One of the things I really like about your channel is that there's no script or formula, and you actually try stuff no one's ever done before so a lot of discovery
My suspicion is that cleaning those switches caused Shango a degree of philosophical anguish about cleaning prior to diagnosis. Really enjoy the content. Happy to hear the test lady again after her hiatus.
We had an Emerson AM radio for years when I was little, then in the early 60's we stepped up to a Magnavox Am/FM and the Emerson went into the garage, forgotten. One day I decided I needed an AC power cord so I took that radio to my bedroom and cut the wires with a steak knife. It made a big bang and lots of sparks, and now if I want a power cord I unplug it from the power first.
All of those tubes burning dozens of watts. I wish they'd found a better way to do it. But they were paying for the parts and assembly labor. Not the electric bill.
Happy New Year shango! Thanks for resurrecting the "this is a test" lady. I've been missing her golden voice for months.Best comment of the year...BAKED!
I love this channel. Pycromuffs! This actually warmed my heart as well as make me laugh. I once had a long departed friend that taught himself electronics from books. He always said pycrofarads, the good memories flooded back. Thank you shango. Happy new year to you, and please keep them coming! 😂
Pretty excited for this series; I find the hopping around more helpful than some of the straight up Diag videos because it helps us see your thought process on something that's not a normal repair video.
Happy New years 🎉Shango! I was relieved to see that you added at least ONE new capacitor, I almost had a panic attack when I realized that you’re not going to do a bulk re-cap… 😂😅😢 The bag of rheostats was cool too, they look like baby variacs…
Mr Carlson mentions your channel from time to time, and when he did a few years ago and said to show your channel some love I did and I've loved ever since, so thank you for taking the time to share and I hope you and your family have a great 2024, thank you SHANGO066.
Carlson is good when you want a cleanroom approach to make it better than new, Shango takes rusty crusty things and makes Frankenstein's monster come alive with sarcasm along the way.
First off, Happy New Year to everyone; may this be a much better one! On tapping the IF-cans, it sounded more like tube-microphonics; so you should tap the tubes lightly to see which component is the loudest. On the bad tube socket, I've used a stainless-steel dental pik to tighten the socket pins between the phenolic wafers. On the noise, to me it is outside noise sources that are (most likely) coming through the line cord, due to bad bypass-capacitors. The little AM tuner is doing a superb jo fo no antenna. 73...
Poor modifications can give anyone a hissy fit. Struggling with undoing them will be bliss. Bad sockets typical in cheaper sets. Owner be aware of more in the TV only portion. Part 3 may find those. Happy New Year Shango.
Remember the wad of insulation tape? It was probably holding the tube in a position that made it work. I remember a story from the 60s about a radio owned by the butcher in a small country town. A piece of German sausage was holding a tube in the working position. Best wishes from Australia.
Used to build Oz Dick Smith kits (long ago) . . power supply kits mainly , they all worked as hoped for but the last the dial display did't dial as hoped for but the thing worked as hoped for . . but still they did Stirling work after all own crude soldering attempts . . thanks to providence
27:43 The audio output tube glows somewhat suspiciously. Probably it doesn't like that leaky coupling capacitor and additional 2 volts can develop a grid emission.
There is a very good reason that there is NO silver mica disease in the radio portion of this srt. The reason is that there is NO B+ voltage going to the radio tuner when the TV is playing. The TV, RADIO, PHONO, switch control's the B+ voltage. If you have this in the radio position there will be NO B+ going to the TV sweep and other circuits in the set.
Those rheostats have an amp value specified instead of a wattage rating because when you turn them down, a smaller part will get all the heat. Rating them for max amps accounts for this. the watts dissipated will be amps * amps / ohms... the .71 amp one is 50 watts.
Those buzzy carriers are probably caused by an electronic fluorescent ballast, SMPS, and/or solar grid-tie inverters. I'm fighting with that kind of stuff on AM all the time around here, a lot of it from neighbors houses. Pull out your Russian portable SDR and have a look at the spectrum waterfall.
