By browsing through your vids one can learn so much about restoration and fault finding. Your application of these techniques shows the level of skill you have built up. It is excellent work and a pleasure to watch. Thank you so much.
David, yours is my current favourite channel. Even though I don't really have a special interest in radios, just watching you restore these old ones is fascinating.
Hi Dave, nice job on the radio restoration. I just discovered your videos, as they have just started coming up in my feed. I have been repairing/restoring antique radios since the early 1970's and never get tired of seeing the different radio circuitry used over the years. I am in the US (United States) and have never come across most of the brands you have there in Australia. What I find most interesting with the radios you have been working with is; they all have power transformers. All of the low cost table/mantle radios in the US don't use power transformers, the valve sets were specifically designed to have the filaments connected in series to be directly powered by the power mains, which is half the voltage Australia uses (110 - 125 volts). These valve sets (commonly called the "Classic 5") were designed by RCA (the Radio Corporation of America) in the late 1930's to 1950's provide radio manufacturers with a means of lowering radio costs. They came up with an Octal base, Loctal base, and 7 pin miniature base series of 5 valve set over the years. Competition was quite fierce and all types of cost cutting measures were used. As an example, after the speaker field coils were replaced by permanent magnets in the early 1940's, chokes in the power supply were no longer used but, were replaced with a low cost resistor (I was surprised to see a power supply choke in most of the radios you worked on). PC boards started replacing the hand-wired chassis in the early 1950's. Ferrite rod antennas replaced the big coil winding on the radio back cover in the mid-1950's. Resistive/capacitive networks replaced most of the parts in the radios starting in the early 1950's. On this restoration, I especially liked your dial label; very clever. Red silk screen on the PC board commonly indicates the board was a prototype. The only thing I would add to what you have done, is add an adhesive backed rubber foot under the circuit board to take the sag out. Over time, sagging circuit boards cause traces to fracture.
Hi Bill, thanks for your comprehensive comment, I am well familiar with the AA5 concept from other RU-vid videos and I have a few sets from the UK which are hot chassis but they use large resistors to get the voltage down near the 100V or so to start with, nice if you want to heat your room at the same time. I can't say why Australian manufacturers didn't adopt a similar strategy but most Aussie designed mains powered sets had transformers to my knowledge. Australia had a thriving radio manufacturing industry but I suspect it remained local because of government protection and wouldn't have been competitive in an outside market and certainly not in the US. I'm always surprised to find a choke in a radio but some manufactures hung on to the design longer than others, if the choke is open I usually replace it with a resistor though. The label came out really good, I was impressed myself. I intended gluing a support under the PCB and it does have one on the front of the case but when I assembled it I thought it lasted this long so didn't worry about it. Now I won't be able to sleep and I'll have to make a support for it 🤦♂️😄
Yes, it sure was a cheap radio but still worth a look. I still learn off these radios, I now know I can get gold printer paper for instance. Cheers Joe 😃
Back in the day here in the states , manufacturers of the AA5 hot chassis radios also made hot chassis TV sets, record players and guitar amps. In all my years i never used an isolation transformer and was zapped many times. I learned to check the voltage difference, between one piece of equipment and the AA5 with a Simpson 260. I live by the Isolation transformer these days. I built mine on a breadboard. It utilizes a fused Variac feeding the isolation transformer thru a dim bulb to a dual AC outlet.
Those hot chassis can catch you out, happy to hear you have an isolation transformer now Cosimo. Your setup is the same as mine although mine are individual components plugged together.
Seems I always learn something from your videos! I would never have thought to reprint that front dial in that manner, it turned out pretty well considering the original was printed on a sort of foil over paper. I will keep this in mind should I ever need to use such a procedure. Snowy greetings from South Dakota, USA!
