Actually, some russians (like me) watch foreign stuff repair videos with the same interest. Back in the 80-s japanese electronics in Soviet Union used to look like sonething from another planet :)
I'm guessing that this Soviet stuff would have a lot more hours on it than radios like this one that were in the US. Do you think that is generally true?
+tarstarkusz yes for sure. As I remember people used to listen to these radios up to mid 2000's. Some older russians don't realise that electronics can become obsolete and must be trashed out after ten years. They were brought up that all the things are made for ages, and the most of 60-70's stuff really was. Back then everything cost a lot of money and the DIY was way too popular (old good times...) Soviet engineers tried to understand how to make a domestic electronics the same way as abroad, but they didn't get it. Something went wrong in the 80's, the quality dropped, we falled behind the foreign technologies and in 1991 the Soviet Union crashed :( Funny thing: there were so much obsolete parts on the TV factories, so some of them were assembling a full tube B/W sets up to 1993! And tube/solid state combo colour sets up to the same period. That's the negative side of Soviet politics, it wasn't engineers' but goverment's idea
+Олег Семенов Thanks. I was also thinking that the radio was likely to be more popular in the Soviet Union than outside and that these (small transistor radios) would be more likely to have been bought by adults in the SU than in the West, largely because of cost and availability. But I did notice some Boom Boxes on EBAY from the Soviet era. It's a shame because there was a pretty much total blackout in the US when the USSR still existed. I was 20 when the Berlin Wall fell and we didn't know anything about the Soviet peoples. To some extent that still exists, not to mention the language barrier.
+tarstarkusz Back then the most people in Soviet Union didn't need more complicated devices than radio and TV. There was everything that everybody needed - news, weather broadcast, educational programs, music, drama and various art shows. But all that was controlled by government, and mostly nobody knew what happens abroad. I heard a lot about listening to Voice of America, BBC and FRG news, it was not so easy - the foreign radio was jammed by secret services. Anyway, many people build directed antennas, modified regular radios and got a good result. And not many of them realized what was actually happening all over the world. The main difference between soviets and americans - USSR wasn't built on self-regulating mechanisms, everything was controlled by goverment. So today everything has changed but people still believe the government must to organize their lives when it doesn't any more. People are brought ip to be trustful and mostly irresponsible to themselves. It's a total crap..
5:20 - "Сделано в СССР" - "Made in USSR" - text on the back. It's funny how those radios are more useful in America than here in Russia, because there are almost no AM stations left.
It's time to modify soviet SW radios and listen to SSB hams. The only really cool fun that could be easily done with that. Building AM transmitters by ourselves is kinda complicated and illegal
+wrnchhead I'm from Moscow. During last ten years LW and AM bands were slowly dying, now there's absolutely nothing in the LW and a couple of weird weak stations in the AM. Far from the city it's more alive, but all the stations are too far away from the capital. SW bands feel better - it's possible to receive Europe and Asia, but not in the cityside - there's a hack of a lot of noise
@@wrnchhead76 Sadly, that's mostly true. I wouldn't say AM is dead, but it's definitely a shell of what it once was. Here in the Minneapolis/St.Paul Minnesota area, we have a few AM stations that broadcast music. We have a 60s-70s oldies station that broadcasts in C-QUAM AM-Stereo, 740 WDGY. Another staion "Album Rock 540" WXYG also broadcasts in AM-Stereo, I'm right on their fringe though so usually only my better radios can receive them with decent enough quality. Sad story: a little less than a year ago, we lost an big band/adult standards station, AM 1220 KLBB (that I have an aircheck of on my channel), the land the transmitter was sitting on was worth more than the station itself. So with the land sold (for senior housing I believe), the station was shut down and dismantled...
The model in USSR wasn't "buy a new one every year", it was more like "buy it, keep it, so the factory can build radios for the army instead of radios for you".
