Defiant MSH 452 A.C.

My first vintage radio, and probably the nicest example in my collection.  Cost me £35 from a curio shop, which might be a bit on the high side, but aside from the one nick you can see on the front panel the case is really in superb condition.  Chassis was in good shape, needing only the wax-paper capacitors changing, two new scale lamps and the dial cord replacing to get it up and running. 

Despite some initial concerns over the 6R25 output valve, which isn't a cheap one to obtain these days, it turned out to be perfectly fine once all of the leaky capacitors had been replaced.

It's a good performing set too, well capable of surprising people who've never heard a set of this vintage actually running.

Sits on the chest of drawers next to my bed, and the first thing most people ask me when they come in is "Does it work?" so it stays tuned in ready to be demonstrated at a moments notice, just needing to be plugged in and warmed up.

I realise that the chassis wouldn't originally have been quite so brightly polished, this isn't a set that I'm ever likely to part with though, and I think it looks nice!  Some day I'll need to tidy up my capacitor replacements under the chassis a bit better, as they're rather obvious.  Can't really make them any "tidier" in position though given that it's all point-to-point wired from the one bit of tag-strip though.  The white plastic connectors in the speaker leads have since been replaced with black bullet connectors which look more appropriate.  This was a mod I made to enable the chassis to be removed without having to remove the speaker - which involves some precarious balancing of the chassis while you remove its screws, as you can't get to them until it's free of the case.

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