Thanks Jerry, I didn't know you could get gold paper that I could print on till now. I heard the first snows of the season had fallen over there, Brrrrr... too cold for me ⛄🙂
Hi dave. Yet again another very good video. That dial backing you made looks really good. I think the thing I like about these old radios is each one has it's individual character, just like the cars of the day. Looking forward to seeing another of your videos. Terry
Wow... that's great Cosimo, I watch other radio restorers and I always pick up something and it may just be an offhand remark but it triggers something in my head. Thanks for the feedback Cosimo 🙂
Nice to see a genuine restoration video from someone who knows how (and enjoys doing it). Simple design and equally straightforward repair/restore ... you made this radio work properly as originally intended; no water/hoses or hair dryers were used at any point in this restore process. * That radio is not much older than I am. Peace be with you Dave :-)
A radio like this in "as found" condition is nothing to get excited about yet when seen in mint restored condition it's unusual enough to be quite charming.
Another nice one Dave. I'm making my wife happy me thinks with my binge watching of your videos. She doesn't mind when I'm in my radio shack.....out of her hair lol. 73 de KB7ICI.....Bill
Looks like the ideal type of radio for a novice to learn on, simple and well laid out. Your audio level booms out far higher than most RU-vid videos and I always have to turn my volume right down, yet your audio quality is absolutely top notch....second to none.
Hi Theoobovril, thanks for the feedback. I will adjust the volume levels down a bit as I have always wondered if some parts are too loud. I use the level meters in the software to set it. he audio quality has been a big issue for me so glad I'm finally getting there 🙂
The quotation marks around a model number just seem to be something they did back in the 1950s and early 1960s to make it look more fancy. For example, the Seeburg "1000" Background Music System.
Maybe VWestlife, I took it to mean it has the equivalent of five valves without having 5 actual valves. We had a lot of 4 valve sets and everyone knew 5 valves were better than 4 so that may have had something to do with it 🤔
The pentode speaker output stage would need a fresh decoupling electrolytic capacitor on the cathode, to get better sound volume, especially in the low end. Love your little restoration project, reminds me of old time ... 😉 Thanks a lot for the time travel 😄
@@DavidTipton101 Well then look for a cap on the cathode of the triode pre-amp then ? 😶 OK - I know it could be one of those combo valves that operates with positive grid control voltage. 😋 That would save a few cathode components to bias the control grids, but you still need a grid resistor to gnd as voltage divider then. 🤔
Another enjoyable video, thanks David. I’m not sure if your real hobby is making RU-vid videos or restoring radios but your videos are better produced than anything else out there. Always a pleasure to watch.
Hi Don, thank you. I split the two hobbies, I do a bit of radio work and add it to the video, do a bit more on the radio and so on. At first I tried to finish the radio then edit the video, did I end up in a mess 😄 Thanks Don, I'm glad you enjoy both my hobbies 👍🙂
David, you could use a ballast resistor as dummy loudspeaker. And add a 220 Ohm pot with switch to get some necessary audio feedback. Make it part of the lab speaker. Cheers, Nard Edit: I checked the comments later and found I am not the only one with this suggestion 😎👍🤝🇳🇱
Hi Nard, I do have a shop speaker with a switchable dummy load setup, I think I used it with the French radio alignment but didn't show it. A lot of the time it is difficult to un-solder the speaker terminal to break into the circuit particularly if it's a compact radio. I don't have a volume pot on mine but it's a worthwhile idea 👍🙂
Great project! I think the fifth tube (valve) is the penta grid converter 6BE6. It can be thought of as an RF or IF amp as well as the local oscillator. So, 6BE6 is counted as two, the IF is one and the combined detector and audio output is two more. "Five"! That radio is about as simple as possible. One component less and it wouldn't work.
Greeting from the U.S. I have a U.S. built Philco 5 tube series string filament set that uses that uses that exact cabinet. Mine is white with gold trim.
That would be the G-820? the likeness is uncanny. Someone else mentioned it in the comments somewhere that Philco had the same cabinet. I can't imagine why Philco would steal our Aussie cabinet design though 😉😄
@@DavidTipton101 Yes that's it, there are differences but they are subtle. I suppose the main reason the AA5 circuit was so popular in the U.S. was because of our standard line voltage being 120 volts. It was practical to build a very adequate receiver with just 5 tubes in series and total the filaments to connect directly to the line. It's interesting to me how designers dealt with different voltages in their respective countries to build low cost radios with decent performance.
