All of us that have been working on radios know this beast. I call it "That radio". It's minty, the plastics aren't yellowed, the metal faceplate isn't scratched, theres no dust, it looks like it was used once and put in a drawer and never seen the light of day since 1962. Often it can be found with the original box and documentation. You put a battery in it and it's dead as a doornail. Then the diagnosis starts and you chase down one problem, then another, and another. You'd swear the thing was cursed. A year later you pick up the same model at a yardsale. It's beat, it's musty, the case is cracked, everything's corroded. You put a battery in it and it plays like it was new. Don't know why this happens but it does. Thanks Shango for the excellent videos.
yes, if the internet still exists… it would certainly be worth recording all episodes on video and burying them somewhere in the desert (together with a video recorder and television, of course)
Back in 1966 I worked for my Uncle driving tractor on his farm, making hay and such for $5.00 per day plus room and board. I saved up enough to buy a brand spanking new Aqua color Jade 10 transistor radio. I used it on the farm at night when I and another Hired Hand spent the night in the single upstairs room. They had an old TV where we could watch Johnny Carson at night but the radio was great for listening to the fantastic music that was on the air back then. Well it wasn't long before I got tried of buying 9 volt batteries so I wired up a 6 volt Lantern battery to her. That lasted for ever however at the same time I started to screw driver the set. Somehow I got the radio so instead of AM I was picking up Short Wave. I wanted to show it off so I took it up to the local AM Radio Station and showed the engineer up there. He was amazed at what I had done. We put the radio next to the AM Transmitter antenna where it went out and I was pulling all sorts of crap on that little set. I got the set back a few months ago and it was plumb dead. I could not get a spark out of her after 51 years in dad's old roll top desk. Ah well, shit happens.
@@mikemiller659 Thanks, I picked up a usd AM/SW built in the USSR. I had to replace 1 capacitor and she works like a new set. I purchased one of those new Lithium 9 volt batteries and us that to power the cute little set. Now I can listen to both AM and SW at will. Living in the old house I purchased many years ago I have lots of time to listen to radio and play on my laptop. It isn't a great life but it is a good life. I sure do miss my wonderful wife who lived with me for 51 years and 4 days though.
I'd say try and fix it up. If you could get the oscillator up into 3 megahertz and get the antenna circuit to track then you'd have shortwave. I also wonder if you were tuning images above your actual heterodyne frequency. Fix it up and try not to touch the alignment. Maybe you can analyze it once you wake it up.
I really envy you for still having various local AM stations tunable in daytime. Even if their program kind of sucks. Here in Germany the last AM station shut down like 20 years ago. Where I live, I get four or five weak stations after it gets dark. Radio China, a french station and some Bulgarian crap. When i was a kid, I had a 750 kilowatts transmitter which transmitted AFN about 30 miles away. I could listen to AFN with a foot long piece of wire connected to a tooth filling...
I live in Denmark and I get a lot of stations at least a hundred in the night time. f. ex. almost every night I can receive MFR2 in Scotland 1107kHz a 1kW transmitter sharing frequency with Talksport. I can hear Spanish, African and Polish, Rumanian etc. very clearly. In the daytime I can often her one or two British stations. On longwave I can always I repeat always hear BBC4 on 198kHz very clearly and the Polish station on 225kHz. Not always but often the Irish on 252kHz. I use the build in ferrite antenna and the best radios I have are old Blaupunkt, ITT and a Japanese brand Koyo. My new radios only receive in nighttime. Try buying an old radio. You should be able to hear a lot in Germany since LW and MW are very far from dead. You may have problems with noise in town though. I live on the countryside. Have fun.
Germany? In the 90s had a 1KW AFN transmitter in my back yard. Now as you say it is France, various eastern European stations, and a weird Chinese German - Mandarin class!
