I have two of these, that I've completely restored. One is original bakelite dark cherry brown and the other was painted green by Grundig. One has a brown glass tuning scale and the other has a green glass tuning scale. They both sound fantastic. The rectifier, as identified on the back cover, is not a tube, but a selenium rectifier, which I replaced with diode resistor combinations.
This receiver was obviously built during the postwar West German _Wirtschaftswunder._ That nation really pulled itself up by the bootstraps after its people cleared their streets from the rubble of the war. The quality of these radios is *excellent.*
The paint on that is factory---it was common practice to paint bakelite sets different colors. Grundig never cheaped out on the speaker, and it's the main reason why they sound so good
Grundig always made amazing radios with minimal number of tube envelopes. This one is going to be much less of a headache compared to the larger ones with the piano-key switches. In those dust would filter down between the keys and foul the switches. Also the switch contacts would get dirty and need a complete switch disassembly to clean. Also the switch bakelite would carbon-track across the B+ switching contacts. And let's not forget the dim and expensive eye tubes. One of the eye tubes even had an audio preamp pentode in it! It cost like $45 thirty years ago, now probably not available any more. The coil adjustments would freeze up too. Count your blessings.
My laptop is tied into my tv and I use the audio out jacks on the tv to send the audio to a big grundig console stereo which also serves as the tv stand. The sound from the 4 el84's in push pull is fantastic.
You're correct. The white paint is from the factory. You can find the same at old Philips Philetta Radios which had a bakelite cabinet that was either left brown or painted white, depending on the design option.
Hello shango066, i live in Germany & the capacitor's in the german Radios are nearly all bad ! I dont measure them i just replace it all exept vor the ERO-FOL II, the yellow & green drobs vorm VALVO, PHILIPS etc. ( i call them " Käsekondensatoren " ) because the yellow ones look like liddle pieces of chees ! And the ceramic ones with hi capacity from SIEMENS form the 30s and 40s are also mostly good !
I really like how they used teh fuse as the 110/220V selector link. As another commenter mentioned, this radio was originally white from the factory. the knob trim, the nameplate has the links between letters painted, and the back masonite is white as well.
6BM8 is a triode/pentode, so it has BOTH audio stages. No rectifier tube, so must use a Si diode or a selenium rectum fryer. I can see the diodes near that output IF transformer for the AM and FM detectors.
There is selenium rectifier E250C85. Tube EBF89 contains another 2 diodes, there are used as AM detector and for AGC and the small germanium diodes are for FM demodulator.
Back in the day in Europe radio usage fee was part of the electric bill. People were charged based in the number of tubes in the radio. Therefore the multisection tubes in order to reduce the count. The radios were registered upon purchase on buyer name and address.
Public broadcasting (TV and Radio) has a yearly budget of 8000 000 000 Euro, no typo. Half of it is going into pensions. They argument you pay for the possibility to consume, and that this is necessary for the society at all. Judgement of the constitutional court is expected for autumn.
I could not get my head around a 3-tube AM/FM set... It turns out it uses the ECC85 as AM converter as well- only Grundig could do something like that! But then they always were a bit unconventional, who remembers the TVs in the 70's with the thyristor horizontal output stage?! Brave men would quake in their boots if one of those came in with no raster....
Yes many service techs hated the thyristor/SCR based horizontal circuits, RCA really liked them, and introduced it to the mass market with the CTC-40 sets in 1969.
Love the videos even though I don't know anything about electronics. I have no idea what you are talking about half the time, but your videos are fascinating to me.
i have some telefunken and grundig radios all with their original electrolitics and no leakage...grundig or siemens branded electrolitics are extremely reliable
Shango, I sold those 85s and they were offered in two colors white and dark brown. notice the color of the knobs match the cabinet. Same with dark brown model.
This sucker is going for big bucks on the bay. Very nice little radio... looks like the bezel is supposed to be white and they painted the rest of it to match you could probably tell there in person but on the video it looks like the whole thing was repainted...
