That material list of the making of rca tubes speaks volumes of how great our country once was with manufacturing things here. It makes me think of all the people who were involved in the building of every item needed just for that radio. God bless all the people who were part of this great time. Glad to see you get older electronic devices working again. It helps me to relax and forget about stress in life. I used to do lots of repair myself on a wide variety of electronic devices but older ham gear was my favorite. My vision won't allow me to do much now so I enjoy watching these videos.
What really makes me sad is the downfall of great names. "RCA" or Crosley for example in the USA. What utter trash they sell under the RCA-brand nowadays is obscene. Here in Germany it is also unbearable. "Telefunken" for example. They were one of the world's greatest companies from 1895 until the 1980s. And now some cheap chinese companies sell cheap plastic kitchen gadgets under that name. They invented the first variable bandwith tuner, interlaced video(!) and the PAL color system. That's no less than blasphemy! For christ's sake!
The US manufacturing totally bailed in electronics, helped by the complicity of Congress in not tackling the Japanese and later Chinese DUMPING of electronics at below even their cost. US govt facilitated all of this and continues to support below cost Postal services direct from China. Flat screen tech was originally discovered by RCA in about 1970, but sold to Sharp Corp in early 1970s due to RCA not seeing a way to manufacture profitably.
@Seventh Anubis Americans still do design stuff if you think about it, basic manufacturing is usually low-tech/low-skill which requires low cost (not something you can do, when wages go up and competition has far lower wages), nowadays only companies doing advanced IC's (TI, Analog devices etc.) do manufacture their chips in the US. Up to the 1960's the rest of the world was busy rebuilding after the war, while US was mostly standing still (look at cars and consumer electronics), once germany and japan managed to finally catch up, things turned around.
@@waltschannel7465 That's a similar story of robotic automobile assembly - invented in America but out car companies wouldn't go for it. (I assume labor unions had something to do with that) So, that process was sold to the Japanese companies, and the rest, , , , , , is history.
Sounds to me that the station's management doesn't think younger people are smart enough to operate an AM radio, so they added FM. I'm cool with that, I have a add-on tube FM tuner because the Pilot company knew this was gonna happen in 1947. Kudos to Pilot for their forward thinking !!
In Europe (at least in Germany) it was mandatory for every radio manufacturer to include FM in their sets. Starting in the early 50s. I first visited the USA in the late 70s and it was super strange for me to see AM only radios. Even our rent-a-car had an AM only radio. That was a super weird experience for me. I never saw a post war radio in Germany without FM.
I’ve got an old Philco from 1948 that’s both AM/FM. Haven’t had a chance to get it make work happy again. It’s a buzz-o-matic, but the audio works, I’ve tested the phono input.
I look forward to 1010 WINS or WCBS 880 adding FM here in NYC as news on FM is minimized now and it isn't possible to tune in AM in many large buildings.
I have wanted to pick up one of those Pilots have you seen that modern board you can buy to add fm to your am using your am tuning to tune the stations with !
I'd think cutting the base off the old tube would be the neatest solution, but that might be harder with a LOCTAL base than with an OCTAL base, with the pins embedded in glass.
I used your videos as inspiration to get an All American 5 tube radio working. I found a GE radio, which looks to be a Model 102 from 1948. It worked after I cleaned the dust and grime out of it and replaced the filter cap. After getting it working, I recapped the rest of the radio, and it works just like it did before recapping, which tells me I did it right. Problem is the radio is deaf. It was deaf before recapping and it's deaf after recapping. It has a coil antenna. I replaced the antenna capacitor just to be sure, and I tested all the tubes. Some of the tubes are weak, but far from dead. I adjusted the trimmer capacitors on the tuner, and I did my best to align the radio. That helped a bit. It gets the strong local stations, but outside of that, it's just deaf. Given there's not much that can go wrong with AA5 radios I figure there's only a few reasons why it's deaf. I suspect a massively out of tolerance resistor but I'm wondering what else I can check.
shango066s' news observation: We in the UK are treated just the same, IMHO it's all about a states' perception of not wishing to 'overexcite the masses' - nanny state. As a youngster I never thought democracy dysfunctioned in such a fashion, the media is skewed. By the way, great video.
It’s so cool watching you bring these back to life. Please keep it up. And, even though there are many recap videos out there, I’d love to see YOU do them. It’s just fun to watch. Thanks Shango.