I find myself back at this video once more, and suddenly it dawns on me, I used to own one of these! When my Uncle returned from Hawaii where he was stationed with the US Army in 1963, he returned with one of these little radios that he used in the barracks. He gave it to me when he got home, it was purchased at the PX at Schofield Barracks. He no longer needed it, and bing a 10 year old boy who loved electronics he gave it to me along with his snorkeling gear that he used when over there. I loved the little radio but like most of my early electronics, I tore it apart to see what made it work. Sadly I could not put it together again. I can remember, we had just moved to town from dad's farm which he put in the soil bank and left fallow. We rented a 2 room apartment in the back of an old man's (who chain smoked cigars) house. My 2 sisters shared a jack knife sofa for a bed in the living room/kitchen and I slept on the floor on a pile of old cloths in the only bedroom with mom and dad. The little radio was great because I could put it to my ear and listen to DX signals late at night without disturbing the folks. My first experience in a life long love for radio use and DXing.
Watching this from the netherlands just comming home from my round the corner pub ..having lots of beers because it was about 28 dgrs celcius ....love those videos ..even with one eye open to follow this 😁😁😁...even so great job
Mr Shango, As a 23 Year Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge Factory trained Dealer Technician I have to use my understanding of how it works, service info and test equipment/tools to properly diag and repair Current vehicles. I Really enjoy your videos doing the same thing to diag and repiar Vintage electronics. Your explanations are easy to understand and entertaining. I look forward to a new Video every weekend. Thank You.
I come form advanced engine management/emissions repair, all the way down to component level module repair. Working on FCA vehicles you must like to be punished...
@@shango066 … Please make a video about your background in automotive, and in depth about how you learned what you know in electronics, or at least talk about it while doing a repair. What one man knows, another can learn by following similar steps…
I was talking with another radio nut on line the other day, he told me the Soviet Radios were built using surplus satellite parts which is why they are so strong and healthy. Parts made good enough to work in space have to be hardy.
This video was one of your best. Very thorough and explanatory. I could watch it over again. Hope there are some young kids in this new generation that are still interested in fixing stuff -- it seems everything these days is so disposable and the mindset is throw it out and buy a new one.
Shango, That Jewel radio, was a radio made for the Jewel Tea Company, based out of Chicago Illinois. They were a grocery store chain, primarily in the Midwestern US. That unit could have been made by Belmont, or Wells Gardner, or some other radio manufacturers in the Chicago area
My stepfather worked for Jewel Tea for a few years. I got to tour their facility in Illinois when I was 12 or so. They sold all kinds of things so it wouldn't surprise me if they slapped a label on a radio.
Shango066, I want to thank you very much for all these videos on these little transistor radio repairs. I have a true love for these vintage radios. Please keep up your wonderful work! I will keep watching!
After a year of looking at your videos, I like the transistor radio projects mostly, as that is what I grew up with. Happy to say I just got a NEC NT-8M11 working last night, using the things I learned from you. Found it in a junk store for $7. It was kind of tricky as a couple of electrolytic capacitors were axial and covered with a wrap that made them look like choke coils. Lucky I didn't give up and figured it out. It is very rewarding. Thanks for your help.
I think we all belong to that AM radio nostalgic club where these little radios in their days were our internet or at least our portal to the world beyond our homes. The col music to listening to Casey Casems (not sure of spelling) weekly count downs. AM radio was cool, FM was for the nerds and weirdo’s. I’d like to get a small AM transmitter and send out my own stuff over my radios thus giving them a new appreciation.
Good thoughts Brian. Here in Australia I remember the same thing. It was a window to the world. Great programs. Great music. AM is complete garbage here now. FM is not much better.
If you lived anywhere in the middle of the USA, you had to tune to 1520 KOMA a clear channel station out of Oklahoma City OK. They played the hits in the 60's and would come in from around an hour after sunset till early morning hours. We used to drive up and down the 1 mile main street in my home town drinking 3.2 beer and honking horns at our buddies. I don't know how our folks put up with the noise, hell we even had 2 stop lights on Main and for awhile 3! Then they went back to 4 way stops as they have now. Ah but KOMA man that was music!
They were sold by The Jewel Tea Company of Chicago, Illinois, The salesman would travel around door to door in a panel van selling all kinds of things.
I researched the name "Jewel" and I instantly found the exact same radio under the "Jewel Tea Company". My mother used to buy products from them and that's what reminded me of it.