Oh my GOD!.... These modern switching everything devices! I caught a VERY loud almost Beacon like repeating signal that I CLEARLY and LOUDLY picked up on all the house wiring. It made any RF work impossible because it bled from 2mhz all the way to 30Mhz or so. I nearly called the FCC because I just could not figure out what caused it. Was it the Cat transmitting covert info back to the mother-ship? Nope... when we had a power failure it was a good excuse to turn off all breakers and then hunt when the power came back. It was the LAST thing I'd imagine. A Name brand Battery tender on my car. Opening it up revealed ZERO RF/EMI shielding. No choke, nothing. The pulsing of the de-sulphation circuit swamped half a neighborhood. I have NO idea how that thing could be legally sold, but it turns out my other 2 are a "revision" that HAVE proper shielding and are fine. I can't even find a quiet light bulb today. Agree on the SDR. Also my HP spectrum analyzer showed it clear as day. We live in a VERY noisy world if you are into radio.
The extra noise in this radio may be a function of the antenna type. Loop antennas are good at rejecting electrical field noise while still picking up electromagnetic signals. But since it doesn't have a loop, it's picking up all the e-field noise along with the signal.
@@KameraShy From his remarks, this radio was picking up more noise than most. The "modern devices" theory doesn't explain why this unit would be worse than most.
Excellent video! And quite fascinating. Remember TVs in motel-hotel rooms while traveling road trips long ago that had built in AM or Fm Tuners. And-do you remember the motel radios you had to put coins on a coin box in the radio to get it to play.
Where I live they have something similar to the test-lady. They have portable devices that transmit a ominous warning on all CB channels. They put those before construction sites on the freeway, so that the trucks dont crash into it. I heard that last year, its not something from the 80s.
That AM radio sounds like it's near an operating CRT TV, and remember that sound from many, many years ago. I would think that adjusting the oscillator back to spec is simply tune to the top of the dial and then adjust until you hear the old 16 KWOW from Pomona (I don't know what it is now).
Lock me up in a re-education camp, The testing station is on 1700khz and if I remember, its registered callsign with the FCC is WPET709. The transmitter is located on 11099 S. La Cienega Boulevard around 33.936500,-118.370393. Those are the coordinates my phone said, which is VERY close to what the FCC says.
I really enjoy your real-world approach to the repair of ancient and discarded electronics. Could the noise you hear in the radio be due to the fact that you do not have the radio in its grounded and metal enclosure? Also, we really enjoy your real-world comments about life and how we fit into the big scheme of living in the modern world. Finally, this is a great job, trouble shooting and identifying the problems, and making the repairs! I look forward to more of your videos.
34:19 . . . You surprised me with "Mr. Schwab". I was expecting "Mr. Gore would pass out if he knew this was turned on". *_HAPPY NEW YEAR TO THE GREAT SHANGO, AND EVERYONE ELSE !!_*
These portable sets can be difficult to work on just for the confined space, this one with so many alterations is even more of a nightmare, tho a good mental challenge
That is something that really irks me. Making mods without documenting. I guess that was the way things were done in the late 50's and early 60's. Sloppy was not limited to just those generations.
The wattage rating of a rheostat applies only when the entire resistance is used. If you use less than the whole resistance, the wattage rating is reduced by the percentage of the resistance not used. If there is a current rating, that applies no matter how much of the resistance is used. That small bulb is probably a 7 watt. Those cap mounting straps are usually made out of aluminum. Good luck soldering to that. Doesn't sound like SM disease. If you think that a 90 watt am radio is impressive, then how about this, my grandfather had an old 19" Dumont console B&W TV with an indotuner. It would pick up the FM broadcast band while chewing up at least 200 watts. Didn't even shut down the TV section while doing that and showing snow on the boob tube.
