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FM Valve radios to work in Australia
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Return to top of page · Post #: 1 · Written at 9:18:43 AM on 10 October 2008.
	Dougie Location: Richmond, VIC Member since 10 October 2008 Member #: 360 Postcount: 9
I have been trying to find a valve radio that can receive the current 88-108MHz FM band. To date I have only found old British units that cover 88-99MHz and won't pick up my current stations. Does anyone know of any units that are common or affordable that would work on the current frequencies? Douglas

Return to top of page · Post #: 2 · Written at 5:50:48 PM on 10 October 2008.
	Arty41 Location: Brisbane, QLD Member since 18 September 2010 Member #: 102 Postcount: 301
Douglas, As far as I am aware FM in Australia came long after the valve era. Regards Rudy

Return to top of page · Post #: 3 · Written at 8:03:10 PM on 10 October 2008.
	Brad Administrator Location: Naremburn, NSW Member since 15 November 2005 Member #: 1 Postcount: 7301
Australia never made any valve radios that covered the FM band because the first FM stations, 2MBS Sydney and 3MBS Melbourne only began transmissions in 1973. 5UV in Adelaide did some test transmissions in 1972 but that is about as far as it goes. The Commonwealth Government experimented with FM radio in the 1940's however these plans were shelved in favour of rolling out television instead. In many ways it is a shame that FM never took off here during the valve era because the sound reproduction would have been the best of its kind. Valve radios that can receive FM transmissions were made in places like Great Britain, Germany and France however I am not sure of the frequencies these countries adopted at the time, apart from the information included in this thread already. If you are familiar with receiver alignment you may be able to do some band-spreading so that stations between 99MHz and 108MHz can be received though I would think first about the historical value of your set and make sure any modifications can be reversed easily before going ahead. FM radio took off slowly because the internation band which Australia adopted formed part of our VHF television transmission band, occupying channels 3, 4 and 5. When the Commonwealth Government made the UHF band available for translator services for the regional networks they forced most stations transmitting on 3, 4 or 5 to shift to other channels. This is why WIN4 now transmits on Ch 59 and ABHN5 now transmits on Ch 5A. ‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾ A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Return to top of page · Post #: 4 · Written at 10:23:22 PM on 2 January 2009.
	Phil Storr Location: SA Member since 30 April 2006 Member #: 39 Postcount: 33
Tuner Amplifers with valve (tube) FM sections were sold here in Australia in the early sixties. Read about my restored Trio here: http://www.philipstorr.id.au/radio/trio.htm

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