Stella Starlet ST 414 T LW & MW transistor radio 1961

 Stella were found at 9-10 Oxford Street London, I think they were later owned by Philips as many similar models were released by them too. I found this small one at a reasonably cheap price but it had cabinet damage, missing corners and a crack. I've recently started using Milliput, it's a putty like compound that dries to almost stone like hardness and can be easily be sanded and painted. Put masking tape on the outside over the missing piece and back fill and let dry over night.

	The eBay pictures that showed crack on top with missing corner and dirty yellow glue also showing on front. Most of the cabinet colour had been saved by the handsome carry case that it came in.
	The filler was fitted with masking tape on the inner to stop it sticking to the front of the cabinet that held it in place while drying, then painted red.

The filler has to be kneed for 7 minutes to ensure a good mix, but is hard within 2 hours, it can also be found in many colours.

I've included the 7 transistor circuit diagram, the design was popular throughout the 1960's, in fact as a school child I had a Radionic kit that built an almost identical layout. But if this set is dead a quick place to start is to inject a signal at the volume control, if you have no signal generator just use a length of wire to pick up a hum to feed into amplifier. If that works the 4 audio transistors will be fine, just 3 left to check. The RF staged can to checked by the voltages on the base and collector.  Most base voltages will be around -0.5 V, if positive of high voltage is found transistor might be open circuit Most common faults in the RF stages are dead oscillator stage  (ist one) If having trouble still you'll need a signal generator, they can be found on-line for around £30.

If you remove a transistor to check it, take lots of close up photos so you can see where the wires went. Checking a transistor is easy, base to collector should check like a diode (on ohm's range of meter), ie., conducts one way and not the other, same with base to emitter. P-N-P and N-P-N transistors differ only in the direction the diode conducts (arrow points in is P-N-P and arrow pointing out is N-P-N. This circuit uses all P-N-P Mullard painted glass early types. Good luck if you have to repair this circuit, in my case all was good except the cabinet.

Sorry but the pictures don't show it's small size, only about 2 hand widths, quite neat for 1961. I had great fun restoring the great British classic from the past that equalled any Japanese or US import at the time in size and sensitivity.

In it's leather case

.Nice east to read dial with a simple on the move size makes this Stella a winner for me.