Sokol СОКОЛ 310 Soviet Radio Diagnosis and Repair am pocket transistor radio 

Cannot begin to appreciate REBUILDING the tuning cap. That was remarkable!

The distortion when tuned off comes from the sharp edges and even side notches of the (likely 4 element) resonator ladder filter. The carrier just went into the notch, so the signal remained SSB with very suppressed carrier, hence the distortion. This kind of filter is normally used with professional communication radios, where good filtering is a must and the higher cost not that much of an obstacle. For some reason this kind of filter became popular in Soviet radios (before that they've used 3 LC coupled resonator - again a Soviet specialty). I used the modern 6-resonator version (ltm455g or similar), it really allows to receive a station just beside the way stronger one just 9kHz (non US) away. The drawback is the distortion when not tuned right.

"I'll never do this again... that's it." ... three months from now, Shango has another tuning capacitor in pieces. LOL

Back in time I've repaired like 10 to 20 of such tuning caps. Surely one of most problematic failures but still fixable in most cases. You may be proud you made it☺

These are beautifully built radios. Inside and out

I bought one of these, in England in 1992-3 and it was very cheap (£3), I very foolishly sold it, thinking it would be easily replaceable but I never saw another one for sale. I do still have it's (pristine) box although it now houses a Lima 'n gauge' model railway train set. Thanks for your excellent content and 'in-depth political analysis' ! ! !

Hi Shango, I have used scotch tape to fix the shorted tuning capacitors before. I use scissors to trim around the plates. Pretty easy, just takes time.

Shango's capacitor rebuilding shop! Patience of a saint..........Great results!@

Wow, impressive. Remember those capacitors from when I was a kid: every time those plates unmeshed the capacitor was a goner: brass plates started peeling the plastic layer from copper ones, and that was it. Had many of them just laying around at my old place. Congratulations on precision, patience and tenacity!

i just fixed a Universal Transistor Radio I had from the early 60's made by Candle. I replaced all 4 electrolytics and found the one 5mfd cap by the interstage transformer open as it had very little volume. THAT little sucker blasts now. 6 transistors and its not too bad of a performer, but its no transoceanic ;-). Very nice work on this one. You got me liking those old soviet radios. They really do perform well are built damn solid too. -Mike M.

I cannot believe you took the time and trouble to rebuild a cheapo tuning cap, that is very impressive. ALL FOR THE LOVE OF TEH GAME

I had the same bad problem with a tuning capacitor on a Sony boom box and it was a nice one too. Had a cd player tape deck and all it needed was a discontinued obsolete can't find one tuning cap. Same darn loose plates. I attempted to repair it but I couldn't it made me mad. You're incredibly talented

this device is 37 years old and outstandingly /amazingly still sharp like razor

Shango,I’m impressed. Nobody else would have devoted 5 hours to rebuilding that damaged tuning capacitor on this radio. This one definetly found the right home in you!

Ooooh! I was craving virgin repair territory. And here it is! Those little plates.... delicate tracking.....

Took one of those tuning capacitors apart decades ago just to see how it worked. Never even considered one could be repaired. Impressive fix, Shango.

Thanks! That was ALLOT of WORK Shango! Well done! I just ordered one of these on eBay.

Just rediscovered this. My Sokol is model number RP-210 but seems to be identical. It was sold in Britain in the early 1990s, very cheap because (as the catalogue warned) everything was in Russian. It came with instructions, circuit diagrams, a divider for the battery compartment and even a tiny plug for an external antenna. Yours is missing the divider - just a couple of pieces of rectangular thin board (material similar to the pcb) that slot together and sit between the cells to stop them rattling around. It's very over engineered - TEN transistors just for a pocket MW/LW set (not even FM), but does have great performance. ♥

Admittedly, you have me convinced as to the quality of reception of these Soviet era transistors. Great job rebuilding the tuning capacitor. You may have hated it, but you brought pleasure to those of us watching.

"ОТК" is "отдел технического контроля", basically a "quality assurance" marking. No part info in that, unfortunately.

Your 5 to 6 hours of patience really paid off. Great performer!

Your time and patience with these radios is tremendous. You have a great skill. And you do better than most, you can read the Cyrillic script.

I enjoyed watching your transistor radio repair video. I think that you did a good job of demonstrating how to repair the tuning capacitor. The receiver seems to work rather well. I looked on eBay for such a unit, but did not find any for sale (not that I need any more radios). Thank you for a great presentation.

I can't wait to see how it will perform on your next DX-ing expedition in the desert 🙂 in any case, congratulations for your patience and perseverance Shango 👍

That was great to watch, good job! Sure seems like a great radio for number of components. Very sensitive and selective it seems. You did put a lot of work into that one but was sure fun to watch and follow along!!