I just recently picked up a 1953 Capehart model TC-62 AM Clock Radio that was pretty much NOS (it still had its original box with it yet and everything) and it was as virgin as you could get with a radio, original tubes and original caps and resistors etc. Unfortunately I had to ditch 3 of the original tubes in it because one of ther tubes (a 12BA6) had a H-K short, and then the 35C5 tube was Microphonic, and then the other 12BA6 had an open filiment, this radio is an AA6 radio it has an RF section, 2 IF sections, and AVC.
I love these radio repairs. First one I watched years ago I didn't think I'd care, but they are very interesting. BTW, yeah they quickly spiked the story on that Xmas parade massacre. Once they knew they couldn't keep spinning the story to blame the police, they just spiked the story... Back to the regular programming of vax and division.
When it got out he's actually a black bigot with a history ... that pretty much blew the narrative as well. Next if he's treated like those 'peaceful protesters' (I mean rioters) the DA will drop the charges and sweep this under the rug.
I’ve always heard that loctal tubes were developed by Sylvania/Philco primarily for automotive/police radio applications where they were advertised as being less likely to come loose due to road vibrations and shocks,but that they were problematic in military situations where exposure to harsh environments/humidity would cause corrosion issues with pins/sockets.
you are correct, it was a military contract( late 1930's) that started the ball rolling for that design tube. if you look at a "PHILCO TUBE" with a "EIA CODE 312" it was made by "SYLVANIA". this tube design went out of production in the late 1950's, due to "MINI TUBE" design being less costly to build. so it had a 20 year run. I am a firm believer in keeping such equipment "FACTORY ORIGINAL", they really are not a bad tube, it is rare that a "LOC-TAL" tube fails, most of the electronic equipment that I have that uses "LOC-TAL" tubes are original!!!!!
I have always had lousy luck with loctals. Corrosion and intermittent connection problems, the invisible ink they used on the glass disappearing. Stuck tubes and sockets that break if you look at them wrong. I am working on a Philco that has no evidence of being stored near moisture, cabinet is flawless. Yet somehow the corrosion under the loctal output tube was so bad that the bottom of the tube base was no longer attached to the tube. I hate to deviate from a set's originality by resocketing sets, but some days I think the ARF's "Dutch Rabbit" had the right idea about loctals & all their problems.
I no longer live in So. Cal but I always remember the jingle for "K-N-X 10-seventy, News radio". It was my go-to source for traffic updates in the late-80s to early 90s (I got my driver's license in 1987 and then moved away when I went to college).
Listened to KNX since the sixties. Can still hear the AM on a good night now that I live in central Oregon. Have to use my Radio Shack transistor radio to do it. It’s like an old friend.
Thanks Shango for providing the links in the description. I heard last week they were going to also broadcast on FM. Despite all the interference on AM, I auctually prefer listening to KNX on AM. I just got done with one of those Philco 'Hippo' radios. Dirty, crusty, & dry to the MAX, combined with loktals and, rust. I think it's time to krinkosnorkulate.
My market has lots of AM stations repeated on FM and FM digital subchannels. I often still listen to AM, because the analog FM can have multipath, and the digital has a 30-40 second delay.
I'm pretty sure shango was kidding about liking loctals., I hate them and have hated them for 50 years. Even though they are actually superior in their way.
I've been a radio collector since the 1980's and never really had any problem with locktal tubes or sockets , to me they're just another tube style. The worst tube sockets were the very cheap layered bakelite ones that they used in North American tube table radios in the mid 50's to the early 60's. They were mounted on solid bakelite boards.
I enjoy seeing all of these old electronics being repaired. One thing, though, a digital multimeter doesn't always tell everything that's going on in the circuitry, I love using a scope instead. Keep the old stuff coming.
Our local station WICC 600 in Bridgeport has added themselves to the FM dial at 107.3. Unfortunately where I live, there are two stations at that frequency and now neither come in... Plus, our FM reception in general is lousy and doesn't travel far because of the trees, hills etc. So I myself (and probably a decent number of others) will stay with AM. Many stations have been promoting online streaming and smart speaker accessibility, which I don't have or care about. I guess they're trying to make themselves accessible no matter how you want to listen- both bands, online etc, and simulcasting isn't costing them much, so why not...
if you see a small value resistor (10 to 100 ohms) in series with the grid of a tube, don't remove it. Its role is to stop possible parasitic oscillations in the circuit.
