AWA 565MA

1950's AWA Radiola (not mine!)

I quite like these little 50's AWAs. There's something about the minimalist yet remnant Art Deco styling of local sets of this era which is almost quintessentially Australian. In some ways it's 10 or 20 years later than the rest of the world - but, then again, I don't think the rest of the world produced a style quite like it…

Several different AWA models use this same plastic cabinet in a variety of colours, feature levels and styles - cream or grey though pink to brown or black, 4 or 5 valves, different faces & dials, etc - and the same basic look was also used for larger cases too. The style is shared by several different brands too - by this time manufacturers had amalgamated, models were being outsourced or bought in from outside, etc. The differences range from minor (different badges) to fairly major (completely different dial/speaker fascias) - but they all share a similar stylistic DNA.

I bought mine - a grey 1955/56 AWA 565MA - late last year. On reflection I probably paid too much for it (sorry Simon!), but at the time I'd missed out on a few on eBay - then the supply suddenly dried up. Normally, reasonable to good working & near-complete examples range from ~$40 to maybe $100 on eBay. I paid near the top end of that with shipping, off-eBay, for an unrestored but working example in average condition. Of course, a month later they were everywhere again at more reasonable prices…

The case on these is an early ABS, and prone to both bromine yellowing (often mistaken for tar from cigarette smoke) and UV damage (the plastic turns dry and powdery). Neither is 100% reversible, but Retr0bright and careful sanding, cutting, buffing, and polishing can improve things dramatically. (I touched on using Retr0bright on this very radio here.)

After a quick restuff of both the electrolytics, replacement of all the paper caps (all cracked, with one falling apart as soon as I removed it), and replacing a handful of out-of-spec carbon resistors, the set burst into wonderful life. Only problem is this is supposed to be my partner's set for listening to Radio National, and there's terrible 100Hz hum (from an external source) all the way across the lower half of the broadcast band. I'd noticed it before, but since I mostly poke around the shortwaves I'd ignored it as Not My Problem Mate.

But of course, now that I've pointed it out it's a problem even on her little transistor portable, her problems are my problems… ;)

(I thought I'd tracked it to the room in my neighbour's unit where he keeps his computer running 24/7. Since we're on pretty good terms I asked him to turn it off - no change. So we turned off his power at the switchboard - still no change. A bit of further digging and DF-ing seems to point the area around the main switchboard or cable TV distribution, which is right under his computer room. So I'll either have to flip a coin to decide whether to lean on the power or cable company, or wait until we have a blackout or I can turn the power off to the whole block to narrow down the culprit. Grrr…)