error and I was able to send and receive audio between them via the AllStarLink net.

Connecting the new node to the parrot I checked the audio levels to ensure it sounded ok and then connected it to the Matrix node where I had a brief chat with Ben, M8TKK.

All that is left to do now is to 3D print a case for the Pi4 so that it isn’t left naked and at risk of being shorted out on conductive surfaces and it’ll be ready for service.

I also plan to build another AllStarLink node using a 4m band handheld and another AIOC board and then will apply for MB7Ixx callsigns for the two new nodes. This will hopefully help to bring some life to the 2m/4m bands locally and introduce HAM’s both to the weekly Matrix Net and HUBNet/FreeStar via AllStarLink.

More soon …

25 April 202625 April 2026

There’s always someone listening!

I had a fun day on the radio yesterday. It started with the Matrix QO-100 Satellite Impromptu Net at 16:00 BST on 10489.873Mhz. A net that started off as an impromptu event that over the last couple of years has become a weekly staple. Hardly impromptu at all but, we liked the name and so stuck with it.

During the Impromptu net I noticed that my 2m radio was burbling away in the background and that a lot of European repeaters were coming through so, as soon as the net had finished I quickly switched over to my trusty Wouxun KG-UV980PL and started tuning around the 2m band.

2m was alive with repeaters from France, Belgium, The Netherlands and the UK, often beating against each other on the same frequency.

Being near the East Coast and closer to Belgium than I am to many parts of the UK I jumped onto the ON0WV repeater in Bruges. Being S9+ with me I called a few times but, no one came back to me so, I moved on.

Tuning across my Norwich Repeater memory slot I heard two French stations chatting, it was obvious they weren’t on GB3NB as the bell between overs was not the normal chime.

I quickly opened RepeaterBook on my iPhone and searched for repeaters on the same frequency, there are many!

Eventually I worked out that it was ON0HT so I quickly set about loading the repeater settings into the next available radio memory channel. I loaded a few others from The Netherlands at the same time as I was hearing more than normal from that part of the world.

2 French Operators on the ON0HT repeater in Belgium close to the French border.

Having the correct settings in place for the repeater I was now able to call in and have chat with the two stations.

Jean-Claude F5JOX and Didier F6DKO were surprised to hear an English station call in but, were most welcoming. We had a chat for a few minutes exchanging details and commenting on the great conditions. Sadly the conversation was eventually brought to an end as there were so many repeaters on the same frequency it became impossible for me to hear them clearly so, I gave them 73 and went tuning around.

The 2m band was absolutely full of UK and EU repeaters with many beating against each other on the same frequency. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was more of a split between the UK repeater frequencies and the EU allocation. Would certainly make it easier to use the EU repeaters in lift conditions.

Later in the evening Roger G8VLR, Steve M0XVT and I were having one of our Impromptu Nets on the 60m band. Often there are others from the Matrix that join in too but, on this occasion there were just the 3 of us.

I’m acutely aware that we often have listeners to our on air chats as I quite often get emails from SWL’s and licenced HAMs commenting on how much they enjoy our conversations. Yesterday evening was no exception as it turns out that we were once again attracting listeners albeit, unbeknown to us at the time.

Later in the evening Alan, G1SQB sent me a message via the Matrix with a YouTube link to a recording of us on the 60m band from that very same evening made by @KevinOReillyswl.

Yes, that’s yours truly waffling on about satellites as normal.

Kevin O’Reilly is clearly a very active SWL as he has many interesting videos on his Youtube Channel that are worth a look.

I must confess that I’ve never heard of the MLITE-880 receiver before but, after running a search I found it to be quite a popular radio in the SWL community.

There’s a very good review on swling.com that’s worth a read.

The short video above shows it to be a surprisingly good shortwave receiver in a very compact, portable package that’s ideal for listening whilst out and about on camping trips or other outdoor activities.

A big thanks to Kevin O’Reilly for posting the video and letting us see how we sound on the other end.

More soon …

20 March 202620 March 2026

Wouxun KG-UV9K Purchase

For some time I’ve wanted a full duplex 2m/70cm handheld so I could have a go at working the LEO FM satellites during the summer months from the garden.

Searching through all the handhelds available today I came across the Wouxun KG-UV9K dual band, full duplex VHF/UHF radio.

Since I already own a Wouxun KG-UV980PL Quad bander (6/4/2m & 70cm) I’m familiar with the menu system and the very good build quality so I decided to research it further.

