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Philips BX560A-02 (1947)

BX560-front.jpg
The BX560A has an elegant design that places the radio in the late 1940-ies. The slanted glass tuning dial protruding from the top gives it a fragile look. It offers really decent reception on LW, MW and SW bands.
This Philips radio probably dates from 1947, a second revision of the BX560A from 1946. It has 3 AM bands: LW, MW and SW. This is a somewhat luxurious model, because it has a tuning indicator and the Philite (bakelite) case has two 2 wooden panels. A feature of this model is the glass tuning scale on top, this one is still in excellent condition. On top, behind the tuning scale, there is a window showing the tuning indicator.

The controls are located on the sides of the case. On the left are volume, tone and the power switch. On the right are the tuning knob and the band selector switch. On the back, it has antenna and ground terminals, a phono input and and the loudspeaker output.


	  A look at the inside from the back.

A look at the inside from the back.

This is a 6 valve radio: a superheterodyne with RF pre-amplifier and tuning indicator. It has a triple ganged tuning capacitor, to accomodate 2 variable (RF) tuned circuits before and after the RF amplifier. The main 4 valves are Loctal ('20-series) types, the other 2 side contact (P-base). The valves used are: EF22 (RF amplifier), ECH21 (frequency converter), ECH21 (IF amplifier and AF pre-amplifier), EBL21 (detector and output amplifier), EM4 (tuning indicator) and AZ1 (rectifier). This BX560A-02 is a later model. It has a different tone control than the earlier BX560A and BX560A-01.

I bought this radio after it was offered on the Dutch Forum on Old Radios. When I collected it, I was not disappointed. It was in good condition. Not much dust, moist or nicotine. All the tubes were there and the tuning dial still had all its printing.

I decided to make it really shine again, so first I took everything out of the case and polished and waxed the case. I cleaned the speaker cloth and the tuning indicator window. The varnish on the wooden panels was a bit worn, so I sanded the panels and treated them with spray varnish.

chassis taken out of the case

The chassis standing on my workbench.

Then it was time for the inside. I reformed the HV electrolytics and replaced a few leaky paper capacitors. The guts of the electrolytic for the negative grid voltage were replaced. I tried the radio. After some turning of the band switch it worked, though not convincingly so. The volume control did not work.

I removed some extra wires attached to the volume pot by a previous owner, cleaned the volume potmeter and the band switch with contact spray and tried again. This time it worked better, I got a lot of stations on MW but only a few on SW and LW. After cleaning the valve sockets, the sound became better. A cracking sound remained, though. It could be influenced by moving the frequency changer tube in its socket, but never disppeared entirely After replacing this tube, the radio became more sensitive and the cracking disappeared. Sound was much better.

I finally put the radio together again and now it's shining proudly on a bookshelf, playing every now and then.

Copyright © 2003 by Onno's E-page         published 2003-01-05, last updated 2003-01-06