The FM RF amplifier transistors have no power dissipation stress, but they are first in line if someone zaps the telescope antenna with a static discharge in a low humidity environment.
So little max doing his static electricity experiments with this vintage radio is what killed the transistor? 😠 (Rubbing a balloon on one’s jumper and touching the antenna with the charged balloon to hear static on MW)
The Ross 13 transistor radio was a "show off" radio of the 1970s. It was cheaply made and felt so, with the leatherette cover, combined power on/off and volume control, and (I believe) direct drive variable tuning capacitor. "Show off" because it had dual antennas, which otherwise only expensive radios had (though these here were short and thin), and dual speakers (but not stereo). It was really lightweight. Shortwave wasn't great on this radio--low selectivity. What was cool about it was that unlike many other portable radios, it had the power supply built into the chassis, including the power supply cable. As you can see early in the video, the lower part of the leatherette back flipped open and revealed the power cable. Fun to see one of them still alive.
I have a pair of Ross RE-999 walkie-talkies from the later 60's that I inherited from my deceased childhood friend, been sitting for probably close to 50 years unused, put batteries in still works perfectly, loud,clear, sensitive, transmits good, heavy cast metal front case, a quality product made in Japan. I have not re-capped or done any thing to these at all, the are in the orig. box with mànual and schematic. Proves good stuff can be made.
15:47 . . . Exactly!!! the sound 'bink' when the spring relaxes in the tuning drum, after the soldering pencil bumps the dial string.... "SON OF A ____ !!!!"
Just a note, I begin my day watching one to 5 of your video's. It is sort of like the way I did back when I was able, heading to the Coffee shop to drink copy with my buddies on the Police Force many moons ago when I was a cop. I really enjoy the comedy and the actual information that I can use in my hobby of building shit from parts and being amazed when I put power to them and they DO SOMETHING!. My politics are in sync with yours, I have been a strong conservative, just a bit to the right of my old hero who now sits in heaven next to the love of my life, my wife of 51 years whom I lost to cancer during the fear of COVID when the hospital could not check her stomach pain and treated her for an ulcer as the cancer in her stomach spread throughout her body and took her from me. At any rate I just wanted to give you a hint at how to return to the land of the free, where there is no danger of the ocean ever coming on shore, or an earthquake will never cause the state to fall off into the ocean. South Dakota, the home of the Badlands, the Black Hills where beauty all around you, and the great plains of South Dakota, where wildlife is betting back to the early days of man with deer and antelope play, where the fox, the coyote, ,and the wolf fight for the pheasants, Grouse, and Rabbit hide from the little prairie rattler. Where the cold keeps the minority population down to an occasional sighting passing through, especially in the winters when the mercury drops to -40 degrees F. Where there is NO State Income Tax, where our Governor loves the people and not the Party where she fights for our rights, including the right to carry a firearm as you choose, either concealed or in the open. Where the airwaves are free of the pollution by hundreds of radio stations, where little home town stations talk of the local news and where even most of the bar tenders are very conservative. Indeed, it is no Russia, but more a USA before the idiots took over. Come on up, houses can be had for well under a hundred grand, the 3 BR Ranch I purchased 25 years ago, I got for 20 thousand bucks, and has been paid for now for over 15 years. Anyhow keep us in mind when you flee the left coast, in fact right now a beautiful home once owned by a carpenter who remade the interior as he desired into a great place to live is on sale for around 50 thousand bucks.
I know your about doing things right but I have to say that once I found the weak caps by bridging in a good one,I would have soldered it in on the back of the board leaving the old in place. We all hate messing with dial cords! Love your videos!!
I own some Ross radios and Ross radios was an affordable radio. This radio in particular is a 50+ year old radio and the manufacturer never intended for this radio to be serviced. This was after all a throwaway radio. Today we have collectors collecting these radios. My first Ross Radio was around 1972 and shortwave was better then. I listen to my radios and believe me you need a working radio during a power outage and it did happen for me the other day. Thank goodness I had a reading lamp that was rechargeable.
Every once in a while you have an epic moment in your videos that makes me laugh whenever I hear it, no matter how many times... "now to try and sol-der it in there" was awesome!
Had one of these or a similar one when I was a kid. It was a thrift store find that my dad bought me. Listened to all kinds of stuff on it for quite a while.
5:16 Notice that the audio outputs have both NPN and PNP transistors. This configuration is called a "complementary amplifier" circuit. Man, that radio is clean and shiny - inside and out! 21:00 The Russian Woodpecker is back? Say it isn't so. That had ended when the DUGA over-the-horizon radar lost its source of power - the Chernobyl Nuclear Power station, in 1986.
I'm going blind trying to see if the arrows are pointing out or in, but both the emitters are connected to the positive ground, to they should all be pointing in, making them all PNP transistors. The "complimentary" circuits came later when NPN transistors became more accessible and usually had transformerless outputs.