Wouxun KG-UV9K Full Duplex Hand Held — Wouxun KG-UV9K Full Duplex Handheld

Looking at the spec for the handheld it does everything I want and more whilst being reasonably priced.

Jumping onto the Martin Lynch and Sons website I found there were two listings, the radio on its own or the “Pro Pack”.

The radio on its own was £79.00 but, the Pro Pack was only £20 more at £99.00 and came with every option available for the handheld including a programming cable, 2 batteries and a rather nice carry case.

The full specification and other details for the “Pro Pack” can be found on the ML&S website but, here’s a brief summary:

Pro pack contains:

KG-UV9K Transceiver with 2 antennas

Two batteries
Two belt-clips
Software and transfer data Cable
Fast charger dock and Power Supply
Hand speaker mic
Battery eliminator
Manual
Wrist strap
Leather case
In-car charger
SMA-SO239 adaptor
Hands-Free kit

Like my Wouxun quad bander the handheld can also be configured as a cross-band repeater, something I’ve not yet found a use for but an interesting feature. Of course being a full duplex radio with two receivers you can listen to signals on 2m and 70cm simultaneously or transmit on one and listen on the other, a feature I’ve wanted for LEO satellite operations.

The radio is really easy to programme using CHIRP and easy to setup via the very logical menu layout. The hand held has a good solid feel to it and I’ve found the battery lasts a good 3-4 days even though I use it to chat with other stations via my AllStarLink node most mornings and the radio is left monitoring all day.

The larger of the two supplied antennas works extremely well having a relatively good gain. I can now easily get into my two local repeaters on 2m & 70cm from within the house, something I’ve never been able to do with my old Retevis RT85 even with a high gain antenna on it.

The receivers in the UV9K are head and shoulders better than that of the Retevis RT85, I’m hearing signals much stronger now and can even get into repeaters that I’ve never even heard on the old Retevis handheld.

The display on the Wouxun is bright and easy to read, even in bright sunshine which is great as I plan to use it outside a lot during the summer months.

The supplied speaker mic gets good unsolicited audio reports on transmit and has clear audio on receive with plenty of volume. The speaker mic doesn’t have any radio control buttons on it sadly, something I really like about the Wouxun UV980PL quad bander as you can control every aspect of the radio without touching the front panel. Would be a nice upgrade for the handheld if it every became available.

Overall I’m really impressed with the Wouxun UV9K Pro Pack. The radio performs very well, comes with every optional extra available and is a bargain at just £99.00.

If you’re looking for a full duplex handheld radio then I recommend you grab the Pro Pack before the offer ends.

More soon …

14 December 202515 December 2025

FreeDV audio routing with PiHPSDR and Hermes Lite 2

I’ve recently been trying out the FreeDV RADEv1 digital voice mode on the HF bands with great success. The audio quality is astounding when compared to the normal analog SSB mode. Using only 20w I’ve been surprised how successful I’ve been talking to stations in the UK and Europe as can be seen in my FreeDV Log.

FreeDV has been around for quite a few years with development being funded by an ARDC grant and financial sponsorship from the Software Freedom Conservancy.

So what is FreeDV?

To quote the FreeDV website:

“FreeDV is a suite of digital voice modes for HF radio. Our flagship mode is the Radio Autoencoder (RADE). You can run RADE using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and macOS that allows any SSB radio to be used for high quality digital voice.“

And the most important part:

“All software is open source, released under the (a) GNU Lesser Public License version 2.1 (GUI and legacy FreeDV modes) and two-clause BSD license (RADE).“

FreeDV running under KDE-Plasma on Kubuntu PC

Looking at the digital voice (DV) community in the HAM Radio world, it’s stuffed full with proprietary DV modes from small software houses and black box transceiver manufacturers with no real OpenSource alternatives, until now.

Installing FreeDV is pretty simple regardless of which operating system (O/S) you use. Being a Linux user I grabbed the AppImage from the website and set about reading up on how it works and how it is configured.

I decided to take the two sound card approach since I have 2 USB sound cards connected to my shack Kubuntu Linux PC.

Configuring the audio routing isn’t straight forward as both the receive and transmit audio to/from the radio needs to be routed via the FreeDV app. To make this even more complicated I am using my Hermes Lite 2 SDR transceiver and PiHPSDR software, a complete OpenSource/OpenHardware Amateur Radio Station.

M0AWS FreeDV and PiHPSDR Audio Routing Diagram

Trying to clearly describe the audio routing using words alone would be impossible and very confusing so, I put together the diagram above.

