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Mende 315W radio (1938)

Mende315W-front.jpg
The Mende 315W is a rather large radio from just before WW2. It is a stern, square radio. But this is a still a radio for the well-to-do, with its walnut veneer, tuning eye, large speaker and 7 valves. I bought it through Internet in 2008.
Mende was one of the larger German radio manufacturers before WW2. Their logo was a very simple letter “M”, consisting of three vertical lines bridged by two semicircles. On this radio, the logo is also used for the ornamental bar in front of the speaker, Here, the Mende logo is stretched vertically to form a vertical bar. The front is divided in three equal parts by the woorden bar separating the speaker from the tuning dial and the logo. Mende used their logo like this in many of their models.


    The waveband switch.

The waveband switch.

The 315W is a robust radio offering some modest luxury. It has a large speaker and a tuning eye. It has connections for a record player and a taperecorder, really a rare object for the time. According to the Staleman radio guide it should have three wave bands: short, medium and long wave. The tuning dial is a bit peculiar. It has two columns of stations. The left column seems jump from MW to LW. It contains most of the stations. The left column seems to be SW. On the inside, coupled to the tuning capacitor, there is some kind of switch that is activated around the jump. The waveband switch has a square knob, but it really has only 2 positions, labeled 200-2000 and 18-54.

The 315W is rather heavy, the weight being casused by the large electrodynamic speaker, large power transformer. The power electrolytic is a large block positioned beside the chassis. It contains all P-base (side contact) valves with 4 V heaters:

It seems that Mende had a close relationship with Philips and was more dependent on Philips technology than e.g. Telefunken. The reason why I think this is the use of P-base valves and two “Licensed by Philips” stickers, on the chassis and back panel. Maybe the stickers were only because the radio was sold in The Netherlands where Philips held the so many radio patents.

    A lot of valves and large coils inside.

A lot of valves and large coils inside.


    The back panel has a Philips license sticker.

The back panel has a Philips license sticker.

I bought this radio through an Internet second-hand-stuff site in september 2008. The price looked nice, but there was a missing knob and the case has some scratches and cracks in the lacquer.

I haven't yet tried it. I expect some work to replace the electrolytics, that are not hermetically sealed, and the inevitable paper capacitors. And I will need to polish the case a bit to make scratches and cracks disappear.

Copyright © 2008 by Onno's E-page         published 2008-09-14