Welcome To My Kleinfunksprecher d “Dorette” Radio Page Two.

As I have had to do a lot of research for this radio, I have had to spread the information out over two pages.

Radio Unit Assembly

20.  21. 22. 23.

The pictures above show the various stages I have had to do to get the radio units ready for painting, Picture 20. shows how I have drilled out the hole in the radio unit for the aerial. I have also in Pictures 21. & 22. gently drilled out the aerial mount, so that I can fit the brass wire through it and into the radio unit. In Picture 23. I have drilled out the connection points for the wire that links the two units together, it also shows the wire that I used from the kit to connect them. Note: The wire had to have both ends of the plastic stripped back to expose the wire, this was then tightly wound so that it fits into the drilled holes.

Wiring Connections

 24.   25. 26. 27.

The kit comes with a pair of Dragon headphones and a throat microphone, plus a pair of resin connectors as shown in Picture 24. I found the resin parts are not detailed enough for me to cut off and adapt to fit. As I would also have to cut some pins down to make the connectors, which would have to be fitted into drilled holes.

So I have used the Dragon pieces but I found that the connection for the throat microphone in Picture 25. fits onto the radio unit ok. But the headphone connection does not line up with the holes I drilled out. So in Picture 26. I have cut off the two prong connector and fitted an extra three prong one from another spare set I have. I have also cut the centre prong off so that the new connector can now fit into the radio unit. Picture 27. shows the headsets with the painted end connectors.

Painting The Radio

28. 29.  30.

As mentioned earlier, I first washed the resin parts first in soapy water to remove any mould release agent, I then left the parts to dry. Then by looking at the kit instructions I have chosen to paint the radio Dunklegelb, and on a paint conversion chart I have found that the equivalent colour is - Tamiya XF - 60. Picture 28. is the painted radio, In Picture 29. I gave both of the units a wash over with some heavily thinned down Brown acrylic paint, which I dabbed off with a tissue to leave the dark paint in the recesses and edges. Once that was dry I then mixed up some of the Dunklegelb and some White paint, to get a slightly lighter colour which I then Drybrushed over the radio units to add highlights.

Picture 30. is of the radio units after I have given it a drybrush with some Gunmetal & Sand Weathering Powders, to add both highlights and to dull down the overall look. 

Radio Unit & Battery Box Fitted Together

I read a post on the Sixth Army Forum by Heersbergfuhrer, where he has mentioned about a book "Wireless for Wehrmacht in Detail" from WWP. And how the radio unit and the battery box can be fitted together, to be held in one hand with the leather strap. And I found out that with resin radio and battery box has such crisp detail, that they can indeed be clipped together as shown in the picture on the right.

Additional information about how the radio was used is in italics below by Sixty Driver:

This battery box was worn on the belt. The leather strap on the battery box was adjustable so that the set could be:

1. Radio attached to Y strap, battery box worn on belt. In this variation the leather strap was secured to a stud on the top of the battery box and the belt was slid between the battery box side and the leather strap.

2. Radio and battery box connected. There is a slide in bayonet type of mount on the radio and battery box to connect them. The clamp used on the Y strap was attached to the leather strap on the battery box, the leather strap could then be allowed slack to form a convenient carry handle for both units.

In any event for reference purposes only 1 end of the leather strap on the battery box was actually permanently attached to the box. The other end was loose so the radio could be configured several ways as previously mentioned.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.  36.

Pictures 31. & 32. shows how I have test fitted the radio units to both the 'Y' strap and the belt on a figure, as described in 1. above. The leather strap is passed through the metal part in Picture 33. representing the clamp, and then fastened in place with the pin. The design of the pin in the back of the radio unit is very good, as it does help to support the weight of the resin part. The same goes for the battery unit on the belt in Pictures 34. 35 & 36. as there is a bit of weight to support with this part.

37.  38. 

In Pictures 37. & 38. I have loosely assembled the radio units together as described in 2. above, and again the design of the pins does help a lot, as they are strong enough to hold the units together. Plus with the well designed rails on the back of each unit, they slot together easily plus they also allow the end of the leather strap to be held in place as well.

