Very nice Martin, how many of these have you worked on? Not a lot I would think.

Craig🙂

This is, if my memory serves me right, only the third set of this type on my bench, for
sure not the type, I see the most. First one was many years ago, probably a
minor repair, then my own and now this one.

The full story of the Beolit 39 is widely known and can be found countless places on
the net, so I won't go into much more details here other than mentioning that
the 1938 Buick Y-Job concept car and the 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe were
both obvious sources of inspiration to what was definitely a striking and
ground-breaking radio design.

The history of the Buick Y-job and Harley Earl, pictured here together with
one of the many cars he designed, is easily worth a couple of minutes so please
read here but as you read along don't forget that this car with all it's
features etc. was created a couple of years prior to WW2 (!).

link
- and don't forget to come back here.

Martin

Great stuff Martin - reminiscent of the thread you posted about my Jet Present 607 last year!

I don't suppose this one's for sale though :(

Lucky owner ;) 

One of my favorite old B&O radios that I would love to have some day.

Martin is properly going to do that one as well if I mangage to find one.

Looking forward to see more of Dillen's work in pictures!

Has my stuff been a little less interesting to do so far?

John, No, I'm afraid this one is not mine to sell. 😕

Friedmett, Not at all ! Every succesful repair is a plus. Servicing the older B&O things gives a pleasure that is hard to describe. One more B&O repaired is one more B&O saved and the things deserve it. However, when you have seen the same fault ten times it hardly comes as a surprise anylonger and it tends to put a slight limit to the excitement.  😂

Thanks for all the comments, I haven't even started the repair yet and at this
point, noone knows if it will ever be completed.
The condition and history of this radio is unknown so when handed a set for repair,
like this one, I will have to check out everything. Noone knows what was done to it
through its 70 years.
- what parts have been replaced if any
- is parts missing or in the wrong places,
- it may even have wrong parts mounted !
If a repair has been previously attempted, which it probably has in this case, why
didn't the repairer succeed ? Maybe something caused the repairer to simply give up.
There are so many things to check before applying power for the first time but let's
first take a look at what we actually have here;

The Beolit 39 is a 4-valve AC/DC, AM only set, built in late 1938 and launched
just in time for the christmas 1938 shopping frenzy.
Being an AC/DC set will allow it to work from both AC (Alternating Current) and
DC (Direct Current) mains. This is quite normal for radios of it's time since both
forms of mains were widely used at the time, some even used high-voltage batteries
which would also work fine with the Beolit 39.
There are four knobs on the front, they are from left to right:
1,Power switch (push/pull) and volume
2,Tone control
3,Band selector
4,Tuning
The band selector will select between long wave, medium wave and short wave.
FM was first introduced in Denmark in the mid-50's so there's no provision for
an FM upgrade in this set.
At the back of the radio, the antenna connector and the mains cord plug are the only things.
No extra inputs or outputs are available, suggesting that this radio was to be
used in a secondary room, f.e. a bedroom, rather than the main living-room where
an eventual grammophone or extra speaker would be the likelier options.
The valve line-up is nothing special though using only four valves in this fairly
restricted room provided by this newly designed cabinet, had the engineers work hard.
The volume- and tonecontrol circuits are actually quite comprehensive compared
to contemporary radios from other manufacturers.
The rest of the radio's circuits are pretty much basic.
Valve line-up:
CCH2 tuner front-end,
EF5 (or EF6) RF/IF/AF amplifier,
CBL1 output amplifier and
CY1 rectifier.

Martin