E52a-1 Koln

E52a-1 Koln

This receiver was purchased some years ago from the son of a German Radio collector, in Dresden, who intends to sell all the collection after that his father was dead.
The radio was totally rebuilt from spare parts. The cabinet and the front panel were totally rebuilt as you can see in the following B&W pictures taken form this collector probably in the early nineties.

E52a-1 KolnE52a-1 Koln

The color in witch was painted is very strange. But is also very strange that the previous owner that was an expert collector had done this big error! The tuning microfilm scale number 519 indicates that this receiver is an early type made probably in early 1943. The problem with all early E52a types (scale numbers < 700) is, that shortly after they saw service in 1942/43, that Telefunken’s way of adjusting proved to be inadequate. All later types got (have) provisions to calibrate (tune) L and C! Adding extra trimmers to the circuitry now will cause an additional calibration fault. There is no way around. All early E52a receivers can be correctly read-off at one end of the band, but all middle parts are giving considerable deviations. This render almost impossible to realign correctly the scale. The tuning motors also were not original. This motor, similar to the original ones, was built after the war in DDR but the power supply voltage was 24VDC instead of 12VDC, then powered at 12VDC it doesn’t have a sufficient torque. The projected scale was inexplicably defocused. I have sent the radio to my friend Arthur O Bauer who kindly tries to repair the radio. It was a tremendous job to change the entire tuning block. The original ones had too many faults and also missing parts. The tuning capacitor was also irreparable defect. After that the problem was that the tuning has a very large deviation of the microfilm scale. The receiver sensitivity remains very poor. He has tried to replace the motors with original type but the tuning unit doesn’t work. Than unfortunately seams that there is no chance to repair it. Arthur O Bauer gave me a large work in progress restoring documentation of the previous owner of this radio that had received from his friend.

E52a-1 Koln


E52a-1 Koln


E52a-1 Koln
Repro decals has been applied by thre previous owner

E52a-1 Koln



E52a-1 Koln
the metallic screen was well reproduced

E52a-1 Koln


E52a-1 Koln


E52a-1 Koln


E52a-1 Koln

E52a-1 Koln
The impressive tuning motor unit. Is clearly visible the leverage for memorize the frequency

E52a-1 Koln
Are clearly visible the two quartz-filters