@@xavierrajda933 Radios where never guaranteed necessities. Like anywhere else they are luxury items especially 60 years ago. I would rather a home, a good job and food to eat. The necessities where guaranteed after the war.
@@xavierrajda933 Yea, too bad that now the governments of democratic countries can do much more than the NKVD and KGB could even dream of in terms of spying. It's all in the name of the greater good, just like 60 years ago... 50 years ago: "Don't say that, the room may be bugged" Now: "Hey, bug, what is today's weather forecast?"
You have convinced me to go get the old Jade Transistor radio that I purchased at Smith's Rexal Drug store in Lemmon, SD back in 1967 using money I earned working on my uncle's farm cutting and bucking hay (5 bucks a day!). Thank God mom had the presence of mind to put it away when I married my good wife back in 1969, and returned it to me a few years ago whilst we sat at her kitchen table playing cards. She will be 93 next month and is loving life in the Nursing Home where he was admitted about 3 months ago (she still has a valid drivers license but has enough common sense not to drive any more, in fact I sold her car for her about 5 years ago.) Yep I am going to go in the back room and get that little radio and open her up!
That radio has some pretty good DX qualities at night. It's a long way between the RF-saturated Los Angeles Basin and Window Rock on the Navajo Nation in Arizona! It *STILL* sounds good with all those bridged electrolytics!
I’m a big fan of the “hack repair”! I love to see it every time! Takes knowledge to perform it right! Thanks! Good fix. Saved that radio from the trash.
Another great video Shango! I purchased a SOKOL 403 (Same as one of yours) Last year, complete in box with charger, instructions etc... Needed a few caps replacing and a general service. Out of all my British and European "Personal" sets its my favorite. The sensitivity is great, and the sound quality amazing. Like you, ive started collecting Soviet portable radios. Perfect here in the UK as we still have loads of stations on AM, and it picks up European stations with ease. As always, a fab repair video. As an 19 year old vintage TV and Radio restorer, your videos taught me a lot when starting out in diagnostic fault finding, not just chucking new capacitors at things! :)
I love the fact that you include mistakes in the videos so I can learn from them! You always preach less is better with old electronics, and this is why. Sorry the transformer is gone though. Keep em coming Shango, If you set up a Patreon I'd kick in. I always learn something new from your videos. Peace!
@@donh01965 i catch you because (keep 'em comming) those are words of Comando :) He was the most epic unit.Well the game is the mother of all RTS games and still have what to offer and can amaze you now days ;). That game teach me how to handle a computer mouse back in 1994 it was miracle :D
As a relatively newcomer to fixing vintage transistor radios, I found this video very fascinating as I have yet to come across a bad transformer. All your vids are great!!
Another interesting and very educational video. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I've tried to live by that philosophy and it has served me well. Thanks again for sharing and keep up the great videos. Take care!
We've all went against our gut at some point with detrimental results. Atleast I learned something about those micro transformers and what to look out for. Your talent got it working again and that's a win in my book!
I wondered about a drop of CA glue or enamel, but then I thought that might prevent any future fix by stopping it up... Thanks for sharing your toils, Shango! What a funky little box.
Great job now I have learned to repair a transformer thank you for posting this video but you never give up and can fix it just look for another transformer all the best
KNX news radio 1070... always blast through everytime.... amazing how that 50000 watt Signal is everywhere at night....even here in my areas of the Pacific
Excellent! I was never aware of the quality of the Russian radios in the 1960s. I assumed the old German radios were well made and the older Japanese radios such as the Panasonic and Sonys. It is good to learn this.