You beat me to it, when I saw this video posted I thought that it looked familiar, I thought I may have seen a picture of it in one of my service manuals but could not remember whether it was Philco or RCA. Definitely around 1958-61 vintage, five tube Ac/Dc set. One advantage this Healing seems to have though is the lack of silver mica caps in the base of the IF cans apparently.
In most countries they would have had a similar series string, transformerless, Ac/Dc design, but would have added a large tapped resistor to dissipate the extra line voltage. However I was told that such designs were never allowed under the Australian electrical code, the same was not true of New Zealand though
Another nice restoration David, it came up well. Just had a look at my 70s Goldair clock radio, as it was humming and the clock lost the time when I turned the radio on. I found a dead smoothing cap as predicted. Didn’t have 1000uF but a 470uF seems to suffice.
The name of the radio really threw me. I thought it was somehow the name of your channel - not knowing anything about your channel [yet]. It’s a shame nobody wanted it. I think it’s a very cool radio. I’m a very small time collector who doesn’t know a thing about repairing these things. ( I have to farm them out to be fixed, as I can afford it). I’ve got 5 tube radios in wood cabinets, 5 Bakelite, and 4 with plastic cases. 17 [good] Pocket radios from 1956- 1990. And 4 good working portable radios. ............( and some junk). Good video. I’m learning. Still can’t understand why no one wanted that radio. Beautiful little radio. 📻🙂
Hi Jeff, Healing was an Australian manufacturer from the late 1800s who used to build cycles but switched to radios in the 20s I think. They folded in the mid 70s like most other Aussie radio and TV manufactures. Golden Voice was their trademark and was on most radios I've seen. You have quite a collection there, 17 pocket radios is a lot 😲 I checked and I paid $27 for the radio, there was at least one other bidder and I think bidding started at about $20.
David Tipton Well, my 17 pocket radios are not necessarily in A-1 condition. I have a number I found on the cheap, that just still work. But a few are nice. I also have some newer radios. Interesting info on that little radio. The only Australian brand I’m familiar with is Windsor (?). 📻🙂
Thanks for sharing this "tidbit" with us...it is quite welcome and appreciated. It is an interesting radio design. I wonder if they had as their intent to make that radio as a competitor to the old AA5 that was so common in those days? The main difference being that the AA5 actually had 5 physical devices and this one while having the same number of active devices, only had 3 physical valves? That might explain why the "5" in the name. Very much looking forward to more "full length" videos in the near future.
Hi Wayne, I have a couple of projects under way but both have hit road blocks so I am having to tread water for a bit. Most Aussie mantle radios were four or five valve sets, I guess the marketing department wanted to highlight that it still had 5 valve performance. We didn't have the All American 5 design here, I guess it would have been the All Australian 5 if we did 😄
Don't know why but I'm always drawn to those logos and faceplates and tin this case the faceplate you made looks better than the original looked new! I would have used Gimp (it's free) rather than Publisher. Gimp is way more feature packed, and like I said its absolutely free. Bravo!, beautiful restoration, better than new!!
Hi Nicholas, thank you. I used Publisher because it is on my PC, I know it backwards and it is vector based meaning I can resize my work and it still stays sharp. Gimp is raster based so has pixilated edges on objects. A great free vector based program is Inkscape, easy to learn... after a few hours 👍🙂
Another nifty little Healing with typical design flair. I have never seen a valve mantle radio with a PCB. Were Healing ahead of the times or did other manufactures do them too? Cheers.
Hi Pauline, I did restore an Admiral clock radio a while back, not on RU-vid though, and it had a PCB. It still had a metal chassis and the PCB was mounted in a cutout in the chassis. I read somewhere that PYE also put out a PCB radio as well but I've not seen one 🙂
The red "h" in a circle on the lower right looks exactly like the logo that Hallicrafters used. I have a Hallicrafters S38 AA5 receiver sitting here and noticed the logo almost immediately. I wonder if this was an Australian subsidiary?
