Dirty TR90b blinged up.

[geofy]

This is a Bush TR90b that I cleaned up, the battery compartment had a
battery left to corrode. I decided to just stabilise this area and leave it
alone along with the with the chassis as the set works well with good
sensitivity, some corrosion round the aerial socket was treated. I was a
Marconi wiring/assembler, and it surprised me how good the component
assembly and soldering of this radio is.

The raw brass nuts cleaned up like new using that cleaner advertised with
the bloke shouting at you, bang and its gone! And the plastic parts
carefully cleaned with foam cleaner, the push button legend is very
delicate, I accidentally removed part of the LW legend before realising what
had happened

Now it is in regular use with an external 9Volt supply.

Geof

[Brian R Pateman]

Nice job there Geof!

These in common with the other desirable Bush portables were very well built as you've found. They were a definite cut above the build standard of some of the opposition.

Regards,

[geofy]

Thanks Brian

They where hand assembled by craftsmen, and women I expect, for sure. I have an earlier version of this one as well, going by the slightly simpler tuning dial, it was new in our family but my brother and his friends tried to fit it into their first car in the sixties and damaged the transistors, so that what polarity means!! And I have never been able to get that one working again, but still hang on to it.

Cheers

Geof

Originally Posted by Brian R Pateman

Nice job there Geof!

These in common with the other desirable Bush portables were very well built as you've found. They were a definite cut above the build standard of some of the opposition.

Regards,

[GJR 11L]

I have a couple of those and find their performance as good as anything of the period, better than many!
Those knobs though, what are they from? I recognise them somehow.

Nice job, As with many sets of that time from Bush, I'm sure that the earlier ones work better! Unless it's just that without the earphone socket on the fascia, there's less to go wrong....





Edited: The title says TR90B, I think that set is a TR90 without the 'B', those have the brown and tan colour scheme rather than the blue and pale green like that one.

[Steve_P]

I'm surprised at the fact that you can't fix it. Paul's got the circuit (up top there!) and it's a fairly common design.

Get it out and take a look. We're here to help if you need us.

Cheers,

Steve P

[geofy]

Hi John
You are correct about the b suffix, the knobs are original, they where on the early versions. Only the late models had the earphone socket as a bit of an afterthought by the looks of it.

Steve thanks for the offer of help, the other set had replacement transistors fitted by me, along with new electrolytes a long time ago when I knew even less about radios than I do now. But at the time I made the mistake of removing the IF cores to try to fix another set. So now the Bush has no dust cores.

My golden rule these days is never touch the RF/IF's in any way unless it is obvious that they are at fault, which seldom happens.

I already have a circuit, I have found that the audio stage is working so at least I connected all the four transistors in the audio stage correctly.

Geof

[GJR 11L]

I wonder how they didn't stick with those knobs then? To my eyes they suit the set much better than the flatter style on the other ones I've owned and seen.

As you have owned another example for a while, you may know whether they originally came with the leather case or was that an optional extra in lieu of the handle? I've never seen one with both.

[geofy]

I agree these knobs suit better, though they collect any dirt from grubby fingers, the later type might have been to look better when used as a car radio. the knobs from my original TR90 where lost and black with silver fitted at the time.

I have only seen a leather cased one on Ebay and that still had the handle fitted if I recall, also advertised was the original shop cardboard display showing how to present the set for sale, at around £14 which was a lot of money in the early sixties. My weekly wage as an apprentice was less than three pounds before tax, learn a trade earn lots of money, erm, right still poor!

Geof

[howard]

Hello Geof,

I restored one of these TR90(B) sets some time ago, and I also have the TR90C, TR90CL and TR90D models. They are really nice compact sets with robust aluminium chassis inside, and this one doesn't have those wretched AF117 transistors in it so it's less likely to go wrong. And it has brass trim too which I think is more attractive.

So well done restoring one of these little Bush portables back into nice condition

Howard

[geofy]

Hi Howard
A nice collection you have and with the OC transistors quite reliable, why did they bring out the AF series, unless it was to deliberately make them break down after a few years! Though I have restored some by cutting the screen lead which shorts to the base A Robert's R200 from jumble sale was repaired just by cutting the second IF transistor screen and still works well and is a tidy little radio! I am not sure of all the different suffixes, B could be brown or blue. The gold trim on the TR's is very delicate and scratches almost just by looking at it, but I am listening to my local radio station on my shinny Bush at the moment. (I did remove the chrome trim from the front panel by bending the tabs to deep clean it as the whole radio had a horrible gunge all over, the red panel had marks that counl't be removed though the dial legend is still good, the case took a lot of cleaning but the battery label was to far gone to be rescued so I had to leave it).

Regards

Geof