Damn it... you know , when I was watching the video and you mentioned that you're going to remove the transformer in order to put back the laminations, my first thought was "nooo, for god's sake, don't touch it! It's pins will break off... just put back them with a tweezer in place and fix with a drop of epoxy or something". So I was happy, when you decided to put back them in front of the camera and found it very impressing how much the sound was improved after even the first inserted lamitation, which closed the magnetic circle. And then it just happened as I thought... I remember as a child (like 10-12) when I first got a soldering iron in my hands, I started learning soldering by disassembling old stuff like this, usually found on the street, or anyway already trashed. What I wanna say is that these early circuit boards are so low in quality, that even the smallest amount of heat causes that it will instantly drop off the copper traces when you start to de-solder anything on them. But you might know this as well I suppose :) Anyway now you've documented very well the Nr.1 rule of engineering: if it works, let it alone, don't screw around! :)
I just did an Ebay search (sort of a trip to my old life, I have given up Ebay till things are back to normal, if I live long enough for that to happen) and find the market seems to be flooded with old USSR pocket radios, many more then I used to find, back when I had a extra buck or two to blow on such things! Wish I had a few bucks to invest, but alas, I must save for my wife's hospital and upcoming funeral expenses, doctor says weeks to months left to live, not what I wished to hear. 51 years we have been husband and wife, only to see Cancer rip us apart for ever.
What a nice little radio, love the geared tuning. Those flat transistors are really unusual, like alien craft from space lol. Never mind about the transformer, it works :-D
Pentium 100 Mhz is right: I have another 'coat-pocket' Soviet radio, 'ALMAZ'. The thing is inscribed on the top of the case "On the birthday of Misha, from the family, 20th April 1970". Obviously it was cherished & well used. Used well enough for the case to have wear patterns as well as the volume control wheel. It only needed a wire from the MW coil on the ferrite rod re-soldering. It doesn't sound like complete garbage.
I didn’t know there was such a thing as a gear reduction Polyvaricon, man where where those when I was building my small QRP projects. Great video. Joel, N6ALT
What a nice little radio. Glad you could fix the transformer problem...and I love that Oldies station, too bad we don't have stations like this in Germany. Neither on AM or FM...
Awesome soviet germanium transistors, built like tanks. The person you got it from said it did not work which meant they tried to make it work with the little sheet metal 'e's' floating around shorting everything out. I agree on not removing the transformer and would have shellac the leaves in place. And replacing the electrolytic capacitors, I would have done that. Also would have taken the volume/switch out to repair it. They can be popped open and usually what is wrong is both the contact end is dirty and also lost some of its shape. Repaired a lot of those before. Some leather treatment (like "mink oil") so it can last another 50 plus years. Fun stuff!
Well, you can't win them all. I screwed up on a really nice tascam audio cassette deck and am now making a part from scratch. But at least, as with the radio it will play. I should consider myself lucky the deck will play well for the owner again because I broke the same rule - too much force on something delicate I didn't see all of yet...and I knew better, and it will learn me. Neat how you put the transformer together while it was running!
I have an old GE all Transistor radio! It used to work and now it’s so quieter I can’t hear it anymore the hiss from the amp is still there but I hear muffled sound. Any suggestions?
La Crosse WI EAS The electrolytic may have dried up with time. Sounds like a coupling electrolytic cap is open that passes the signal from the detector stage into the audio stage. A signal tracer may help locate where you are losing the signal
I think the tranceformer is better then what you Had in there. Atleast you dont have to Worry sbout those little e tranceformer cores Falling out. I think you did an awsome job At fixing it. I never haf to replace anything In transister Radios Except the Speaker or Tje 9 volt battery snap.
The reason they were built to last was because it took years to get one! Maybe not so much radios, but definitely big ticket items like cars and appliances.
I guess that you could have wound a new secondary over the top of all the other windings, it would probably work, a bit lower efficiency though. Radio seem pretty good, no nasty distortion that sometimes happens.
I recently got an Алмаз (Almaz) transistor radio in the mail. I'm surprised how easy it was to find a schematic for it considering its rarity. I like these spaceship transistors, I can't say I've seen a case where one was bad; then again I haven't seen many.