Hi George, I know of no association between Healing and Hallicrafters. Healing started in Melbourne as a cycle manufacturer and progressed from there to a major appliance manufacturer before closing in 1975 🙂
I really 👍 like the shape of the dial of this 📻 radio. Very nice circuit board. It must been a ✋ hand-drawn one. That means they were handmade, not mass-produced. I heard it has 👎 no dial cord, but I think the dial light bulb is 🔥 burned out. I can't tell if this is a series string (🔥 hot chassis) set, or if it's a transformer set. Even on a transformer set, be careful, because, even while the set is unplugged, the capacitors can still hold a charge of 600, if 👎 not 1600 volts. These radios are almost 👍 like 📺 TV's, but they can store 45.000 volts, even when unplugged. Don't know if your isolation transformer can quite handle this, especially if you find one of these 📻 radios with a 📺 TV. I also 👍 like your de-soldering station. I rate it a 10 "Thumbs-Up".Have 👎 nowhere I 👌 know of that I can buy one. I rate Radio Shack an absolute 0, now that they're gone. What we buy at big box stores (if you even can), are junk, and break right before the warranty expires. 📻 Radiotvphononut has it right with this one. I don't 👌 know if the dial face on this radio is plastic or glass. Also, be careful, a lot of these old 📻 radios contain asbestos. That stuff is VERY DANGEROUS!!! This is also true to tile floors in old 🏠 houses. It's in other places in the 🏠 house, too. Just BE CAREFUL, and DE-ASBESTOS these farts. Good 📻 radios, not the asbestos in them. Follow regulations on asbestos disposal for safety. Your friend, Jeff.
Hey David, enjoyed the restoration! Is there a reason behind removing the solder and adding a new one? My idea would be to add some liquid flux onto the joint so it removes the oxidation and rejoins the board and component without additional fiddling.
If you run across a radio someone "cleaned" the lens free of its station markers.... I've found clear printer film to be the cure. Print it backwards on the film so you can stick it to the bottom of the glass lens.
I got to someday get a solder sucked like yours,but I have a lot stuff I need to do,first ,I have two and one coming vtvm ,I need to sort out .,thanks for sharing I like how you sort out the intermittent problem ,very through.I have a radio with a similar problem.give me Ideas on how to sort my problems out ,my radio looks very similar .
I wouldn't mind a VTVM. There are cheap solder suckers on eBay for under $40, they use a one shot piston action to suck the solder up, you need to point the sucker into a container when you release the button as it spits the molten solder out again 😄
Man with Passion !, I have similar interest, I know how great satisfaction it gives me to save from destruction!, In addition, this unique magic of sound from the tube radio. Człowiek z Pasją!, mam podobne zainteresowanie, wiem po sobie jaką olbrzymią satysfakcję daje uratowanie przed zniszczeniem!, dodatkowo ta niepowtarzalna magia dźwięku z radia lampowego.
Tell us more about tin whiskers. I think I have one in an vintage radio tuning capacitor. The oscillator signal goes flat line at one particular spot on the dial.i was thinking it could be a whisker or a corroded bearing interrupting the ground connection.
Hi Cosimo, the stator and rotor I thought were made from aluminum or similar so won't have tin whiskers. The rotor is electrically connected to the frame via wiper strips usually either side of the centre frame support and don't rely on the bearings. If the rotor is contacting the stator at some point that will do what you say, you should be able to hear and feel it if you rotate it with the tuning mechanism disconnected. With a strong light behind it you may be able to check if and which plates are contacting. A capacitor test meter should show a smooth change through the full travel.
The tuning cap is on a pre WWII radio I am working on. It doubles as an AM and SW receiver. I have knifed the stator and rotor plates several times, only making it slightly better. With a scope I monitored the oscillator signal and observed it collapsing to zero. I have blown is out and sprayed it with cleaner. As an experiment, my thought is to connect a 9 volt battery with a 10 ohm resistor in series across the stator and rotor, with an ammeter in series, monitoring the current as I rotate the rotor. Hopefully I can blast any small metallic part out of the rotor / stator area touching. I had this happen in a Grundig Majestic 3192 U also and was able to clear the problem with a penetrating oil called liquid wrench. Wish me luck! I'll need a very strong light and my best pair of magnifiers.