Eli "Edward" Ross, 73, whose rolodex read like a Who's Who of Far East business leaders from Tokyo to Hong Kong to Taipei and Shanghai, died on July 18 (2006) of complications from a recent hospitalization. The former president and CEO of Chicago-based Ross Electronics, in 1965 Mr. Ross took over the helm of the company his father founded a decade previous. Widely recognized as the first company to establish manufacturing operations in Tokyo after the war with Japan ended, Ross Electronics developed, designed, marketed and imported consumer audio equipment and home entertainment devices. Working with the new manufacturing of Japanese industry, Ross Electronics was credited with bringing miniature sized transistor radios into the U.S. Ross Electronics was the first company to develop specialty electronics, placing radio technology inside items such as stuffed animals, sun glasses, cigarette consoles, etc. He is survived by ... (continues)
Good video, I have a very similar radio branded real tone model 2424 made in Japan in 1970 4 bands 14 transistors. Fm Am Bc Sw. all band work well except for FM. Probably the same problem. And you are right hard to work on, everything has to com apart and the circuit board is really crammed and traces come loose from the board.
I happen to have all the germanium (PNP) capacitors in my possession. About 200 of them, plus the OC80 and 81 signal diodes, all brand new. Free to a good home.
grabbed one of these at the local flea market for $15 last weekend and other than dirty selector switch and volume pot, seems to function as well as it ever did. Mine has the same model number and markings but it has a completely different pcb layout and both the speakers in my unit are identical size and part #.
I think a lot of those RF transistors in the front end just get zapped with ESD damaged as they are directly connected with the antenna. People walk on a nylon carpet then grab the antenna. Bipolar are less sensitive to ESD but they are not immune to ESD damage. Nice looking radio nice fix.
Excellent work. I usually recap just to future proof. Even top brands leak eventually. Did you see Adrians digital basement did a cap switch to from a 1 mic to a 10 mic cap on the 5 core radio to improve The AM sound.
I HAD TO RE-TUCK MY POLO INTO MY KHAKI SHORTS THREE TIMES AND DOUBLE WAX MY CORVETTE WHILE ON VIAGRA WAITING ON YOUR SNURGLE FLURGING MASTERCHARGING CAPACITOR REPLACEMENT! XOXOXOXO
The transistor may be dying from static electricity as opposed to excessive current. Static discharge could be exceeding B-E reverse breakdown and killing it even if it is DC blocked
After the repair, it performed exactly, as I do remember those cheap Japanese transistor radios from around 1970: Very bad selectivity, bad sensivity, generally noisy and always some distortion on weaker signals. They looked tempting in the leavelet, but every German radio (even in the same price range) just blew them away...
13 Transistors twin speaker Boom Box now with Russian 13th transistor and who in the hell can get the word Viagra in a radio repair video this is why i watch this channel its the randomness
Couldn't find any info confirming Ross Electronics corporation is still around, but i found this on bloomberg "Ross Electronics Ltd Ross Electronics Ltd provides electronic products. The Company offers installed and serviced televisions, stereo equipment, antennas, and bearcat scanners, as well as deals in home theater sales and installation and computers and networking. Ross Electronics serves customers in the United States."
Muscatel is a type of wine made from muscat grapes. Now ...in the US.. refers to a fortified wine made from these grapes.... became popular when, at the end of prohibition, in order to meet the large demand for wine, some poor strains of muscat grapes (used normally for table grapes or raisins) mixed with sugar and cheap brandy were used to produce what has since become infamous as a wino wine.
KEMET was an US company till Taiwan chinese company YAGEO bought it. The soviet date code is August 1978. Two speakers in parallel - in part of their frequency range almost a Leslie speaker.
Simon Spiers, i'm sure when the fun fair used to come to town they had similar cheap radios like that one for sale or win, but from hong kong. (mostly cardboard and fake leather). Nothing to write home about, quicker to walk home than send a letter :-D
I heard what sounds like the "Russian woodpecker " the second you switch it to shortwave. I remember that irritating sound well from my youth first into the shortwave listening hobby when I was 10 years old in the 70's. It always interfered as soon as I was waiting on a new found station to identify.
The five core radio may have distortion on the AM band due to the wrong agc cap installed at factory. If it has a 1 mfd electrolytic, replace it with a 10 mfd cap to eliminate the distortion on AM issue
Sir as an Englishman locked down in France (Covid) with my girlfriend similarly stranded in South Africa I find your public fondling of Russian pnp RF transistors extraordinarily stimulating. Ignore the criticism. With reference to high incidence of faulty front end rf transistors I suggest that it may be static damage due to frequent contact with the telescopic aerial. Keep up the good work and perhaps solder suction with a consenting but saucy schottky diode could feature in your repertoire?
They always play a commercial first then either do the test tone or just go right to another commercial. They will never just sound the test tone while a commercial is playing but they will interrupt a good jam to do it.
I Think An Those AM FM Radios With Shortwave Develope More Problems Then An AM FM Radio Without Shortwave. It's Like These New Cars With All Those Extras. I Remember A Guy Who Removed All That Extra Crap From His Car. Like All That Fule Injection Crap & Replaced The Fuel Injecter With A Carberater.
Pioneer speakers 🔊 in this set? The years when quality was an issue. It's stereo!! At least, it looks so. You're smart, don't pry up ☝ on the leatherette case. They face dry rot through the years. That's a fancy radio. It even has the schematic in the back. Hope it also has one for the dial cord. I might have heard of a Ross radio in my time. Yes 👍, your phone 📱 might be able to blow that schematic up ☝ to seeable 👀 size. Cue-escent voltage ⚡? Pegs your meter. Your friend, Jeff.
Nothing wrong with paralleled AF output transistors if you want more power on the cheap. The darlington stage is a cheap way to get more gain when high Beta transistors are not available. This kind of stuff was common in the era of Germanium transistors. I bet those early Germanium VHF transistors go down in FT as they age.