Using two USB sound cards I’ve configured the system such that USB Sound Card 1 (an old Griffin iMic USB sound device) handles just the audio from/to the headphones and microphone. All the audio at this point in the system is analogue.

The second USB sound card, a cheap Plug and Play (PNP) USB audio device from Amazon, handles all the digitised signals from/to FreeDV and PiHPSDR.

Taking this 2 sound card approach keeps confusion to a minimum and separates the analogue and digital components of the audio routing.

So, how does this translate to the FreeDV and PiHPSDR audio settings?

Transmit Audio Chain

FreeDV Transmit Audio Settings

Starting at the beginning of the transmit audio chain, let’s look at the transmit audio settings in FreeDV.

Looking at the FreeDV Transmit audio settings screenshot below we can see that the
Input From Microphone to Computer device is set to:

alsa_input.usb-Griffin_Technology_Inc_iMic_USB_audio_system-00.analog-stereo

This is the microphone connection on the iMic USB device (USB Sound Card 1) and is the analogue transmit audio input to FreeDV.

The Output From Computer to Radio device is set to:

alsa_output.usb-0c76_USB_PnP_Audio_Device-00.analog-stereo

This is the digitised audio output from FreeDV (via USB Sound Card 2) to PiHPSDR and is used as the transmit audio that is sent to the Hermes Lite 2 transceiver.

PiHPSDR Transmit Audio Setting

To complete the transmit audio path we next need to look at the PiHPSDR transmit audio setting.

As can be seen in the screenshot above, the Local Microphone device in PiHPSDR is set to the Monitor of USB PnP Audio Device Analogue Stereo.

This effectively routes the digitised output audio from FreeDV (Output From Computer to Radio device) to the Input audio of PiHPSDR.

The reason for using the Monitor audio feed is because FreeDV does not recognise the Mic Input in PiHPSDR as a valid output device for FreeDV to use, hence we just need to monitor the FreeDV output device and use it as our input audio device in PiHPSDR.

This completes the transmit audio chain.

Receive Audio Chain

PiHPSDR Receive Audio Setting

Starting at the beginning of the receive audio chain we first look at the PiHPSDR receive audio setting.

In the screenshot above we can see that the receive audio output from PiHPSDR is set to
USB PnP Audio Device Analogue Stereo (USB Sound Card2). This is the DX station’s digitised audio as received by the Hermes Lite 2.

FreeDV Receive Audio Settings

Next let’s look at the receive audio setting in FreeDV.

The Input To Computer from Radio device is set to the monitor of the
USB PnP Audio Output Device:

alsa_output_usb_0c76_USB_PnP_Audio_Device-00.analog-stereo.monitor

This effectively routes the digitised audio output from the PiHPSDR receiver to the digitised audio input of FreeDV.

Once again we have to use the monitor of the USB PnP Audio Output device as FreeDV does not recognise the PiHPSDR output as a valid input device.

Next, the Output From Computer To Speaker/Headphones device is set to:

alsa_output.usb-Griffin_Technology_Inc_iMic_USB_audio_system-00.analog-stereo

This is the analogue audio output on the iMic USB Sound card (Sound Card 1) that routes the analogue audio to the headphones and completes the receive audio chain.

Summary

The audio routing required by FreeDV can appear very daunting when first attempting to configure it on the Linux platform but, hopefully the diagram and screenshots above will help in understanding the complete end-to-end audio chain that is required to make this mode work.

PiHPSDR can of course be replaced by your black box radio CODEC entries that will appear in the device lists shown above if you have your radio connected via USB. The config is basically the same but, just uses a different device instead of USB sound card 2 shown in the diagram above.

I hope this article is useful to those wanting to try FreeDV on the Linux platform and I look forward to hearing you on RADEv1.

More soon …

29 June 20257 February 2026

Rescuing a Bricked Pluto+

I’ve not written an article on the blog for a while now mainly because I’ve not had anything interesting to write about.

Today that changed, as I had a fun little project to dive into.

Steve, M0XVT sent me his Pluto+ SDR transceiver after his rather unsuccessful attempt at updating the firmware. Long story short, he somehow managed to brick the Pluto+ rendering it completely useless.

Not having a Pluto+ myself I’ve never actually played with one before and so this was new and exciting. I have, however played with Steve’s LibreSDR which is a later iteration of the Pluto+ and so, I had an idea of what I was getting into.