Finished Radio & Decals

Important Notes: Be very careful with the decals once you have the Micro Set on them, as I found that they can be easily damaged, as I scratched the battery decal by accident.

They also need a coat of Matt Varnish such as Microscale Matt Flat on them once they have dried, as this helps to stop the decals being damaged if you handle the radio model.

39. 40.  41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

To finish the model I have had to fit the decals to each unit, the end result is very good. But to cut them out and apply them I have had to use a magnifying glass, especially with the White decals as I found them almost impossible to see once I had cut them out. I also found that I had to use some Microscale Micro Set to keep the decals in place, because as they dried on the Matt paint they started to lift off.

Pictures 39. to 45. above show what the radio now looks like and are of the finished radio unit that I have placed on the base I used for my Carry kitbash, the purpose of this is to try to get a more realistic setting for the radio.

My Opinion Of The Kit

Overall I am very impressed with this model as it has a lot of detail included, plus the instructions are well laid out and explain the steps easily. The only problems I did find is that the kit is made from resin, so there is a fair bit of trimming and sanding to get the parts to fit. Which made me think, as it has been a few years since I have used any resin parts on my models. I also had to get a lot of reference pictures myself, to see what the real radio looked like. But then again that is one part of the hobby that I enjoy doing, so I hope that these pages can be of help to my fellow modellers.

My update of the kit

I have just had some very good information about this radio supplied to me by Funksammler in italics as below:

A few remarks if you want to get it 100% correct:

The antenna does not have a red rainguard (this is actually the antenna for the Feldfu.b1), but is unpainted. The Dorette antenna is significantly longer (1.20 meter) than the Feldfu.b1 antenna (0,72 meter). The antenna is actually made of strips (a bit like a tape measure) rather than a round rod.

The Dorette was typically used with a Dfh.f headset, not really with the Dfh.b "panzer" headphones.
The leather strap sits stretches tightly around the box when worn on the belt, the box would hang higher on the belt in reality.

In your text you mention the Dorette could also be found in black; this is incorrect, early production Dorettes were painted dark grey. Also consider that the Dorette was only introduced right at the end of the war, so ideally it is displayed on a very late war uniform.

Also note that the battery box you are showing in pics 15 and 16 is a replica and is not 100% correct.

Another issue I picked up on your Torn.Fu.d2 page: the Torn.Fu.d2 did not use a cross on top of the antenna, the Torn.Fu.d2 is a VHF set and has a straight rod antenna of about 2m long. The cross antenna was used with the lower frequency sets like the Torn.Fu.b1

46.  47.  48. 49. 

New Aerial

Based on the new information above, in Picture 46. I have made a new aerial as I broke the resin part while I was converting it to accept the new aerial blade. The new aerial holder is made out of plastic sprue and I used plastic strip for the aerial blade which has been made 190.00 millimetres long, which is almost the scale length in 1/6th scale converted down from a 1:1 measurement of 1.20 metres. The width of it is based on the diameter of the holder that fits into the top of the radio, as shown in Picture 47. I have also sanded the length of the aerial, so that it is slightly thicker at the base and thinner at the top. Picture 47. also shows how I have used part of the original aerial as a peg, so that I can push fit the new aerial in place. Picture 48. is the painted aerial in place.

New Headphones

Picture 49. is of the different headphones that I obtained based on the information above, and these one's came from the Hermann Stahlschmidt figure and I believe they are the Dfh.f headset as mentioned by Funksammler above. I have also had to alter the plug that fits into the radio, because the pins are too close together.

Microphone

The Dragon radio set kit comes with a throat microphone, but I wanted to use a hand held microphone instead, As I found out by trial and error that the resin hand is perfect for holding the microphone. So I used the spare one I had from the Dragon Torn d2 radio kit, as shown on the right, I have had to again adapt the plug to fit this Dorette radio.

More reference pictures of the radio and equipment.

Many thanks again to Funksammler for his kind permission to use the above images and for all of his help.