Radio Nold's Blogspot: Pye 1354

Pye Ltd was an electronics company founded in 1896 in Cambridge, England by William Pye, as a manufacturer of scientific instruments. The company merged with EKCO in 1960. Philips of the Netherlands acquired a majority shareholding in 1967, and later gained full ownership. The company closed down in 1988. They became a big player in the television camera business & also had a record label. Emergency services and the forces used there equipment too.

Arrived today as if I had ordered it in 1961, yes with original box with it's full packing, books, shop price tag (17 Gns - that was 17 pounds an 17 shillings - non the wiser, lol) and faulty. Ticked all my box's really, lol Made from wood with a red rexine cover material with no wear but lots of dust in the materials textured design. Back cover held in place by two spring clips either side and a pull tag (fell to dust) in center rear. A small bent piece of steel hides the mains '8' socket, and when pushed up to reveal hole pushes a 4 pole switch from mains to battery. Tiny mains transformer and is used with regulated 9 volt supply using transistor wired as a diode to adjust with a 5K pot to 9 volts..

The set was dead with a 8 ohm short across the battery, making a new battery hot and exhausted in a few moments. The short was on the main circuit board, so I had to remove it as follows.
Two screws hold the chassis in place one is hidden behind a felt disc art the rear of the two tuning discs, remove center brass cress first and pull the plastic knobs carefully, as you don't want to crack the brittle plastic centers. The other screw is right of center of printed circuit board, I wrongly removed the bolt that holds the magnet in place on the loudspeaker. I corrected that after by removing speaker and the middle domed net to re-fit washer and nut, luckily for me the magnet alignment was still right. See photos.

'No' is the loudspeaker magnet fixing, don't undo this like I did, use the one to the right that doubles as a wire clip. The other chassis crew is under dial pad felt.

Power transformer and '8' battery plug, hidden behind steel plate cover that lifts up.

The first component that I checked, C25, a 12 volt 100uF capacitor was short circuit - bingo! It sits with two other electrolytic's under the ferrite aerial rod. This type of capacitor is always one of the first thing to check in an old transistor radio, the fluid inside dries out with time. I also cleaned the two switches above the mains switch as they are open to air corrosion. A quick squirt of switch cleaner there and in the volume control and we was away sailing again.