Firstly, how do you know when you have bricked your Pluto+?

Fortunately the Pluto+ device is actually quite clever and will inform you when it is bricked. The first sign you will notice is that you can no longer connect to the device using a USB connection to the data socket. The second sign is that when you take the top off the case you’ll notice that the blue LED is off and the green LED is on constantly. These are both classic signs that the device is bricked and needs rescuing

So, how do we rescue a bricked Pluto+?

Firstly, disconnect all cables and power to the device, it needs to be in a powered down state. Next remove the top of the case completely.

Unlike the LibreSDR the Pluto+ doesn’t boot from SD card so, we have to tell it that we want to boot it from an SD card. This is done by shorting the 3v3 and SD-H pins together using a jumper as shown in the photo below. (Black Jumper)

Pluto+ 3v3 and SD-H pins shorted together by black jumper

I believe that the v1 version of the Pluto+ has 1.8v instead of 3.3v, if this is the case on your device just short the SD-H pin to the 1v8 pin instead.

Next we need to make sure that the URST pin is connected to the MIO46 pin as shown by the green jumper in the image above. I put the jumper into this position as I am going to be using firmware that has ethernet support built in. If you want to load the official firmware then you will need to connect the URST pin to the MIO52 pin instead.

Next we need to load the new firmware onto an appropriate SD card. I’m using the F5OEO firmware that has ethernet support with DHCP built in. You can get the firmware from this Github link.

Whilst the firmware is downloading, insert your SD card into your PC and format it using a FAT32 filesystem.

Once the firmware has downloaded, unzip the file and save the contents of the zip file to a directory. Using your favourite file manager or in the case of a Linux junkie like me, the command line, copy the contents of the sdimg folder into the root of the SD card.

Note: That’s copy of the contents of the sdimg folder, not the folder itself.

Make sure to eject your SD card safely before removing it from your PC to ensure you don’t corrupt the contents.

Insert the SD card into the Pluto+ (it’s still powered down at this point with the top off).

Plug the USB A end of the USB cable into your PC but, do not plug the micro USB end into the Pluto+ just yet!

Now this is the tricky part, you need to hold down the DFU Button on the Pluto+ PCB (It’s behind the professor image on the PCB) whilst inserting the micro-USB plug into the DATA port of the Pluto+.

Once you see that the green and blue LED lights come on permanently, let go of the DFU Button and let the Pluto+ boot from the SD card. A short while afterwards the green LED should start flashing, this means your Pluto+ is alive again and has booted from the SD card.

At this point it’s important not to unplug the USB cable and not to remove the SD card from the device, we’re only half way there!

After a little more time the Pluto+ will appear in your file manager as a drive called PlutoSDR, navigate to this drive using your favourite file manager.

At the same time, open another window in your file manager and navigate to the folder where you saved the files from the Zip file. In this directory you will see the following two files:

boot.frm
pluto.frm

Copy these two files from the directory where you saved them into the root of the PlutoSDR drive.

Once this is complete, eject the PlutoSDR drive safely.

The green LED will now start blinking, don’t do anything, just leave everything as it is and the device will now create a new boot image on it’s own built in storage.

This process will take about 5mins so, go grab a cold beer, glass of wine or anything else that takes your fancy, sit back and relax.

Eventually the green LED will stop flashing, wait another minute or so for the process to fully complete.

If the PlutoSDR drive has reappeared in your file manager, safely remove the drive from your file manager and unplug the micro USB connector from the Pluto+ powering it down.

It’s now important to remove the 3v3 to SD-H jumper as we no longer need to boot from SD card.

You can now refit the top cover and the 4 screws and put the case back together. Connect an ethernet cable and micro USB cable to the DATA port and wait.

After about 10-15 seconds the green LED should flash and your Pluto+ is now no longer bricked and ready for use once more.

You can SSH to your Pluto+ using the normal Linux SSH command logging in as root with a password of analog.

If you have PiHPSDR installed and compiled with the SOAPYSDR library and modules (See my article on how to do this easily) you can now start it and connect to your Pluto+ device as normal.

Steve's rescued Pluto+ receiving a signal from my AllStarLink node in PiHPSDR — Steve’s rescued Pluto+ receiving a signal on the 70cm band

This same procedure can be used on Linux, Mac, Windows and RaspberryPi, it is not platform dependent.

If you want your Pluto+ to always boot from the SD card, you can leave the 3v3 pin connected to the SD-H pin permanently.

More soon ….

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 …