Excellent job. I was a bit short on time to watch the video in it's entirety but I did skip through it. That repair is well above my pay grade :P I can find burnt components and some basic troubleshooting but this one would never have been repaired on my bench until I get much better.
Really very enjoyable video to watch. About all I watch on TV anymore. I really had a great time watching and learning from an expert. I know you put so much time that my time in watching but do I learn a lot and a great pleasure to see the steps and challenge, very encouraging to me at the HVDC converter I work at repairing old stuff. Many Thanks Mike
Shango066, my compliments on your stick-to-it-tiveness, radios that have been "restored" by someone can be a challenge, as often times new problems are introduced. Problems I noticed in addition to the ones you found: (1) The DC beta on one of those IF transistors was 17, at 455 kHz the gain was likely half the DC gain. Also an indication that transistor was poorly substituted or going bad. I would expect to see a DC beta of no less than 40. (2) That 0.1uF, 630V plastic film cap was likely originally a ceramic disk. If that cap was being used for RF/IF bypassing, it would work poorly. (3) I would have replaced the detector diode with a germanium type, since that was the original design. Using the silicon diode you chose would degrade performance, but hey, you got it working anyway! That was a rather crazy audio output stage. A darlington configuration for high current gain but yet, going through an impedance step-down transformer, powering a 16 ohm speaker. I guess getting the transistor count up, took precedence over common sense. I would have used 2 of those transistors to set the bias for the output stage so the idle current would be stabilized. That 9V current was ridiculously high, but hard to know what the original current draw was. Alkaline batteries were not available when this radio was made, using the standard carbon-zinc battery, battery life would be very short.
He got to me. I had to order an AM/SW radio from Ukraine. I got it cheap, shipping was more then the bid. It was sold as is/ Took 1 capacitor to fix the set, I drilled a tiny hole in the battery case so I could attach it to the set as the locking screw was missing and now I have a GREAT sounding radio that picks up SW at night better then any other set in my growing collection of shortwave sets. 73's KE0JBL
I admire your patience. I find the bias of most push-pull stages so crude with a simple resistor divider, no wonder these radios can pull too much current sometimes. Just adding a diode would at least help to stabilize the bias as a battery discharges. But, a saying in engineering of many mass produced products: "If it's good enough, ship it. Don't spend more R&D on it".
The comments are off on your latest video but I just came to say I was so excited to see an almost 2 hour video Saturday morning. Your content is one of the few things I still get excited for.
What a fascinating video! Thanks for that. For over 80 minutes my eyes were dragged to a yellow capacitator 104J630V which must be an add on. But nowhere a word about that cap in the whole story......
This episode shows your brain is functioning like this 10 transistors transistor radio. Backward and forward disfunctioning. It's like US politicians! Is that a compliment?!? Greetings from the Netherlands....🇳🇱
Another great 😊 video, Shango!! Almost 😅 an hour and a half of pure radio 📻 ASMR!! The capacitors are probably fried if they were wired in backwards. Maybe 🤔 some capacitors have been soldered in alongside the old ones. If not, it’s probably simply a tough repair 👩🔧 to try to figure out. Process of elimination is about the only way to try to figure things out a little bit faster. Your friend, Jeff.
Once again, awesome troubleshooting. As far as station selection, my heart goes out to you. You have like 100 stations of junk! Here in my town in NE Georgia, we have 1 station that works in my shop. Fortunately, they play (light) classic rock. It is hard to make videos without getting copyright strikes because they have very little talking at all. Sometimes, I wish we had a crappy talk show station so I can do demos without RU-vid issues. But I am glad we have some music left on AM here. I think I will invest in an AM transmitter for demos though.
Excellent job troubleshooting and repairing such a challenging radio, despite taking quite a bit of time! That is dedication, not giving up no matter what! It appears that the capacitor that was installed in the white IF can perhaps could have been a slightly higher value, since the core slug has to be turned practically all the way out to be peaked in the end. But, the IF gain was so much better, and the radio is performing well at the end, even on the K-Mozart classical station! A mystery why the current draw still seems a bit high, although might be normal for that old of a radio with four output transistors instead of two. Not meant for a small 9V battery but a set of "C" batteries I imagine!
