Lafayette HE-60 Receiver

Fred Osterman comments in his book, Shortwave Receivers Past and Present that "this receiver was announced in 1962 and appeared in the 1963 Lafayette catalog. It was not advertised after that." In his write-up on the set, Osterman questions whether this model was ever actually imported to the American market.

The existence of this example indicates that at least one of these made it to the American market. This model may indeed be very scarce or as Osterman indicates, "Typically Unavailable". I have seen references to another example that was sold on a large auction site. Let me know if you have one also. I have not yet seen a schematic or manual for it although one is hardly needed given the simple circuit.

Repair notes:
The on-off switch was open. An application of deoxit cured that problem. The tube sockets also needed a bit of deoxit especially the 6BM8 whose filament contacts in the socket were intermittent.

A former owner had managed to break the antenna coil form for Band 3. The wiring was intact so I was able to carefully glue the form to repair it. A former owner also had managed to nearly break the broadcast band oscillator coil off its mount. Apparently, the ferrite cores of the antenna and oscillator coils are waxed tightly in the forms. Since the previous owner's attempt at moving the core in the broadcast oscillator coil had succeeded too well, the tracking was seriously off in that band. I gently tapped the core back to one end until the tracking was corrected and then left well-enough alone. The IF transformers were correctly adjusted.

Given the minimalist tube circuitry, this little receiver is a decent performer. However, the waxed ferrite slugs in the coil forms could use some adjustment, but that will require heating the slugs to melt the wax and moving them a bit for maximum sensitivity in the lower portions of the upper bands.

The band switch knob should be identical to the volume control knob. The one shown was broken in the front trim area leaving jagged edges. I sanded the knob smooth to eliminate the jagged edges. Will look for a replacement for that original but modified knob.