| General Electric Radio Co. Ltd "Mighty Midget" | ||
| Manufacturer | General Electric Radio Co Ltd (GER) |
| Model | Mighty Midget |
| Age | Released 1946, this set dated November 1949 |
| Service Data | Yes (Thanks to Robert Thornton) |
| Condition | Rough, the back is missing, the circuit has been modified, and the top of the case is heat damaged! |
| Dimensions | 8.5" x 4.5" x 7" (210 x 110 x 175mm) |
| Comments | This is a medium wave only TRF set, using
three octal valves (35L6, 12SK7, 12J7) and a metal
rectifier. The circuit is very simple, with a tuned RF
stage, anode bend detector and a pentode ouptut. It also
uses a Barretter to limit the heater current to the
correct value, the glow of the Barretter was used as a
pilot light. The controls originally had gold legends
around them, the left is the volume control / power
switch, and the right is tuning.
This shows the chassis in the case, and the burnt area on top of the cabinet.
A rear view of the (rusty) chassis. The green object is a wirewound mains dropper resistor which has been fitted in place of the Barretter, fortunatly, the original SES (Small Edison Screw) socket for the Barretter is still in place underneath the resistor.
Top view and bottom views of the chassis. The original HT smoothing capacitor is fitted just above the tuning capacitor on the top view (centrally below the speaker). The underside view shows some extra smoothing capacitors fitted (grey one top left of picture, and blue one centre right), as well as two wirewound resistors and a silicon diode (top of picture, just below the additional capacitor) which replace the original metal rectifier. The black marks on the chassis are soot from the failure of the metal rectifier. I've done a little work on this set, and have managed to get it to work, it is quite sensitive, and the selectivity is good, especially considering that it is a TRF. I had to replace all of the wax paper capacitors (leaky), and the ouput valve (gassy). I decided that the mains dropper got too hot, so I've been experimenting with a capacitive dropper for the heater chain, which seeems to work well, but is a little large. I'll write a little more when my experiments are complete. Robert Thornton also has one of these sets here, which is in much better condition than mine! Robert also has an online copy of the circuit. Another two sets have come to light, belonging to Richard Allan, and can be seen here. Thanks also to Mike Izycky for finding this original advert from 1946!
The advert states that the set has a frame aerial, but the four sets that we know of all have throw out aerials. |
Copyright J.Beacon & M.Wroe-Parker 2004