Thanks for yet another great vid. I've been lucky in that the handful of germanium radios I've fixed have had mostly good transistors. I used to have boxes of old radios boards that I binned decades ago. They would have been filled with germanium transistors and I regret throwing them now. I've yet to come across silver mica IF can disease but at least I know what to look for now. Radios are a great hobby. Pity the AM band is filled with such crap. Fixing radios is still a great hobby despite that.
Great video! I know the felling you get when things don't just fall into place , you want to say screw it but that's not what we are made of. Well thanks for the video and 73 de Leo k
Shango066 Your determination , knowlledge and patience is so impressive. Once working well you called it a day. it's too easy to wreck what you have acheaved.
Here in the UK it was common for germanium transistors to have the collector marked with a spot rather than the emitter. Some of those Russian devices have odd lead markings too. Even had the device case connected to the base.
Old school techs in many trades couldn't look away from the abyss. They wanted to prove they could fix it and make sure they understood the symptom and the cause so they could use that understanding and knowledge in the future and rest feeling they understood the technology clearly. It never made any of them money on that tough dog job. Today it's different, but still the same. And it makes very good edu-tainment.
I've had a couple of those here in the shop lately and all they needed was new caps and the volume potentiometer cleaned like most of the vintage radios I get in for repair.
I hear you, when AM radio starts to burn you out with the same old same old Biden sucks, Trump is a big criminal yada yada yada, I've been surviving on reruns of old shows I like and keeping myself busy with stuff, your troubleshooting method and keeping us on board with everything you're doing is the most valuable type of information because it's live troubleshoot, I've learned more from you than any other videos out there thank you for being there.
Some old radio enthusiasts on youtube are building their own AM modulator circuits with small antennas and feeding their own audio selections of music, podcasts etc from their phones, and listening on the old radios.. It's a viable choice. Of all the garbage that's on my own local AM band there are one or two music stations that are enjoyable to me. I've gotten spoiled though and don't like any ads.
@@sheiladawg1664 maybe because he's not the president? This so-called inflation really sucks. Biden is POTUS so he gets the blame. If trump was POTUS it would be someone else's fault.
@@sheiladawg1664 All this Biden sucks stuff is right wing propaganda, that's why. Paid for by the big money interests. Trump is a big grifter who has been trying to stay one step ahead of the sheriff his entire business and political "career". The reason there are no AM stations saying this about Trump is there is no money out there to push anti-right wing anti-big money messaging.
@@sheiladawg1664 Realistically? Listener demographics. Few young people listen to the radio, and probably .01% of those few listen to AM. Listenership= money. The internet is almost always a better advertisement platform. We're lucky to have AM at all, if only to see if our radios work!
You clearly spent WAAAAAAAY more time on this thing than it deserved. Looks like it took you at least 2 days, if not 3 days working on it off and on. This thing can't be worth more than $15 in perfect condition. Clearly, this thing never would have been fixed if not for RU-vid. It's the only thing that makes it worth it.
Dog Day Afternoon analysis! Great persistence, Shango... Wonder if that transistor was picked up off the floor sweepings at the manufacturing facility and worked fine as a detector' Great for upping the count of Xtrans. It probably worked fine and flew through alignment and function. 100 degrees here on the East coast with high humidity.......
shango, I absolutely enjoy your repair and resurrection videos! You are one smart SOB. I wish you would concentrate more of you efforts on TV rather than pocket radios and the like. In either case, keep up the good work and try to do more of it. ARS39
I know this isn't really related to the video, but even though I don't collect transistor radios, I can definitely see why people would. They are still a piece of unique electronics history....and they certainly take up less space than tube tv's, radios and phonos. And for those afraid to work with high voltages, 9 volts can make them feel more comfortable
In the mid 60's I lived in OKC where radio station KOMA - 1520 was located..(Moore OK) actually, where the Largest tornado ever lived. It had a power of 50,000 watts. After dark they could be heard in two countries, Mexico & Canada plus much of the Western US. I remember commercials for the VFW Hall in Grand Island NE. It's 3 broadcast towers are gone now, Another tornado toppled two of the three towers. They were never replaced. I spoke to a guy that lived in Moore who said KOMA could be heard on there home land line phone.