Thoroughly enjoy your levity! Almost pulled the trigger on a sdr after seeing yours but came to the same conclusion about China knockoffs + 2 weeks before xmas isn’t an ideal time.
That list of materiel was terrific. A small thought-- that they revealed so many of the constituents which could be analyzed by competitors... oh well-- transistors were just on the horizon.
Enjoy watching your videos. I like how you find the problem without recapping. I saw someone recap a simple five tube wonder only to still have problems hahahaha. He was on the right track by replacing the electrolytic first but after blaming all the paper caps and seven videos later it still doesn't work hahahaha. I know what it's like to encounter SMD for the first time I shouldn't talk. I already know the problem is alignment either someone screwed every slug and trimmer out of whack or it has silver mica disease because of the smaller IF cans or both. On video seven the radio sounded like it had somehow an open circuit in the grid of the audio and was only picking up stray ac and sending it to the speaker. When the volume was turned up all he got was stray ac hahahaha. All new caps. It wasn't doing that with the bad wax papers. Update...video nine... hahahaha five tubes...oh boy
exactly, make sure it basically 'works' and/or all 'unobtanium' parts are good before thinking of recapping, or you've wasted all that time, effort and money if something major has failed, i had that with a late 30s murphy set someone asked me to service, several tuning coils had been chewed by some sort of creature, making it a write off in terms of a radio, so i got it working as an 'amplified' speaker, switched to the 'gram' position, not doing unnecessary cap replacement, which was ok with the owner
My procedure is to use an independent source of B+ and a neon to see if the smoothers will re-form and then change the o/p valve g1 coupler if it is a wax/paper capacitor & go from there. but usually every paper capacitor WILL be leaky. You just need to hear noise and know the audio & IF strip are fine.
One thing with using a dim bulb. Most you channels forget to say got to be a incandescent bulb not a led bulb. Lots of beginners will just find led bulbs and try using them. Got to find a old incandescent light bulb for a dim bulb tester too work.
Hey Shango, I am currently working on a Stromberg Carlson 1101 radio and it has a 150 ohm resistor between the .01uf coupling capacitor and the 35L6 tube. It looks original from the factory. I've seen others posting videos of the same radio and they show the same capacitor and 150 ohm resistor so I believe it's original.
I have that RCA Receiving Tube manual, it's in bad shape too , and that page that shows what materials go into making a tube is quite a shock. So much stuff in those tubes ! The list is alphabetical however and includes every tube not any or the average tube. The secret word for today is, wheat flour. Yummy! Probably an ingredient in the Bakelite base.
Great resurrection repair. Lots of voltage checks can tell you what's wrong. B+ should be about 105 Volts. Whomever put that 100 Ohm in and took the 47 K out didn't have a schematic to actually repair it, just grabbed what he had to make it work back in the day. The sign on the store probably said "Electronics repaired while you wait".
You could transplant those parts to a duplicate "breadboard" layout, with tube sockets and brand new caps and resistors, exactly following the layout of the Schematic. Much easier to follow, and understand.
I have such respect for you. Keep up your great work and commentary. Blessings to you and your loved ones this Christmas season and throughout the New Year...
to glue up paper cones, and foam rings, (besides using the glue from the producers)... Buy a PVA based wood glue, that is made for usage outside, and freezing. Lay out a line on a piece of paper, let it dry/harden, and bend the paper, the clue should not "break", but bend a good bit. So it is sort of semi hard. After the test you can safely use it on you speaker for repair.
Nice tip. I have replacement foam for some Cerwin-Vegas that have rotted out and I have been searching for a readily available, correct glue that doesn't set up too quickly to allow me time get everything in place.
A tip I picked up on from another RUclipsr channel is to use Dap contact cement (the original not water based). It works GREAT! It never becomes brittle and after repairing the crack/ tare, you can coat the entire cone with it if one chooses to.
Will KNX keep their AM signal on 1070? In my market of Salt Lake City, Utah, KSL added FM in about 2005 at 102.7, but they absolutely kept their AM signal at 1160. This all means that KNX would have to announce themselves as KNX News Radio 97.1 FM and 1070 AM since it sounds like they are keeping their AM signal and merely began simulcasting on an FM signal.
