Restoration project? Vintage Lorenz radio receiver

[Alex]

How about this for a restoration project?

[Kjelt]

Game over man, game over.

[Electro Detective]

Meh...dust off, a couple of shots of WD40, and you're in business     

[Alex]

Meh...dust off, a couple of shots of WD40, and you're in business     

I suspect this will need some contact cleaner, too 

All I know is that it was granted to a little village in northmost Greece by the US gov. around 1952 as part of a post-war rebuilt effort using community radios. Strangely, Lorenz was a German brand. No known ID, no schematic.

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Err... yeah? Nothing jumps out to me as terribly unrestorable, and even a basic clean-up would see it presentable. People have certainly tackled much worse & won.

Can't place/find the model, but from the Lorenz brand & general build style I'm guessing 50's-era military amenities, or maybe ham/consumer, shortwave receiver? If it's not particularly uncommon it's probably a parts set, but if it's not common then it's definitely worth doing. Finding/making a replacement dial glass would be a pain, and you'd be in for some parts-searching (or re-stuffing/faking) if you were a stickler for originality - but I'd bet the leaking caps in the power supply section make things look much worse than they really are, and the rest seems to simply be the usual rust, dust, & spiders...

edit: just saw your last post. Hmmm... if you don't feel like tackling it yourself, it'd definitely be worth putting feelers out to the vintage/military radio collectors out there.

[Alex]

Err... yeah?

I like this attitude, albeit risky. A few more pics attached.

Crawling the Interweb, forums and books for several years all I have is a rough resemblance to the Lorenz model L45W. There are significant differences though; it almost feels like it was based off the L45W parts/chassis and modified to be a more capable community radio.

The only other identifier is a hand-painted marking on the outside "ECA/4230/DA" which points to the agreement between USA-Greece in 1954. I know from word of mouth stories that there used to be an external speaker although I am not sure it has survived.

It is frustrating that I don't have more info on origins and purpose. Maybe that is key to finding some schematic.

putting feelers out to the vintage/military radio collectors out there.

I am all up for that, maybe someone knows something. Any place in particular?

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Crawling the Interweb, forums and books for several years all I have is a rough resemblance to the Lorenz model L45W. There are significant differences though; it almost feels like it was based off the L45W parts/chassis and modified to be a more capable community radio.

Good catch; at least above the chassis it looks very similar to the L45W (or related models e.g. Tefag T90W) - that is, apart from the PSU & extra knobs. Schematic-wise the L45W looks like a nice little performer for an early post-war European set - pre-selector, RF amp, etc, etc. All that makes it more interesting to collectors.

The only other identifier is a hand-painted marking on the outside "ECA/4230/DA" which points to the agreement between USA-Greece in 1954. I know from word of mouth stories that there used to be an external speaker although I am not sure it has survived.

It is frustrating that I don't have more info on origins and purpose. Maybe that is key to finding some schematic.

It really does look like an amenities set (i.e. meant for a military mess, club, or factory), both externally & in terms of circuit. Typically they were simplified versions of military sets without the ruggedising & extra shielding, usually with a phono in & PA transformer output, sometimes with an AC/DC or multi-voltage power supply, and in a fairly simple box. Since those are the same things that'd make it a good community radio, if you throw in some Marshall Plan pump-priming it could easily be the case that the L45W & this share a common ancestor...

putting feelers out to the vintage/military radio collectors out there.

I am all up for that, maybe someone knows something. Any place in particular?

Nothing specific comes to mind - military sets aren't really my thing, and the sort of thing this seems to represent isn't well covered anywhere (see below) - but the UK vintage radio forum at https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/ would probably a fair place to start. They might at least be able to point you to a German or other regional site or individual collector who knows Lorenz history or models. You could also try digging into the collection or forums at http://radiomuseum.org/ to find someone & contact them directly.

One of the little issues with the vintage radio collecting world is how very parochial the groups - and especially the on-line forums - are. By and large, individual collectors are curious about anything from anywhere, groups tend to stick to what was sold locally, & forums are totally uninterested in anything that wasn't. Which is a problem if, like me, you end up collecting a bunch of unusual sets that fall into the cracks between e.g. export or 'tropical' models made in the US or Europe for sale in places that don't really have a vintage radio scene (e.g. Asia...)

[Electro Detective]

Perhaps update the post title to something like "Restoration project? Vintage Lorenz radio receiver" that might attract someone clued up from a search engine or at EEVblog   

otherwise fishing without bait