Did you ever listen to The Big 8, CKLW? I swear that transmitter was pumping out 500KW out of London/Windsor, Ontario! Of course, there's the Mexican blowtorch that Wolfman Jack was at, XERB & XERF.
I liked your video. I think your IF transformer can repair is quite interesting. One of the issues I’ve had with poor performance even with new good parts is IF stage oscillation. This results in poor performance and no gain in the stage even if the transistors are good and the resistors are good. What happens is a squealing and no performance with a change as you turn the transformer core. This can be seen using a scope or spectrum analyzer. A solution can be to bypass the transistor current source with chip capacitors and also use smd chokes on the current source for the amplifier transistor as well. This can help when substituting transistors, which can give you more gain and performance than the original parts, which would have been impossible to be achieved due to poor board layout. I also noticed that your gain in one of the transistors was quite low for an IF stage. 16 or so for Hfe is not a good value.
COOL RADIO I AM GLAD U GOT IT WORKING AND SHOWING MAKE MISTAKES JUST LIKE THE REST. OF US ANYONE DOES NOT LIKE IT THEY CAN JUST F OFF HE IS ONLY HUMAN I TYPE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE OF MY BAD EYESIGHT
I would buy vintage transistor radios back in the 1980s most of them I bought worked at the time but by then sitting around for 35 years the capacitors just go bad the ones that worked 35-40 years ago no longer work squealing motorboating Etc part of the circle of life
Man, just a simple diode caused most of the problems. I miss hearing that Caltrans lady, I wonder if the powers that be got wind of it from one of your videos and took 'her' off the air. I was going to suggest tracking the Caltrans transmitter 'lady' down on maybe a future video...alas...too late for that...Maybe she'll be back.
I have a 'Sanyo' 10S - P10, 'Transcontinental', 3 Band, 10 transistor, MW, SW1, 2,(2.2MHz-18MHz SW coverage). The transistor count is 'true' in its configuration, where there's a separate oscillator transistor for each band I think, but after buying a big 'bag' of assorted electrolytic capacitors (including tantalum), and fitting them to suit (tantalum off the volume control), aware of the (+++) marker on the tantalum, it still works with sensitivity like your favourite early Sony's, using solely PNP germanium transistors...
The MP42 (МП42) together with kt315&361 was one of my go to elements as a kid. But I was a Soviet kid. In one case I even nailed off the cover and used the MP42 as a thermal diode in an electronic kettle whistle. Buuuut how would one land in US and be used in a repair of a US-made receiver - that sounds like a mystery to me. Greeting to all and special ones to those who smiles after the letters “КТ315” :)
A number of years ago I had a Panasonic AM only pocket radio low gain, no peaks when I attempted alignment turns out all 3 IF transformers were bad after replacing them radio peaked sharply gain was very good looking at the tubular caps on the IFs they all looked like the silvering had completely deteriorated, and I know no one had ever been into it because it belonged to a friend
In our neighborhood we still have AM oldies and AM country......so there's at least some music. There's also plenty of sports talk, and news/political talk. Not much international in Ohio.
SHANGO, THX FOR ALL YOUR VIDS. I USED TO "EOL TVS" (THIS IS YOUR COINED TERM) TO RELIEVE STRESS, ENTERTAINMENT, BACK IN THE LATE 90S ; AT LEAST I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO ENJOYS THE UNIQUE DESTRUCTION OF OBSOLETE ON THE WAY OUT TV SETS. YOUR CREATIVE APPROACH IS GREAT! - KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK. ALSO, GREAT APPROACH ON YOUR THOROUGH, DETAILED TROUBLESHOOTING METHODOLOGY. YOU ACTUALLY ISOLATE ACTUAL FAILED COMPONENTS AND NOT THE TYPICAL "BLANKET CAPPING" OR "MASS REPLACING OF MANY PARTS." THE TRUE HOBBYISTS/ENTHUSIASTS LIKE MYSELF APPRECIATE WHAT YOU DO ON YOUR CHANNEL. I RECENTLY NOTICED THE NEW THANKS BUTTON, WHICH IS THE BEST WAY OF MONETIZING. APPRECIATE ALL YOU HAVE DONE, AND CONTINUE TO DO .
