She's only small but beautifully formed with ivory coloured top and Rexine (or coach hide, as in discretion) covered wooden body. The curved dial sides are due to the fact the earlier 1957 version was built in a leather binocular case and didn't sell as well as they thought, so rather than waist the ordered parts they put this one together in 1958 and this sold even less due to the transistor revolution just taking off. It's a shame really because the nice quality design of this model was all to no avail.
The company was founded in 1932 by
Harry Roberts and Leslie Bidmead with HQ now in Mexbouragh in N Yorkshire. They financed the down payment on a small factory, by selling Bidmead's motorbike. Roberts produced their first DAB digital radio in 1999. It's now a subsidiary company of Glen Dimplex in Ireland. They still produce best selling radios today that outwardly still look like this one.
Nice simple construction using an early versions of printed circuit board with a wax coating to stop corrosion, even the valve holders were made from porcelain, early Bakelite bases had given trouble. Two batteries were needed 1.5 volt for the heaters that were drawing around 200 mA total and a 90 volt HT battery. Because of the arrival of transistors only needing a small battery these earlier types were soon obsolete. Today I used just one torch battery in a holder and 6 9v PP3 batteries connected in series, the set will work fine with only 50v HT, these small valves were the efficient types developed for army/air force radio use at the end of WWII.
The 4 valves and 2 battery terminals can be seen in the inside view, a hole was made in the print board to hold the loudspeaker in place, thus reducing the depth of the radio. (earlier portables had been car battery size and shape.) A small L sped steel chassis hold it all in one place. 2 extended bolts and 2 speaker release nuts allow you to release it from the wooded, Rexine covered box.
The tuning capacitor is in the heater battery compartment and the volume control is in the 90 v compartment. Quite a large amount of dust had settled on the speaker cone, this was removed with a paint brush and vacuum. Unless you have the old battery's and build new ones inside them, the best idea is to make your own power packs like I did. I use Pound shop batteries as I don't leave the radios on for long periods, just test them now and again.
I'v included service information that was published in 1957 for the R-77 leather cabinet type, I think they are both the same. If not let me know, mine had no fault at all, just a very dirty cabinet that took ages to clean with soap and a tooth brush, but came up like new, some colour was lost, but a small coating of oil bought that back.
The LW/MW tuning dial is clearly marked with engraved print using bronze paint, I have a bronze touch-up pen that I used to touch-up the company logo that is embossed in the plastic. The 'L' and the MW' look to have been done by hand and the pointer on the left of the dial was missing, perhaps a reject fascia was modded? anyway I used a sharp knife to scratch a new marker at the 9 pm spot on the outer dial.
The battery access is identical to the top with hinges and 2 lock screw to old shut, the speaker grille is gold plated aluminium that was easy to remove, just two bolts, and cleaned in the sink with a water spray and soap, no dents were found.
The Rexine was re-glued where it was folded inside and I washed the whole cabinet with tap water, as it had a pungent smell of some sort.
Forgot to mention the royal links
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