Nah, they'll only mention the FM, tonnes of stations do it - they have to keep their AM because of their original license, no AM, no FM either....if they could, they'd probably just bin the AM and keep the FM, but the FCC Laws are as they are.
Have you ever used the liquid rubber brush on black electrical tape stuff for speaker tear repair? Dave Tipton uses it on his channel and I've tried it a couple of times and it seems to work very well. No less aesthetically pleasing than the repair here but the rubber allows the speaker to move just fine...dries in a couple of hours.
I use the special sealant for glued in car windscreens. They supply one cartridge per windscreen when you buy one. I always keep the leftover in a can, diluted with the matching solvent. That stuff is by far the nastiest glue I know of.
@@MrCrystalcranium with the solvent with the most warning labels on the can of course! Jokes aside; i use the recommended solvent. Iirc. it's Sika Thinner S. It's basically xylene and methylpentane.
A little acetone added to liquid black electrical tape and it works great for repairing those speaker cone cracks! You could put the mixture in a small glass bottle and cap it good. Turn it upside down and it won't dry out.
Just about all the AM stations here in south central Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, have a low powered FM channel as well. I have noticed that most of the distant 50,000 watt AM stations we can receive here at night announce they have a FM channel. I wonder why, are they going to eliminate AM some day? I miss the days when the clear AM channels at night time did not experience co channel interference from other AM stations that now stay on the air after sun set.
Love your videos You make repairing antique radios seem easy. I'm in the process of repairing a Packard Bell Model 45 A radio. Do you have any information about this radio? I got a schematic for a Model 45 M but it's not very easy to read, and I don't know if it's close to a model A. Couldn't find anything on a model A. Thanks. Any help would be appreciated.
Great video as always. I hope that Audacy makes a similar move here in Minneapolis with WCCO-AM. I'm really surprised they don't have any presence on the FM band (aside from an HD-2 signal on one of the worst performing stations in the market)
Kcbs still has there am station and have a spot on fm here in the SF bay. Just time tell kcbs will turn there am station off as well. Here in the SF bay we just got kgo and kcbs of the big boys on am. All the other am station and few and nothing great to hear. Most the comp that had am station here sold them out in the 1990s. You down in Southen cali got way more am station then we got up in northern cali. The end to am is slowly coming. Me and you miss it. The new younger people will not care when am goes away. But keep working on all your stuff. Like seeing the old stuff come back to life.
I didn't know California had "smell good Plumbers" too. We've got them in Wisconsin too, but I've never smelled them...I wonder if ours smell like beer and bratwurst and yours smell like surf and pot? Waukesha is only 30 minutes away from me. I shop there and I have friends that live there (luckily none of them got caught up in the massacre). The reports went away for the same reason that "Asian Hate Awareness" vanished (because Afroamerican people were statistically the main perpetrators)....As soon as the news reporters hear that Afroamerican people are committing hate crimes against White people, Asian people or anybody else they squash the story as hard as they can. According to the Geroge-a-SaurosRex controlled Nazzi main stream media 'all Afroamerican people are persecuted saints and if you find evidence to the contrary your you're a blanc supremecist'. They're people like everybody else, and just like all other groups of people they contain mostly good people, but ALSO contain a certain percentage of people that are BIGOTS, CRIMINALS, Anarchists and other societally detrimental things. Just as we shouldn't let race stop us from praising and promoting good people, we also shouldn't let it stop us from condemning the most despicable scum of the earth. Double standards can go to hell.
All loctal tubes manufactured here in Germany were made by LORENZ. Strangely we never have any contact corrosion issues with these, maybe Lorenz used a different alloy for the pins..
I never liked the 5 tube radio because of its limitations but my Atwater Kent radio was outstanding not because it could also pick up SW but because it picked up radio stations all over the country. I never liked the local stations but to listen to classical and big band music was sweet. They should have added one more tube and stage to the radio. I know there are 6 tube versions that have an extra 12BA6 tube or the octal version. An RF amplifier helps pull in the distance stations. 73
Maybe some clever service technician put that resistor to make tube fail soon to charge for more repairs. They used to do that in my country. I personally discovered that kind of fraud on TV I once sent for repair. Cheers! S
I understood it was a domestic row that resulted in the guy running over his ex-wife and child with the same van a few weeks earlier. Maybe thug shouldn't have been released on 1,000 $ bail ?