So in the end it was not tin whiskers or a short in the stator / rotor plates of the tuning capacitor. A good night sleep often reveals a bright idea. Making contact to the rotor shaft are beryllium copper tension springs providing the ground connection on rotation of the tuning vanes. I remember this being a problem in the old TV UHF tuners. Replacing them was a snap. We did it in the customers home. However I wasn't going that route unless I had to. Spraying the spring contact with a good cleaner did the trick. Now there are no dead spots in tuning the AM or SW band. The SW band is 6 Megacycles to 18 Megacycles. The radio is a GE and has something called , " Beam-O-Scope" and a link to an external antenna.
Is that brasso polish ?Nice job on this radio. I had a face plate dial Indacator I took a damp rag ,and it dam near remove the cheap gold finish ,so I probably have to paint it .
Hi Ron, I used automotive cut and polish then finished with Brasso. If your dial is just printed on paper you could try doing what I did and print a new one. There are some free paint programs out there like Paint.net which you could use 🤔
I was taught to disconnect the speaker and put a 8 ohm resistor load across the speaker leads, once a tone was established. We used the output function on a Simpson 260 and cranked up the volume to mid range on the 2.5 volt scale. Then peaking, doing three passes over the tune up and lowering the RF level each time, keeping modulation level as low as possible to avoid over Modulation, as it will cause the 455 Kc To be askew off center freq.The local oscillator was also disabled during IF alignment. Any thoughts on that technique. I like to use a scope to for quick visual indication, but and using a meter for that peaking deflection.
Yep, totally agree Cosimo, I normally connect the meter to the plate of the output valve via a capacitor but it was difficult to do on this set so I connected across the speaker instead. I have a dummy loads for the speakers but I like to get a little audible feedback during alignment so seldom use them. When connected to the plate I can still hear it through the speaker at a comfortable level and see the deflection on the meter. I set the volume on the radio to maximum and the signal generator to the minimum output possible. I have in the past disabled the local oscillator but it didn't seem to make a difference so don't bother any more. I should check with the scope as you say and set the peak a little bit rounded to hopefully get a little better sound 👍
Hi Latürnich, it's a soldering station similar looking to this one. If you get one check the cooling holes in the back a formed properly: www.ebay.com.au/i/272837098084?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=705-139619-5960-0&mkcid=2&itemid=272837098084&targetid=835799253268&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9069019&poi=&campaignid=7408627140&mkgroupid=86410136768&rlsatarget=aud-692203741102:pla-835799253268&abcId=1139226&merchantid=116502849&gclid=Cj0KCQiAxfzvBRCZARIsAGA7YMzFvDKp5viwz5GzbJvCfP0ptpKJnCMzD-tvUNm56H-Hx_Ui9vDY_PQaAlopEALw_wcB
@@DavidTipton101 well I am glad it was not SMD cause that's a lot of work to correct and annoying to find the right capacitance. I do tinker with old radios myself , even got a little trouble child myself its a 1934 Fairbanks and Morse AM/SW radio. I lack the signal generator and equipment to properly tune it but for now it does play and sounds decent. Something that would really help is a schematic resource Like Sam's or Riders Etc..
I've had some experience with SMD in IF cans before, to get the capacitor value I use a variable cap soldered in temporally and with the core about central tune the IF frequency. I then measure the variable caps capacitance and install a cap of the same approximate value. I got that from shango066. I found a bit of info on Radio Museum about Fairbanks and morse radios with some schematics: www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_hersteller_detail.cfm?company_id=2394
@@DavidTipton101 Yes that's one way to do it, pretty much the best way to that way you get to the closest as stock as you can get, also thank you. Shango066 is also where I got my inspiration to restore radios myself.
So its not a hot chassis, using a small power transformer and six volt filaments. A silicon diode for rectification, normal filtering . What was the tube compliment?
