s/n A130 08830
Bush DAC70 5 valve AC/DC tabletop radio in Bakelite case
with LW and
MW
bands, internal ferrite rod. First produced in June 1958 Valve lineup
UCH81,
UF89,UBC81,UL84, UY85. The dial is illuminated by a 15Watt 250Volt dial
lamp
The chassis is held in place by 5 screws, the two knobs on the sides
(wave change on RHS and volume on/of on LHS)
and the circular tuning dial which once removed enable it
to be slid out from the case leaving the speaker in the case. The
tuning dial and pointer are best withdrawn by placing a couple of
strings or tape behind and gently rocking the dial from side to side
whilst pulling outwards.
This little radio was given to me by Polly Taylor who thought I might
like this radio for my collection. It belonged to her mother-in-law and
sat on her sideboard for as long as she could remember before she died
in 2007. Polly said that it worked well and needed a good home.
This what was revealed when he back was removed
The underside of the chassis
top of chassis dust after blown away (note exploded capacitor
lower right)
A hole in the rear cover indicated that someone had added a socket for an extesion speaker though all that remained was the wire shown attached to the transformer.
Dust blown off and many capacitors replaced
LED Dial lamp replacement (paper diffuser removed)
As with many of these radios this one suffered from a deformed dial
due to the heat generated by the dial lamp and the shrinkage of the
beading surrounding the speaker grille. I omitted the latter when re
assembling and fabricated a LED replacement for the dial lamp as the
one
fitted decided to die whilst I was working on the chassis. I used two
Maplin LEDs back to back, 1.5kΩ, 0.22 mFd and a paper diffuser mounted
on the original base. The picture at the top of the page shows the
finished result with scale illuminated.
Some History
Bush rose from the ashes of Amplion who made speakers for British Gaumont cinemas and thus had links with the film industry.The radios were advertised in Gaumont cinema foyers as "A Gaumont British Product". Murphy experienced problems keeping at the forefront of technology and lost creditability with their dealers, many of which changed over to Bush. At some point Murphy became part of Bush and the company trade as Bush - Murphy in Chiswick, London. In 1945 because of their links to the film industry, Bush Murphy became part of the Rank empire and changed the name to Rank Bush Murphy (RBM). A new satellite factory was opened in Plymouth in 1949. During the mid 70's (When they were one of my major customers! I worked then for RCA Solid State having previously been with both Mullard & STC) ) they moved the entire operation to Plymouth. In 1972 the name was changed again to Rank Radio International (RRI). Following several years of mounting losses they tied up with the Japanese to become Rank Toshiba in 1978. This lasted just 3 years, and in 1981 finally folded. Toshiba became sole owner of the Plymouth factory. The Bush name now belongs (along with Alba) to an importers in Barking, E London.
Thanks to Colin Boggis for this information
How much is it worth? Expect to pay �10-�15.
Have a look at this site for a very comprehensive and interesting history of Bush radios http://www.bushradio.co.uk/
