Have written up a story on this radio and submitted it to Brad for consideration for attachment.
The worst of the restoration is complete, but I had time to put this story together, and have had to stop the restoration for the time being - painting the kitchen. Lots of photos, including its provenance. Hope it will be of interest. When the cabinet and chassis are reunited, will write a bit more.

The STC 830 Story

Look forward to seeing the story!
Fred.

Document uploaded.

A number of typos and one major error. The the first high tension smoothing capacitors with the balancing resistors are in series, not parallel.

Sorry about that.

On the subject of series electrolytics, I had two unbalanced caps in this location for several years in ignorance of the real need for balancing. I did check that the voltages across them were about equal though. Andrew Kay put their replacements in.

Grand effort STC. I particularly enjoyed the early days photographs. Nostalgia at its best.
Many thanks.

Great work and well done on the write-up.

Now, we need to get that photo onto Radiomuseum.

Yep, enjoyed story.
STC really made some well performing complex receivers.
My much later "Capeheart" shows the same "military" approach in construction, rubber mounted tuning tuning chassis, heavy gauge sheet metal and so on.

Dont worry about typos and mistakes, I re-write anything I do several times and am never satisfied with anything.
Thats writing for you.
But at some point you have to lock it off and get on with the next thing.

Fred.

Fred, I'll have to re-read your Capeheart story as that big red dial is one I would have liked to own.

Typos is one thing, errors another - so corrected the one I picked up. Some of the figure numbers are wrong in the text as I combined two of the pictures and forgot to adjust the text. Haven't figured out if figure numbers in the text can be linked to the caption.

You are right - just decided to wrap it up.

GTC, I'm not a Radiomuseum member - who can I send photos to?

I'm not a Radiomuseum member - who can I send photos to?

Stuart (Sirwin) is a member of RM and has posted dozens, if not hundreds, of entries there.

https://vintage-radio.com.au/default.asp?member=Sirwin

Fred, I had a re-read of your Capeheart story and a couple of things caught my attention.

The first is that I had a similar two pole power switch fail on an AWA 429MA, where it is attached to the tone control pot. It failed because one of the two tines of the fork which engages with the shaft of the tone control broke off. Discovering this when I removed the switch and pulled it apart, I felt the same as you - lucky the broken tine didn't fall into the switch mechanism and cause a bang of some sort. Couldn't figure out how to fix the broken tine in a way that would last so glued a microswitch to the back of the tone control, and wired it to switch active. Works nicely except that the detente of the microswitch is a bit feeble compared to the original switch mechanism, but will do until a replacement turns up.

The other thing is that STC have used the two diodes in the the 6N8 differently in the Capeheart, something they didn't do in mains sets back in the 1938 day. I have often wondered why they didn't incorporate a delay circuit in the 830 with the extra diode, instead of connecting them in parallel for AGC and detection. Especially in high end sets like the 830 and 1030.

I guess the push-pull Capeheart circuit can be considered a descendant of the push-pull 1030.

Having got through the worst of this restoration, apart from a fault that has currently developed, I was very interested to come across this restoration of the same radio chassis by David Tipton, in three parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXtKKJ3YS5A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaFsenbtrRE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-8hdQIzLI8

It is done in David's typically thorough but engaging style. Enjoy.