Good that we have some functioning news in Denmark then. The guy in the car was known already to the police and was pursuied by the police at the time where he went down the road with all the people he didnt know they were there. A mobile phone recording a pedestrian was making did show the man was trying to avoid driving into people. So I guess that was not exciting enough for American news, since there were no terrorism or Trump aasault involved. Thanks for the video, love them.
Facts must change by the time they get overseas. Almost every US news source says he was fleeing the scene of a domestic assault, but was not actively being pursued by police at the time of the incident. He drove past a barrier, and an officer, who fired once at him, but stopped due to the amount of civilians in the area. There's plenty of info about the incident online, the broadcast news coverage here is being suppressed because it does not fit into " the current narrative" of crime in the US
Good stuff as usual. I wonder what kind of radio is "equivalent" to an "All american five" here in Italy / Europe, because I have never seen anything like that...
I suppose the usual 5/6 tube superhet AM radio, the small models built from the end of the war to the mid 50s when FM was being introduced. There's a lot of them around, but with a better quality than AA5 I think. I do have a Philips BI-192 5 tube am radio, that could be an equivalent to an AA5
You did not point to the digital carrier. More like the 19kHz stereo pilot. The IBOC carrier is nested in the digital wideband at the extremity of the 200kHz channel.
Lots of ppl dislike the digital, mostly on AM they dislike it, FM it seems to work better on, more room I guess, with superwide North American Channels especially. It sounds like a waterfall apparently, but anything like that my brain tunes out automatically.
It's amazing the amount of dedication you put into these rehab and fixing these. Been following you for a while. I have a very old Westinghouse Tube radio that may need a rejuvenation
Dont know about recording but you could take an old ferrite antenna from an old radio together with the tunung capacitor and connect them in parallel and then connect it to a plug that fits the radio. As you tune the radio you will also have to tune the capacitor for max. signal. Will work very good though. You could also use a frame antenna but it will be larger.
@8:48 - The fact that the materials list is legible and in alphabetical order and none of the listed materials are misspelled tells a story in itself of good workmanship, pride, education, and attention to detail. You don't get that these days. That one thing is a good example how how things were and sadly will never be again.
That material list of the making of rca tubes speaks volumes of how great our country once was with manufacturing things here. It makes me think of all the people who were involved in the building of every item needed just for that radio. God bless all the people who were part of this great time. Glad to see you get older electronic devices working again. It helps me to relax and forget about stress in life. I used to do lots of repair myself on a wide variety of electronic devices but older ham gear was my favorite. My vision won't allow me to do much now so I enjoy watching these videos.
What really makes me sad is the downfall of great names. "RCA" or Crosley for example in the USA. What utter trash they sell under the RCA-brand nowadays is obscene.
Here in Germany it is also unbearable. "Telefunken" for example. They were one of the world's greatest companies from 1895 until the 1980s. And now some cheap chinese companies sell cheap plastic kitchen gadgets under that name.
They invented the first variable bandwith tuner, interlaced video(!) and the PAL color system. That's no less than blasphemy! For christ's sake!
The US manufacturing totally bailed in electronics, helped by the complicity of Congress in not tackling the Japanese and later Chinese DUMPING of electronics at below even their cost. US govt facilitated all of this and continues to support below cost Postal services direct from China. Flat screen tech was originally discovered by RCA in about 1970, but sold to Sharp Corp in early 1970s due to RCA not seeing a way to manufacture profitably.
@Seventh Anubis Americans still do design stuff if you think about it, basic manufacturing is usually low-tech/low-skill which requires low cost (not something you can do, when wages go up and competition has far lower wages), nowadays only companies doing advanced IC's (TI, Analog devices etc.) do manufacture their chips in the US. Up to the 1960's the rest of the world was busy rebuilding after the war, while US was mostly standing still (look at cars and consumer electronics), once germany and japan managed to finally catch up, things turned around.
@@waltschannel7465 That's a similar story of robotic automobile assembly - invented in America but out car companies wouldn't go for it. (I assume labor unions had something to do with that) So, that process was sold to the Japanese companies, and the rest, , , , , , is history.
Yeah, we did that once. That was America the Great. Very cool times then.
Sounds to me that the station's management doesn't think younger people are smart enough to operate an AM radio, so they added FM. I'm cool with that, I have a add-on tube FM tuner because the Pilot company knew this was gonna happen in 1947.