Bummer all your AM stations are like that. I recently moved to Texas and we have a fantastic AM oldies station. I actually went out and bought an older Sony tabletop radio just to listen to it. Maybe it's time to do the Californian thing and move to Texas. Anyways thanks for the great content and share of knowledge.
I'm always amazed at what those things will test. However, there are many factors when testing inductors, including resonant frequency associated with the core material.
@@waltschannel7465 They are amazing for the price you are right they won't be that accurate but can give a comparison between like parts if you are lucky to have a good one. It's bit like a component tester in a scope.
Hi from England matey. Dc resistance doesnt affect resonant freq, however it does give an idea on Q, the higher the impedance at resonance (455kc) versus the lower the Dc resistance gives a higher Q or higher selectivity. The white IF trans being wide kinda implies the cap you used isnt that great, should really be a polystyrebe cap, seems to work Ok though.
In the process of restoration of this 1960 Philco model T74-126. The radio is now working except for some occassional microphonics however, not having a schematic for it, I'm not sure of the value of one of the replaced electros. It had been very roughly replaced sometime ago by a previous owner and it was a very dodgy repair. One of the transistors in the IF chain has also been substituted by an unknown unit so a schematic would help. It is the only transistor of it's type from the US that I have in the collection. More importantly, the case has had a very rough life so I'm hoping that someone might have a good case from a "parts" radio, not needed, that might helo me complete the restoration. If so, please let me know. Thanks.
I enjoy much of the repairs on this channel if I can't so I find common interest in it and I enjoy watching the old radio and T v's I'm back to life but I enjoy your commentary at the moment sir you heard American Patriot and I'm proud to be watching your channel and I'm almost afraid to call you friend cause I know we'd be friends if we were in the same zip code cause you're not afraid to say what you think rather RU-vid blocks it or not you'll say it thank you even though it's not the popular opinion is the opinion of most Americans that I know But again it's not PC to talk like you talk on here so I'm glad somewhere in America there's a little bit of freedom still being exercise God-bless some American God-bless you sir and😅
No doubt this was sold by the grocery store chain in the Midwest, Jewel Tea Co. Know as Jewel Osco today. Seems to be a cheap knock off of a Zenith 500D and shows it. Very challenging repair for obvious reasons.
Osco bought out a lot of smaller chains back in the 80’s and 90’s. Kept the names of some of them hyphenated “Save On-Osco”, Jewel-Osco etc. Eventually they were subsidiaries of Albertsons before being sold off.
Sometimes the lesser known brands can be surprisingly good. Most likely copies a different companies design, maybe with some little tweaks. Sometimes they can be great. Admittedly sometimes great load of crap too, but that's the risk taken.
Some transistor sets have a neutralizing capacitor from one of the transformer leads to the base of the transistor. Yeah, just like the old triode TRF sets. If the neutralizing capacitor is wrong, the IF stage will run at low gain, and the coil might not have a sharp peak.
I think your “this is a good day test” station might be a SW station because if it’s around the 1650 kHz 1720 kHz mark that’s around 1.6 to 1.8 MHz on the SW band/old police band. Try looking for that station on the SW band on an old pre-war and early post-war radio that has the 1.6 MHz to 2.4 MHz SW band on it.
Hi Shango, could you try just using one pair of output transistors? As a Darlington pair, there's a lot of gain to be had but there's also more current drawn. However, if you're tired of screwing with this thing, I understand. Thanks for an interesting video.
I have a question, I have a few different vintage walkie talkies,realistic ,a few of them have the same problem the volume does not shut all the way off.here is what I've done changed all caps,changed all the the audio transistors and squelch, even the volume control still the same some how audio is getting around the volume control any suggestions?