I have learned well proper testing is the key to change electrolytics and capacitors don't solve every situation and problem, what I find very cool it's how you test things how you go over every component how you troubleshoot
Great video! Unusually... calm. Great comments from seriously knowledgeable people. Am I the only one to notice Shango066's unusual inner-peace and absence of sarcasm, negativity, and near-anger? Odd. Very odd. Makes me nervous. What's goin' on here, anyways?
You can get yourself a radio transmitter to play music through radios without Bluetooth. I'm currently using an FM MHZ transmitter without using Bluetooth technology through my radio. They work on any radio with FM frequency. They transmit radio signals through open stations to play audio.
Nice little radio. It reminds me of the Aristona SA1020U I restored for my channel. I removed the paint with copious amounts of acetone (Bakelite is impervious to acetone as long as you don't leave it on for days). They used to paint brown Bakelite radios white, to give it a slightly more "modern" look (white Bakelite was difficult to make and it often turned out more ivory than white color). By the way, Aristona was actually another brand name for what was essentially a Philips appliance. It seems Philips was embroiled in a copyright problem with their brand name in some other (European) countries. They also competed with their own house-brand, rather than leaving their market open to outside competitors (Like Unilever does with detergents produced by them (e.g. "Tide" or "Dash", etc.)) I think Grundig did the same with "Saba" and/or "Nordmende" Some paint jobs, technically speaking, are really well-executed. It's a shame though, they did that... since the Bakelite underneath often looks stunning, in spite of or because of the paint-layer. Thanks for sharing your video
philips had several other brands, here in the uk 'stella' and 'mullard' were fairly common and they also bought the 'cossor' name from the original company in the late 50's , i also have a 'siera' sa1001u
My dad has one and its the same color. I'm guessing they were brown and then they painted them for the US market to match the colorful tabletop sets that were popular here.
Yet another fantastic and educational video, with the usual touch of sarcasam =) Excellent point about the paper caps. I had an epiphany when you mentioned the state of failures between capacitor types. You are absolutely right about that. I'd rather have opens than shorts any day. Perhaps those should be called EOL and not ERO craps. ';^)
This cathode voltage is not high for this tube (ECL82). You can search this tube at r-type dot org. Its typical control grid to cathode voltage is between -12.5 V and -16 V. In my ultra-linear amp I run them at -22 V.
would love to get so many AM stations here. The government have given up on AM radio in England and want to kill FM as well. Those wavelengths are too tempting to sell off to the highest bidder.
I once was really into this stuff. This is a nice little one, there are some witch are a mess, not made for maintenance. BRD made had better parts, GDR made parts faded much more. BRD made sometimes still work decent. At some point I abandoned Radios, and made a stereo tube amp.
i have a similar 3 tube radio i just restored...it is only 3 tubes and it has 3 bands fm mw and lw...it has only one tuning capacitor...althought the components are extremely high quality like grundig always used, the circuit design is disgusting...for example if you put a new tube in the audio output and the rest of the tubes all well worn the radio starts oscillating immediately...all worn tubes or all new tubes...it is an extremely awkward circuit...for example the volume control controls the voltage to the preamp stage, not the actual audio signal....the radio has no agc and you have stations so loud you have to hear with the volume all the way down and other all the way up......contrary to all the other 99% grundig model wich were state of the art spare no expense this is a cheap nasty radio but very preety and with good quality parts
Dual system tubes (dual triode, or triode + pentode) were produced and used all over Europe from 50s. So it's not specific to Grundig. You can find them in Philips and many others european brands.
@@xsc1000 yep, but compactrons seem to have far more 'elements' squashed in them, we never had them here in the uk, nearest was the eabc80, triple diode triode,
i have a Pye P117 'piper AM FM' that has the same valve/tube line up, apart from it has a EZ80/6V4 rectifier instead of that selenium type, has a 'live' chassis, the mains transformer only powers the heaters, circuit is very strange in that the ECC85 is a frequency changer on both AM and FM, with the section of the ECC85 thats used as a RF amp on FM is also a 'reflexed' 10.7mhz IF.
i've just found the schematic for the 220v only version online and the circuit looks very similar if not identical/almost identical to the Pye, and also has 'live' chassis , you can get it here elektrotanya.com/grundig_musikgeraet_85_musikgerat_sch.pdf/download.html
i'm going to keep a look out on ebay for one as it look a nice and interesting radio...my Pye unfortunately doesnt work too good, poor sensitivity, i've heard its quite normal for them ..