Kudos to Pilot for their forward thinking !!
In Europe (at least in Germany) it was mandatory for every radio manufacturer to include FM in their sets. Starting in the early 50s. I first visited the USA in the late 70s and it was super strange for me to see AM only radios. Even our rent-a-car had an AM only radio. That was a super weird experience for me. I never saw a post war radio in Germany without FM.
Some modern devices only include FM, No am band whatsoever
I’ve got an old Philco from 1948 that’s both AM/FM. Haven’t had a chance to get it make work happy again. It’s a buzz-o-matic, but the audio works, I’ve tested the phono input.
I look forward to 1010 WINS or WCBS 880 adding FM here in NYC as news on FM is minimized now and it isn't possible to tune in AM in many large buildings.
I have wanted to pick up one of those Pilots have you seen that modern board you can buy to add fm to your am using your am tuning to tune the stations with !
You can drill holes in a plastic beverage cap and slide the modified pins through. Helps stabilize the pins and prevents from splaying out.
I'd think cutting the base off the old tube would be the neatest solution, but that might be harder with a LOCTAL base than with an OCTAL base, with the pins embedded in glass.
That is brilliant. A neat, sturdy base!
I used your videos as inspiration to get an All American 5 tube radio working. I found a GE radio, which looks to be a Model 102 from 1948. It worked after I cleaned the dust and grime out of it and replaced the filter cap. After getting it working, I recapped the rest of the radio, and it works just like it did before recapping, which tells me I did it right.
Problem is the radio is deaf. It was deaf before recapping and it's deaf after recapping. It has a coil antenna. I replaced the antenna capacitor just to be sure, and I tested all the tubes. Some of the tubes are weak, but far from dead.
I adjusted the trimmer capacitors on the tuner, and I did my best to align the radio. That helped a bit. It gets the strong local stations, but outside of that, it's just deaf.
Given there's not much that can go wrong with AA5 radios I figure there's only a few reasons why it's deaf.
I suspect a massively out of tolerance resistor but I'm wondering what else I can check.
shango066s' news observation: We in the UK are treated just the same, IMHO it's all about a states' perception of not wishing to 'overexcite the masses' - nanny state. As a youngster I never thought democracy dysfunctioned in such a fashion, the media is skewed. By the way, great video.
It’s so cool watching you bring these back to life. Please keep it up. And, even though there are many recap videos out there, I’d love to see YOU do them. It’s just fun to watch. Thanks Shango.
I just recently picked up a 1953 Capehart model TC-62 AM Clock Radio that was pretty much NOS (it still had its original box with it yet and everything) and it was as virgin as you could get with a radio, original tubes and original caps and resistors etc. Unfortunately I had to ditch 3 of the original tubes in it because one of ther tubes (a 12BA6) had a H-K short, and then the 35C5 tube was Microphonic, and then the other 12BA6 had an open filiment, this radio is an AA6 radio it has an RF section, 2 IF sections, and AVC.
43:23 You Are My Hero!
I love these radio repairs. First one I watched years ago I didn't think I'd care, but they are very interesting.
BTW, yeah they quickly spiked the story on that Xmas parade massacre. Once they knew they couldn't keep spinning the story to blame the police, they just spiked the story... Back to the regular programming of vax and division.
When it got out he's actually a black bigot with a history ... that pretty much blew the narrative as well. Next if he's treated like those 'peaceful protesters' (I mean rioters) the DA will drop the charges and sweep this under the rug.
Yep. Spot on.
It's amazing how many stations you have on this band! A great example of situation analysis and troubleshooting!
I’ve always heard that loctal tubes were developed by Sylvania/Philco primarily for automotive/police radio applications where they were advertised as being less likely to come loose due to road vibrations and shocks,but that they were problematic in military situations where exposure to harsh environments/humidity would cause corrosion issues with pins/sockets.
you are correct, it was a military contract( late 1930's) that started the ball rolling for that design tube. if you look at a "PHILCO TUBE" with a "EIA CODE 312" it was made by "SYLVANIA". this tube design went out of production in the late 1950's, due to "MINI TUBE" design being less costly to build. so it had a 20 year run. I am a firm believer in keeping such equipment "FACTORY ORIGINAL", they really are not a bad tube, it is rare that a "LOC-TAL" tube fails, most of the electronic equipment that I have that uses "LOC-TAL" tubes are original!!!!!