I still have a Oz telstra (teleco provider govt) phone system ac to dc box . . I think I got from the dump shop up in Darwin , anyway , rheostat I bought from Jaycar electronics supply Oz mail order catalogue job , I retrofitted into it & my main man tattoo gun supply rig still . . has a clean wave apparently even with the welder style old school rheostat I retrofitted , would still use it in a pinch to ink
(@13:26) - there’s an obvious bad solder joint there on that PCB (right center next to the bracket, or about the 2 O’Clock position from that tube.) In fact, it looks like there’s quite a few leads they didn’t solder very well at the factory. 😢
Greetings: You probably have a frequency counter that can be connected to the radio local oscillator and have the IF frequency subtracted from the LO frequency to result in display of the station frequency. I know that you prefer to minimize the test equipment used to allow those listeners less equipped to follow you as far as possible. Knowing the station will require less guessing when looking for specific stations when changing the LO range. That will require less work for you, but no extra expense for your followers. Ebay kits are $8.99 incl. shipping for programmable frequency counter kitss.
Since the expanded band was allocated in the early 1990s, I have deliberately been realigning non-PLL AM front ends so that these radios can receive the expanded band stations. My thinking is that on most radios, the dial resolution at the top end of the band is so bad that on a re-aligned radio, "16" is still "1600-ish." However, I can respect the philosophy behind wanting to keep the radio authentic by not making it receive expanded band stations.
my brother its not like you to say something negative about other service work. hope all is well and maybe we can all remember with experience we get good at jobs like soldering.
You said that the THIS IS A TEST station died out after a big rain storm. Maybe it damaged the antenna and they had to replace it. Maybe their antenna is slightly directional and you're in a null, when you weren't in a null before?
I think think you should fox hunt that thing on 1710 to located the transmitter and make a video of it. Then ask the owner why they don't just turn it off since it's not really used. Weird and kinda creepy......in a good way of course :)
PCBs and tubes are never a great combo, especially in an era when production cost cutting is prime. But even so, when you look at the age and condition it's amazing it can work with such a small amount of intervention when you know what you're doing.
I find it curious that the set has AM radio but no FM, considering some circuitry could be shared with the TV section, whereas some of our 405-line sets had FM receivers built-in but not AM, on a set using AM TV audio. I have a Sobell "luggable" whose cousin had an FM tuner. I wish I'd grabbed that set even though it had been messed with; maybe the CRT would have made for one good working set out of the two.
I recall staying with my family in a motel in the early 1960s where the TV set had a built in AM radio. At that time, FM radio stations were scarce, so it probably did not make a lot of sense to provide an FM radio. My foggy recall is that the radio played immediately when the control was switched from TV to radio, but it took awhile for the TV to warm up when switching from radio to TV. Also, my recall is that the motel's TV/radio is not the same model as the one shown in the video. Most TV sets of that era used intercarrier sound, which required that the FM TV sound signal be accompanied by the video carrier. These sets could not tune FM broadcast stations. I suspect that shango066's TV/radio was intended for hotels and motels. It would allow them to provide a radio and TV as a single unit for each motel room, with the radio too large to fit into a suitcase. (I recall staying in a motel where the radio was built into the night stand.) I don't see much of a market for the combination unit in homes, where a separate radio and TV would make better sense, one family member watching TV and another listening to the radio.
@@KameraShy FM radio offered better frequency response and noise immunity than AM. Many of the FM stations broadcast classical music. To get the full benefit of FM, you needed a fairly good sound system, not found in a portable TV set. I built the experimental FM radio construction project in the August 1961 issue of Popular Electronics. In my home town, I could only receive one station, which broadcast primarily classical music. FM radio got a major send off in October 1966 when Boston FM station WRKO introduced an all automated top 40 format: no DJs, no commercials. I was going to college in the Boston area at the time and listened to WRKO. However, teenagers bought FM radios in droves. With a significant audience, advertisers bought air time and the format was a victim of its own success, but the FM radios were in the hands of many people and FM radio, overall, flourished. Aside from the motel room, I do see the TV/radio having a place in the kitchen, where there would typically only be one family member using it and the combination would free up the countertop space required for a separate radio.