Привет из Испании! 👋Лайк! Настроечный конденсатор просто сломали, возможно дети.😒 Удачи в вашем деле! Смотрю ваш канал постоянно.👍

It's rather odd to me that this manufacturer did not key or spline the capacitor shaft to the rotating plates. Other than that, this appears to be a quality receiver that originated from a defunct Cold War adversary. I would suggest Shango set this aside for a future desert DX-ing trip.

I had no idea what was in those cheap film tuning capacitors. Thank you shaving for showing me this.

SHANGO!!! Thanks for the video. Hope all is well.

Now that IS a resurrection!!!

The way it's going in this country, it won't be long before you can use that to find out the waiting times for the bread lines. And maybe listen to the forecast for the crop reports for next year.

The mixer/converter-transistor KT368 with ft=900MHz is very unusual for an am radio. Usually transistors with much lower ft are used. Good for high gain.

I'm very impressed of the way you fixed it. If I got it to that point it would have gone in the garbage for me.

Awesome job on that capacitor, hat's off sir👍 impressive speaker build quality!

You are the best! If I had a radio museum surely you will be my curator. Its fantastic how you resurrect these beauties. On the sensitivity of that radio that is a must in such a huge country of 11 times zones!

You really outdid yourself in rebuilding that tuning cap. Nice work doctor.

7:30 Holy cr@p! I'm *super* impressed by that old Soviet schematic! 6:44 CalTrans radio station? I had never heard of that except very low powered information announcements. That repair was astonishing! You have the talent and the patience of a saint to do that.

Well worth the time you spent on it what an amazing radio.

Nice looking baby Radio. Mirandolo right now. Good day sir.

brilliant video shango loved your work and description of the radio when you took the tuning capacitor apart very enjoyable .

Nice work Shango. That baby needs a nighttime trip to the desert for some DX playtime. Great video.

Thanks for sharing. 😉👌🏻

Awesome videos as always shango

Bought the exact same model a few months back, mine works great infact nearly as good as FM Haha

Tough repair for sure, but totally worth it, look forward to seeing it perform out in the open cause it sure is a hot one for sure

As usual intriguing and entertaining videos by Mr Shango

Another very educational video great job enjoyed this learning new stuff

Shango, your determination has saved a really nice radio, it was worth saving.

Holy crap Shango, what a horrible job to take on, and you did it so well. Congrats on a fantastic repair.

your persistence is impressive

I collect pocket CB tuners and I rly want a Soviet one after this. super cool

Oh god, it's the test lady from my nightmares again!

Nice job fixing that VC Shango066 yeah as we get older fixing small stuff becomes really hard with shaky hands, bad eye sight and patience or lack their of. But it was worth it as a one off.

Very good audio quality. Nicely done! :-)

A great repair well done.

I have Sokol-304 and working great , nothing change

I love how that blm station was talking about "if you are a pregnant person". I guess pregnancy is one of those things that could literally happen to anyone now. Loved the radio. It might have been a pain to rebuild that cap, but I'm so glad you did. This was a good video.

Im Impressed, I coiuld have never fixed that cap.....

Delicious quality built right in, well except for the chineseium tuning cap.

Good vid!! Thanks

"I'll never do this again, that's it..." we know you will! 🙂

You are "extraordinary", without a doubt! The KING of Soviet radios State Side, I give you the "Blue Gloved Devil" of radio repairs. Thanks for your time and skill.

When I lived in Germany back in the Cold War days I could sometimes pick up an English speaking Soviet propaganda station. "The Soviet Union today flew the world's first aircraft powered by LPG" was a typical example of the broadcasting.

And here's me thinking I'm the only idiot that does shit like this, nice work Shango.

The radio is very hot and well worth fixing. As you were tuning the radio, I think I heard it pick up KSDO 1130 (Spanish religious programming) from San Diego between 1110, formerly Disney, and 1150 the Patriot. Also, I think I heard KCBQ 1170, the Answer, from San Diego. Impressive!

Blimey, if that were billed to a customer it would've cost at least 200 bucks - brilliant work :)

2:45 With captioning on it says ”Applause." 😂 And we thought it was static...

Trzeba wymienić wszystkie kondensatory elektrolityczne. Pozdrawiam Robert.

Not so "stupid" if the work you did, Worked. : } _Now if there was something to be done about those "Duraleaks"._

Раньше такие приемники отлично ловили только атмосферные помехи. Поэтому их использовали как набор радиодеталей для технического творчества.

Shango006 always exceeds our expectations. Great fix on the tuning part! Thanks for posting and take care!

Surprised how far you went for this one, but.... quality demands.