One might be able to remove the paint from the cabinet by soaking it in old school soap (containing sodium hydroxide) water for some time. Test resistance first...
I f the cabinet is actually Bakelite, you can coat it with oven cleaner and let it sit 24 hours in a plastic bag to remove the paint without damaging the Bakelite
Those ERO caps are about as bad as the American wax papers. They seemed to be more reliable for a much longer period of time but these days they seem to be dropping like flies.
Btw. Shango066, just in case you want to emphasize your "kick of german radios" a little bit by pronouncing them correctly: The "U" is actually pronounced like the "OU" in "you" or the "OO" in "food". Just that this vowel is short rather then long like in those two english examples. The way you pronounce them resembles the german word "grantig" which means "grumpy" ^^
I assume they mean tuned circuits, and that they count any antenna slugs, the image-rejection filter, the oscillator and the primary and secondary of every IF transformer. I still don't see how they get a total of 17 in that little set, but you know how they counted transistors, including diodes and spares, in the 1960s.
Found a Schematic wich is Similar to the Majesic 85 the german Pendant is Musikgerät 85 (wich translates: Music device). www.nvhr.nl/gfgf/schema.asp?Merk=Grundig&Zoeken=exact&isSubmitted=yes 85.144.192.2/nvhr/zip/Grundig_85.zip
Well no matter how good you will make this Radio (I have followed you a long time and I quite admire all you do) and I know this Radio will be better than new, music on LA radio stations sucks. Music in LA once was unbelievable. Uncle T, Brother John, Paraquat Pete once offered LA a great variety of music. Now it’s Muzak and it sucks. It will always suck. So there is no need to stick to the 9 seconds of play because who the hell can stand more than 9 seconds on LA radio. It only gets worse out of LA. Try the market in VA, NC and about 10 other southern states. It’s god talk and god shouting round the clock. Praise the lord. 🙄
cool lil tadio if you don't like the colour just let ot back in the sun and it'll peel off that our poyr some coke/monster on it and it'll do the same thing, also a radio? huh guess all the poltics things are over, it should be imple just "that was this band and now onto this band og by the way you should go vote for this guy and now onto this track"
wait a min, did that tube say made in great britain? wow a british tube, inside a german radio that is in the usa, that's more traveled then a insert funny joke here
It is german radio built for export to US. I think the british tube is just a replacement of the original german one - as power amplifier tube it fails first. These tubes were produced all over Europe.
Warning sarcasm alert!!! Oh come on Shango everybody knows the only thing that goes wrong in electronic devices is the electrolytics, especially in the ones with the old tube-type transistor ic's...
I have an Grundig RC100 amplifier from the 70s somewhere in house, it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. They do not sound that awful, but it is in fact so ugly I got it for free.
i woulnt trust 1950s and older electrolytics. 1960s and newer check them for leakage at rated voltage and replace the bad ones. if i was fixing them for resale id might change them all, but for my own use, id leave the good ones alone
These Ero100 (Paper), the Blue Wax and in other Radios like Nordmende the brown Wima Wax are always junk. Not worth Checking. Also beware of the Electrolytic on the Audio Output Tube. In my Grundig 3033 it shorted and caused a burnt Resistor and a shorted EL84 (6BQ5 ?) The white Color on the Cabinet is Original.
If you meant 550 kHz, they would use the same tuning capacitor for the Europe model and North America (export model), and MW in Europe starts at 510 kHz, with 9 kHz channel spacing.
Toronto, Ontario has had a commercial AM station broadcasting at 530 kHz for many years now. It might be one of the only in North America below 540 kHz. In the 90s, it was Hip-Hop 530, but now it is ethnic multi-language.