I think it is a nice little radio, perfect for the kitchen. Now, to throw a monkey wrench into folks minds. Nowadays most folks think "solid-state" is strictly transistors and ic chip circuits and in reality, it is a circuit that is done with printed circuitry and thus even this tube/valve unit is a solid-state radio. For those who do not believe me, please look it up in the older electronics manuals and textbooks. Odd how over time things get deleted from various terminologies and especially as it relates to electronics.
@@DavidTipton101 Back in the mid-60s, GE produced a tube tabletop radio and clearly stated it was solid-state and was done on a printed circuit board. I was confused and looked it up in an encyclopedia and found that it was correct.
I know that the modern terminology is referred only to semiconductor devices, but at one point it was also used to identify anything using printed circuit board vs point to point wired electronics that required a chassis and or terminal strips.
Another outstanding resto David. Just a couple of questions, what brand is that desolder tool you use? I’m looking for one, but the Hakko ones are very expensive. How do you bath electronics? I’d have thought the water would bugger many things up. Did you use distilled water? I have been known to put variable capacitors in the dish washer before...
Hi ctho, the deslodering station is an unbranded Chinese model although the eBay seller called it Micron, it was about a third of the price of branded stations. The tap water in the bath was only millimeters high, just enough to cover the board, I used dish washing liquid to remove the grease but nothing got into the coils or similar components, I then dried it thoroughly. I know people put the tuning capacitors in the dishwasher but haven't done it myself, I thought it might discolour the tuning plates, do they come out alright?
Probably 5 tubes and a 5" speaker! Healing was EMI's alternate brand to His Master's Voice. Whether the brand was used in Britain or not, I'm not sure, but New Zealand may well have had the brand, marketed by EMI New Zealand when it was still "The His Master's Voice Company of New Zealand Ltd."
Actually Healing and HMV were unrelated up until about 1974, when Healing made B&W TVs, rebadged HMV, and HMV made colour sets which were rebranded Healing. This arrangement didn't last long, both factories closing down after a year or two.
That was my recollection Stuart, our first colour TV was the Healing, dog of a set too. At least you could go to Radio Parts in Spencer Street Melbourne and buy changeover boards 😃
@@stuartirwin3779 That does not gel with what I remember. I saved up and bought our family's first colour TV set. I was determined NOT to make the mistake my parents made when they bought a Philips brand B & W set in 1963, I made damn sure the colour set I bought was NOT going to carry the crappy Philips brand. So I bought a His Master's Voice "Braddon" 18-inch set which also had UHF tuning(set the VHF tuner to Ch.11 and that activated the UHF tuner, trouble was, in 1975 there were no stations in my area transmitting on UHF). and slider controls above the tuning knobs to set volume, brightness, contrast and colour saturation, A 20-inch version cosmetically identical to the "Braddon" was called the "Marsden". At the same time as these HMV models were sold, EMI also had the same "guts" put into another 18-inch and 20-inch model which carried the Healing brand, the variance is that the slider controls for volume, brightness, contrast and colour were positioned BELOW the tuning knobs. Internally they were the same set, externally, one was HMV, the other was Healing and the only way to tell the difference was where the slider controls were on either brand. The two models were made at EMI's plant at Homebush(Parramatta Road, just along from the railway station access road).
@@DavidTipton101 The trouble with the Braddon was the trim-pot which adjusted the geometry of the image, It was an on-going problem that was never resolved. The adjustment to set the height and width of the image on screen was "dicky". Too much current was passing through the pot, burning the point on the track where the stator(guessing the word) was positioned, the image bloomed and shrank intermittently.
At least he doesn't dismantle stuff, wash everything in water then hang the pieces on a clothes line (or use a hair dryer) like some of the cringe-worthy "restore" videos I've recently watched. It's very refreshing to see a genuine restoration from Dave IMO so I don't mind the slightly loud intro music but that's just me.
Not too bad Cosimo, we have two government stations, one is light hearted talkback and quite good the other is Radio National, there is one oldies station, one talkback, one horse racing, one sport and several others I struggle to get. There is still quite a bit of AM still around thankfully.
No es un chasis activo, tiene un transformador y también antes de tocarlo golpeo las partes metálicas con el dedo para asegurarme a las 4:05 Gracias L&L Producciones 👍😃
