PHILIPS L3G03T

NOTES	Priced about the same as the popular Bush TR82 I do wonder why anyone would have bought this set. Don't get me wrong, I quite like this Philips (at least colour and style anyhow) but why does this set need two thumping great batteries when the TR82 only needs one? So, the design style gets a thumbs up, but what about mechanical design ? Well, time to break a rule here ; when people ask someone for a score between 0 and 10 and they say 11, 20, or 100, I just think they're wallys ! So, what about the philips ? Well on a scale of 0 to 10 I rate it as .... [drum-roll] .... MINUS SEVERAL BILLION !!! It the cruddiest piece of shyte mechanical design I've ever had the misfortune to clap my eyes on. So, lets start at the top and work our way down. The handle : so delicate and fragile you daren't lift it by the handle (even without the batteries!). They could have made it out of a 1mm diameter piece of catalin and it'd have been stronger. How this one survived I'll never know ... no, scrub that, I do know, it probably got little use after the first set of batteries died because of :- The back. Or, more correctly, the refitting of the back.Two lil' plastic lugs at the bottom and two retaining screws on the back oughta make it pretty easy to replace. But no ! Two long wobbly shafts (A) have to align perfectly with recesses in the back (B) - if they don't quite line up then the back won't go on and there is no way of prodding them into possition. After taking the photos of the inside it took me 10 freekin' minutes to get the darn back on ! Not that whats inside the back is any better. Again, starting at the top, the waveband switches poke out the top and are first in line for accumulating any crud that lands on the set. The delicate looking switch contacts are filthy and tarnished beyond belief. BTW, the picture is from after their first cleaning session ! But it's not as though the switches control anything better constructed. The main (R.F.) P.C.B. is attached to the chassis by bending bits of the chassis. OK, the chassis unscrews from the front easilly enough which would in theory allow access to the underside. But no, Philips thought of that - there is a screened audio lead connecting the R.F. P.C.B. to the audio amp P.C.B. and thought it'd be a chuffing wheeze to solder it's screen directly to the speaker as close to the R.F. P.C.B. as possible. Nice one guys. Option 1 : Unsolder it (and probably melt parts of the plastic), or Option 2 (which is what I did) remove the four flimsey push-on / fall off retaining springs that probably loosened enough to allow the speaker to rattle in the cabinet after a few months use. At least the audio P.C.B. is easier to access and slides in on runners - and slides back out just enough to interfere with refitting the back. And so to the tuning scale (you're gonna like this). The scale and plastic cover are retained by ... the control knobs ! Well, springs behind the controls actually. This would allow them to rattle when the radio is on ; Philips solution was to bung some foam at the back of the scale, which of course has long since crumbled to dust (funny enough, the very day I received this set someone on the forum at www.vintage-radio.com had exactly the same problem). So, with all the bits that were mounted on the front removed, time to dunk it in soapy water for cleaning. Er, no, Philips thought of that one. The front is actually two plastic sheets with black paper sandwiched in-between ; yes it gives a nice black background to the holes at the front, but it makes it difficult to clean without ruining it. But I still like it.
SERVICE DATA	A copy of the ERT service sheet #1340 was found on CD#1.
CURRENT STATE	Well, it really was filthy but has spruced up nicely. There is life in the audio sction but something still amiss in the R.F. sections - cheif suspect is still the waveband switches as at least this set uses OC44/5's instead of those miserable unreliable AF117's that infest many other sets of the period. Sadly there is a crack in the top right corner, but understandble given the combination of infuriatingly problematic back combined with a plastic cabinet that is even flimsier than the door skins on a Fiat.
WHERE FOUND	A donation from "Dave" who rescued it from becoming land fill.

Flimsey little wires darting off in all directions.


A metal can OC45 ? Can't recall seeing one before, though I guess I've
never bothered looking before. Mind you, I bet the sound quality from
this radio must be extrordinarily good since it uses them mustard
Mullard caps that the muppets audiophiles spend fortunes on at Ebay.

Muppets!