Justin, I have one of these. Sadly I butchered it years ago when vintage stuff was of no interest to me. Silly boy!! All being well I still have all the component parts so you've inspired me to restore it.
Very interesting and cool item, love how the tuning gang has the local oscillator and aerial circuits side by side to reduce its profile, and ganged together with gearing, very well thought out and compact design.
It sounds like the volume pot on the radio was set to full and all that distortion was the output valve clipping. I doubt the radio sound would be that bad. Try reducing the radio volume. Not the amplifier volume. I'm sure that is the problem.
This was NOT a product of the Warsaw Pact countries. The intent was NOT to listen to transmissions from Eastern European (Soviet allied) governments. Instead this was produced by the UK, and was intended for use by HMG.
Interesting piece of gear. Curiously, for a spy item, there are some markings inside, on the little brown thing. I thought every evidences of origine of this equipment should have been removed.
There are still many questions after having seen this. Such as, what spies and for what country. You could at least have had a look on the valves to see their origins.I think this was not a radio for spies but for ordinary citizens in occupied territory. When in the second world war Germany occupied large parts of Europe radio was forbidden. Just like now in the present times it is forbidden to publish magazines and newspapers that do not follow the rules. In this here and now it is impossible to produce television programmes without lies. In world war number two the Germans forbade listening to other sources of indoctrination, just like what it is right now. This radio was not ment for spies but to break the the indoctrination, if the flow of information stops the minds of people get killed quickly. Look at the official C0v1d-nineteen propaganda in the last few years, it was practically impossible to tell the truth, this time the indoctrination was so powerful that nowhere on Earth there was a radiostation that not under the control of them who wanted us to believe their side of the story. In the 1950's people understood that 'other' radiostations could broadcast what the officially approved sources of indoctrination would not tell you. Those days are gone. What has happend to us?
