Telefunken Princess radio

[defaced]

There's a Telefunken Princess 5374 MX radio at the local thrift store for 100 bucks. The cabinet looks good, so I thought this could be a cool project, as if I need another one. I looked around online and didn't see too much noise about these, aside from some site selling a manual for 10 bucks. I've never been exposed to radio circuits before, is this too ambitious of a project to take on?

Right now I'm thinking that some tubes and all of the electrolytics will need to be replaced, and I might have to find some way to drop the voltages because of wall voltage changes.

And last but not lease, does anyone know off hand if this an AM radio, or does it have FM too? For some reason I didn't look while I was in the store and now it's 3 hours away at home, and I'm at work.

[in a vacuum]

This is probably of little help, but I restored antique radios when I lived in Cleveland OH with help from some sophisticated antique radio people. First, this is probably a German radio from the 1940-60s. They often sound lovely. The German's over engineered these radios and they are a bit of a challenge to figure out and service. Apparently in Germany, radios were taxed based on how many tubes were in the radio. This led to the engineering of lots of exotic multi-element tubes to reduce the number of tubes needed in a radio. For instance there are a bunch of power tubes that are two pentodes in one bottle. So don't jump to the conclusion that just because there is one power tube, that it is Class A, it could be Class AB. $100 seems like retail price.

[Enzo]

Talk them down to $50 or less. At 50 years old you likely need new ecaps, and probably the paper or film caps as well. The micas are likely OK and the ceramics.

[pontiacpete]

I've restored a few AA5's. It's a lot of fun. I use a bucking transformer to run them on 110vac or so.
It shouldn't be to difficult a problem to repair, unless the IF transformers need to be re capped and then re aligned. I've only come across one that needed that much work.
I agree that $100 is a bit much.

[defaced]

Thank you gentlemen for the info/advice. This place has a 50% off day for different colored tags, so I'll keep my eyes peeled and pick it up if catch it on one of those days.

[Steve Conner]

Yep definitely some haggle room there

I bought an old Grundig table radio from a thrift store last winter and had pretty good fun restoring it. They wanted a good $70 for it, but I was taken in by the cool cabinet, and the fact it had a magic eye tube and FM. Of course when I got it home, the magic eye and FM tuner were both faulty But they're not really any different to an old tube amp. A couple of new capacitors and a shot of switch cleaner, and it was good to go again. Unfortunately the magic eye tube was impossible to source, and I had to modify the eye circuit to take a different tube.

Things to watch out for:

The FM band changed over the years. In the UK it's now 88-108MHz, but this old radio only covers 87-100.

Telefunken, like Grundig, is a German brand, so expect 8- and 9-pin miniature European tubes. They should still be available on Ebay, if not under their American type numbers, then try the European equivalents.

Don't buy any tube radio that doesn't have a mains transformer. The old AC/DC sets are just not worth the danger and hassle. Look in the back and also check that all the tube numbers begin with 6, 5 or E. If you see any 35, 50 or P, run away.