DURALEAK ! The best way to describe these horrible chinese junk !! Thank you for this nice video, I often repair USSR Radios, here in Germany common from the late sixties on. In both Germanies, for valuta they exported large numbers of SW -Radios (eg. SELENA 215 from Latvia) and mini-TVs . inexpensive in the west, expensive in east Germany. Today collectors items !

Couple pages of that manual almost have that Passport look..

Great fix.

Respect🎉😅

Even cast-iron plates break in the hands of children. 😊😊😊📻

That was impressive!

It even has a ceramic IF filter, making the IF section very selective, which is why the audio sounds distorted, when the station is not tuned in correctly.

Special tuning capacitor operation

Given the bent appearance of the plates in the first tuning capacitor, I wonder whether it jammed, and a frustrated person decided that it would be a smart solution to free the shaft with a pair of pliers!

wow a differential pair in the audio amp. that's class-cee. it should have pretty good audio fidelity with the negative feedback that brings. you won't find that in your average hong-coidial model. no output transformer in there either- direct drive too.

Greetings from Russia. Thanks for the interesting video)

Recently I got a Sokol 304 from a chap in Bulgaria, and it performed very poorly when first powered. After some analysis, a failed solder joint in the AM antenna coil was found and fixed. The tuning was peaked and the radio now performs HOT, getting many DX stations at night! What makes these so selective is the piezo filter. It's sad that it's getting harder (and more expensive) to get radios and parts from these eastern countries.

Shango066 Wins Again! 🎉

So good I had to watch again! I wonder if would receive music in its home country or just some crackpot trying to save face as it does here.

Looks like it had its original electrolytic capacitors replaced one time, since it now has garbage Chinese Chong branded capacitors installed. Nevertheless, that's one solid performer no doubt. Cudos to the tuning capacitor repair.

Universal.... is the diagram.... Chinese, French. German, and ussr. I amazed my friends when I put one together. And threw a Chinese diagram on the table......pointed out the equipment locations.

“Turn the radio on… Listen to propagadna… Maybe it could work today” - what a pun :) 2:05 How this world actually turned around.

That is such an interesting looking radio! Imagine. Having to assemble the tuning caps by hand! Is that how it was done during manufacturing?

Good find on the tuning cap... Wonder if that was manufactured broken and that's why the radio was never used? Dosen't look like something that would happen from hitting the tuning knob? The mystery on some of these is 1/2 the fun. Edit... Now I wonder if someone twisted the hell out of that tuning knob.

"bark point cigar rash"

Bravo!

A quick way to see if the tuner is working is bring your Malachite SDR near the radio and look for the oscillator signal. That way you know if the oscillator is running, what frequency it is tuned to, and if the tuning capacitor is turning.

Good job 👍👍👍♥

"Duraleak batteries" 😂 You made my day. 👍🏻 These red square disk capacitors are crap. They tends to short.

Pure soviet Video😁😂😂😂

idk ,…as crazy hot and high quality as that radio is i would think it is time well spent and you are halfway up the learning curve

I noticed the plates have been slotted so as to try and fine tune the linearity of stations over the dial but you would think there is no room for that as the plates are so close together.

Shango: Great video and hats-off for the perseverance to stay with the tuning condenser! And, as you can see, the radio was well worth it. Has it been field-tested? When I was kid repairing these, I would often find the insulating coatings or most of the time sheets to be either torn from their mounting or all balled-up inside the enclosure. I tried without success to find the right plastic (either baggies or report-covers) that was both thin and stiff enough but sometimes found that I could cut a TO-3 mica-sheet (Radio Shack always had the thinnest ones!) even if it had the holes as the remainder of the sheet would still have enough spacing to keep the plates apart. Later I found that using thinned-down clear fingernail polish (with laquer thinner) or acrylic or even thinned spar-varnish. I would dip them to apply a watery-coating to the plates and that worked well. This radio is really built with quality. The first thing I noticed was the ceramic tuning capacitors; you don't see that often. Another thing was the brass and copper plates used in the tuning condenser. Brass, and especially copper have lower linear expansion coefficients than the cheap aluminum ones your normally see--this adds to stability which might have been a thing in a freezing Siberian Gulag! Additionally, these copper or brass plates can be plated with nickel or silver for corrosion although silver is often times problematic. There is conjecture out there, that the silver plating will enhance the Q but I have never had opportunity to have one, test it, plate it, and then measure the Q--but I have both seen it in high-end test equipment and VFO's (usually with gas-sealed enclosures so I wouldn't bet against that being true. Anyway, as we get older, we have less patience for BS but you really hung in there and got a good long term result which I don't think (your-fix) will ever fail...