Shango, the 'gimmick' is not a gimmick. It is in between the two audio post-detector transistors T4, T5. It's probably that 3300pf and is missing at this point. Any other part in the area (the resistors) would be vital, so it's probably that cap. I would have simply put a drop of superglue or model cement onto the re-assembled transformer. Unsoldering those things risks undoing those tiny and brittle internal connections. I'd also mention that when I was in my early teens, I was playing around with, and fixing lots of these abandoned radios for myself, and had already ammassed a large collection of spare parts: volume-pots, tuning caps, loops, etc. It would have been easy for me to replace that bad volume control with something that would fit. Just sayin'.
This example seems to be manufactured somewhere around July 1969 as most components have that marking. The volume control reistor is from 1971 but it has also retail price mark on it so likely was changed later.
Have bought a couple of "Selga" branded USSR made radios. One of them works OK, but has the same issue as this one, a worn out volume control. I've had a bit of luck shimming the shaft for the volume to tighten up the carbon track contact, but still not perfect. Other radio was a $.99 eBay basket case from the Ukraine, that didn't work, and had what looked like some soviet era (make due) repairs to it. Once fixed up, it really is a solid performer. Great audio, great sensitivity, and low noise.
That was wonderful watching the E cores getting replaced. When the magnetic circuit was restored with first a single core and then the second gave 70% of the output, so it seemed, maybe the automatic gain control on the mic gave a false impression. Where else?
Learning about circuits you have to treat all shotrs what caused the failure I'm finding out first hand that Changing capacitors doesn't always solve the issue I'm learning from your videos I learned I have to find out what the culprit is you teach me knowledge and wisdom
Good video, the outcome was good, I thought you may have come up with a solution for the issue with occurred and you do, good work here again like all your videos. Thanks.
Many electronic and automotive products made in Russia were copied to some extent from western countries, or later, Japan. Early Russian trucks were almost direct copies of the trucks they were buying before WW2. Early Russian state cars were copies of Packards. The notorious Lada car was a Fiat 128 that they bought the tooling for when it became obsolete in western Europe. Early Russian computers were pretty much all reverse-engineered from products they bought or smuggled in from the US. They still produce some chips that are copies of early Intel and Motorola CPUs which are long out of production here. To be fair, the Russians often made modifications and upgrades to things they copied, sometimes because they wanted it to be more rugged, sometimes because of a need to use local materials. An interesting note about Russian ICs, while US chips used a standardized 0.1" or .05" pin spacing, the Russians chose to use a metric measurement on their copies (2.5 or 1.25mm), so unless they were intended for export, they don't fit well in period western circuit boards.
Here in Russia I get a lot of orders for the alteration of old transistor and tube receivers under the FM range. Also often asked to install them in bluetooth. People are not willing to get rid of the audio technology of the period 70-80, because it was made very reliable and paid a lot of attention to design.
36:06 I'm Steven Portnoy (Portnoy - Sounds completely in Russian Портной - Tailor ) It's funny ... where this Steven got his roots from. Действительно с деталями на такие приемники и у нас уже очень тяжелая ситуация. Нет фирм которые бы выпускали хотя бы какие то КИТ наборы для старой аппаратуры. Приходится самим выкручиваться и что-то придумывать..)) Недавно был случай с ремонтом приемника Сокол. Он мне достался совсем без трансформатора. Я сначала отложил в сторону этот приемник. До лучших времен. Но... По случаю попалась плата от разрушенной мини АТС где довольно плотно сидели около десятка таких трансформаторов. Конечно по замерам обмоток трансформатор немного проигрывал в выходной мощности. Но искажений звука он не давал, поэтому остался на новом месте жительства. Так что теперь приемник снова в строю. Настроен, Вымыт и отполирован..))
No big deal on that transformer. I actually think the fidelity is better with the Chinese unit. Like Jerry Ericcson, you have inspired me. I have my father's AM only 1966 Sears Silvertone pocket radio I want to restore. I'll work on that as soon as I'm done with the Heathkit IT 17 Tube Tester I'm currently working on.
