Rediscovering FM for peanuts

[margetti]

Picked up this Hitachi tuner off ebay for the princely sum of £3.05 (plus 69p to replace a blown capacitor)...

A bit of research shows it was made between 1978 and 1982... the display lights don't work unfortunately but they're such hard work to replace apparantly I'm probably not going to bother. Ok, it will be of little use once the government finally get around to turning FM off, but until then...

Sounding pretty good for the money I have to say - certainly the cheapest bit of kit I've ever bought!

 

[proffski]

Brilliant! Well done and enjoy, FM is here for quite a while yet...

 

[drummerman]

Indeed.

I'm a frequent fm user and a good tuner (and aerial) can do justice to the format.

regards

 

[MajorFubar]

Nice buy. Depending on your preferred station, FM can still be the best quality option out there. I'm a Smooth Radio listener (or i was, I'm quickly falling out with it since it was all relocated to London) and its internet, DAB and Freeview streams are so horrid that FM really is the only way to listen to it in a tolerable quality.

 

[margetti]

Next challenge is to get a decent aerial that doesn't cost more than the tuner, might be a bit of a tall order!

Working off an indoor aerial at the moment (blasphemy I know!) but managed to wall mount it about 6 ft up and more or less in line of sight of the Crystal Palace transmitter which is only about 6 miles away as the crow flies.

 

[chebby]

Nice job breathing new life into what would otherwise have been scrap.

I have been a fan of BBC FM stereo radio since a teenager when I first tuned into Radio 4 late at night to listen to the second episode* of 'Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy' on a Prinzsound / Teleton / Eagle hand-me-down system that my older brother had just given to me.

Despite the crappiness of this (Dixons?) system - by today's standards - it was my first stereo separates system and HHGTTG sounded amazing through it.

I was hooked.

Before that there was only my portable radio to listen in the privacy of my bedroom. My brother's old system was a transformation and it was given to me just after Radio 1 went to FM full-time in our area and just before I 'discovered' Radio 4. Everyone else my age had so-called 'ghetto blasters' that sounded completely weedy in comparison. (And mine had an illuminated tuning scale and signal strength meter and a wooden sleeve to match the amp.) It all made O'Level homework a lot more tolerable.

Living in a fourth floor flat at the time helped reception considerably as there was nothing any higher between my bedroom and the nearest transmitter. So one of those T shaped ribbon aerials Blutacked to the wall rammed the signal meter's needle as high as it could go.

A few years later, when I started my first full-time job, I bought my own (much better) first proper hi-fi system but couldn't quite stretch to a brand-new tuner. So I bought the glorious (but quirkily shaped) Sony ST-88 second-hand as a 'stop-gap'. It was superb, my new girlfriend loved it, so it stayed. (And so did she. Still with me now 33 years later.)

I still have a lot of fondness for a good 1970s tuner with a wooden sleeve and a backlit tuning scale. It seems right somehow.

*A schoolfriend had heard episode one with his dad and told me I had to listen to it. He later lent me the first episode on cassette.

 

[plastic penguin]

Picked up this Hitachi tuner off ebay for the princely sum of £3.05 (plus 69p to replace a blown capacitor)...

A bit of research shows it was made between 1978 and 1982... the display lights don't work unfortunately but they're such hard work to replace apparantly I'm probably not going to bother. Ok, it will be of little use once the government finally get around to turning FM off, but until then...

Sounding pretty good for the money I have to say - certainly the cheapest bit of kit I've ever bought!

Very nice. Still hanker after my old Marantz. A local elecrical/TV shop changed the bulbs in my old'un.

 

[margetti]

Nice job breathing new life into what would otherwise have been scrap.

Funny you should say that as the listing said something along the lines of "selling here otherwise it will get thrown away"...

My own favourite memories of BBC FM was listening to the John Peel sessions on a Friday night as I drove up from Hampshire to London to spend the weekend with my then girlfriend... Not listened to near enough radio since then, although that said Cerys Matthews on BBC6 (DAB only obv) is a Sunday morning pleasure not to be missed...

 

[margetti]

Very nice. Still hanker after my old Marantz. A local elecrical/TV shop changed the bulbs in my old'un.

Good suggestion! Have done a lot of googling and quite simply direct replacement bulbs are not available. No manuals or specs available for kit this old, which only leaves measuring live voltages and currents... which requires having the lid off whilst the unit is plugged into the mains... which in turn leaves bare wires exposed carrying 240 volts... I'm ok waith a bit of electrical diy, but it doesn't go as far as 240v ac!

 

[drummerman]

Not just that but the spoken voice, male and female, is actually a great test for any hifi. It is something we are all familiar with, unlike instruments and most of us know how it should sound in front of us.

regards

 

[RodhasGibson]

Hi Margetti,This may or may not help you but, On Ebay there is a seller who has the Hitachi FT-430 Original Service Manual June 1977 For Sale at $9.99. it is available until March 3 2014. The Manual may well have the info you are looking for. Sellers Name is montrealfinds 99.7% Pos Feedback. Good Luck Mate