The Pionier and Engineer series

The Pionier series of radio kits predate all related electronics kits from Philips. They were made in the late fifties, and probably into the early sixties. The larger senior series are based on vacuum tubes, and the assembly requires soldering. The smaller junior series on the other hand is based on early germanium transistors (OC 13 and OC 14, apparently OC 71 and OC 72s that failed quality control!) and components are mounted with a nut and bolt system. This seems to be the ultimate ancestor of the EE kits, as well as the later radio kits, which were also influenced by the development in the EE kits.

Pionier Junior series

The Pionier junior series developed in three stages:

1. At first it consisted only of a single two-transistor and crystal earphone kit simply called Philips Pionier Junior transistor-radio

2. This was renamed Pionier II when a smaller diode receiver kit and an intermediate expansion was added

3. Later, these two kits were slightly revised, and another expansion was added, containing a third transistor and loudspeaker

Besides these major steps, smaller changes were introduced throughout the lifetime of the series.

Kits

There never was a single kit with the largest construction; one had to buy Pionier II and the II A expansion with the Pionier III manual, the loudspeaker and a third transistor.

Pionier – Early version of Pionier II
Pionier I – Diode receiver without amplification
Pionier IA – Expansion from Pionier I to Pionier II
Pionier II – Two-transistor receiver
Pionier IIA – Expansion from Pionier II to a three-transistor radio with loudspeaker

Several optional additions and variations were mentioned in the manuals or marketing material, but were never packaged in kit form. Among these are:

PP 11 universal coil – a pre-made alternative to the self-wound ferrite rod coil is described in later revisions of the Pionier I and II manuals
4^th transistor stage – the Pionier III manual described how to add another amplification stage using a transistor, three capacitors and five resistors, mounted with the help of a 5-pole terminal strip
Wooden cabinet – a more durable replacement for the cardboard cabinets

I have only seen this series in Dutch.

Engineer series

The Engineer series was very short-lived; the absence of Philips branding indicates that this might have been made as a market test. I have only seen Finnish material about these kits, but it was presumably translated into several languages. Ilustrations from the Pionier series material was reused or redrawn, some details are Pionier-specific where the two differ.

Overall, the series differs little from the Pioner series. It uses OC 75 and OC 72 transistors instead of OC 13 and OC 14, and the huge external coil antenna also used in the EE 10 series instead of the ferrite core coil used both in the Pionier kit and later EE kits.

Pionier Senior series

Pionier S 101 – Single stage receiver
Pionier S 101 A – Expansion from S 101 to S 102 (two stage receiver)
Pionier S 102 A – Expansion from S 102 to S 103 (super receiver)
Pionier S 113 – Super receiver
Pionier S 20 V – Power supply for any of the receivers
Pionier S 201 – ½ W amplifier for any of the receivers
Pionier S 202 – 2 W amplifier for any of the receivers

There were no S 102 or S 103 kits, one had to buy S 101 and the expansion(s) for these constructions. S 113 is a slightly improved version of S 103 suggested if the radio is not built stage by stage.

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Tor Gjerde <i@old.no>