I have always had lousy luck with loctals. Corrosion and intermittent connection problems, the invisible ink they used on the glass disappearing. Stuck tubes and sockets that break if you look at them wrong. I am working on a Philco that has no evidence of being stored near moisture, cabinet is flawless. Yet somehow the corrosion under the loctal output tube was so bad that the bottom of the tube base was no longer attached to the tube. I hate to deviate from a set's originality by resocketing sets, but some days I think the ARF's "Dutch Rabbit" had the right idea about loctals & all their problems.
That is a very nice radio. Uncrowded wiring, sturdy & simple but good looking. As you said, the best IF cans.
I no longer live in So. Cal but I always remember the jingle for "K-N-X 10-seventy, News radio". It was my go-to source for traffic updates in the late-80s to early 90s (I got my driver's license in 1987 and then moved away when I went to college).
Listened to KNX since the sixties. Can still hear the AM on a good night now that I live in central Oregon. Have to use my Radio Shack transistor radio to do it.
It’s like an old friend.
Thanks Shango for providing the links in the description. I heard last week they were going to also broadcast on FM. Despite all the interference on AM, I auctually prefer listening to KNX on AM. I just got done with one of those Philco 'Hippo' radios. Dirty, crusty, & dry to the MAX, combined with loktals and, rust. I think it's time to krinkosnorkulate.
It was a music station
My market has lots of AM stations repeated on FM and FM digital subchannels. I often still listen to AM, because the analog FM can have multipath, and the digital has a 30-40 second delay.
And I heard that 1010 WINS in NYC is going to be on FM at 92.3 starting October 27th.
good way to start the morning!
4:10 PM here... A good way to start Saturday afternoon!
Amazing, that everybody loves loctal tubes. I live in Germany and we are big fans of those too!
;-)
hmm, yeah...😉 european loctals such as uch21, ubl21, ebl21, are much better 😉
another german 🙋🏻♂️🍻
I'm pretty sure shango was kidding about liking loctals., I hate them and have hated them for 50 years. Even though they are actually superior in their way.
@@pneumatic00 I was kidding, too! Of course!
I've been a radio collector since the 1980's and never really had any problem with locktal tubes or sockets , to me they're just another tube style. The worst tube sockets were the very cheap layered bakelite ones that they used in North American tube table radios in the mid 50's to the early 60's. They were mounted on solid bakelite boards.
Agree... the Zenith "can" packages for the tubes are awesome!
I enjoy seeing all of these old electronics being repaired. One thing, though, a digital multimeter doesn't always tell everything that's going on in the circuitry, I love using a scope instead. Keep the old stuff coming.
SHANGO!!!
Thanks for the video
I like that you do a tube set once in awhile. Entertaining video.
That is fascinating about the construction and ingredients of a electronic vacuum tube.
30:19 . . . The mourning dove powered up at the same instant as the light bulb. LOL
Our local station WICC 600 in Bridgeport has added themselves to the FM dial at 107.3. Unfortunately where I live, there are two stations at that frequency and now neither come in... Plus, our FM reception in general is lousy and doesn't travel far because of the trees, hills etc. So I myself (and probably a decent number of others) will stay with AM. Many stations have been promoting online streaming and smart speaker accessibility, which I don't have or care about. I guess they're trying to make themselves accessible no matter how you want to listen- both bands, online etc, and simulcasting isn't costing them much, so why not...
if you see a small value resistor (10 to 100 ohms) in series with the grid of a tube, don't remove it. Its role is to stop possible parasitic oscillations in the circuit.
I hate it when my parasite oscilates. ;)
that may have been a factory advised 'mod' after the schematic was published due to problems..?? philips commonly used 1k as output grid stoppers
looks like someone forgot to put the grid to ground 470k back after fitting the 100 ohm! quick way to fry a valve/tube!
and yes, of course it needs the 470K resistor to the ground, i was speaking about the resistor in series with the grid, if it exists physically.
Thoroughly enjoy your levity!
Almost pulled the trigger on a sdr after seeing yours but came to the same conclusion about China knockoffs + 2 weeks before xmas isn’t an ideal time.
Wow the tube can! Never seen one of those.
That list of materiel was terrific. A small thought-- that they revealed so many of the constituents which could be analyzed by competitors... oh well-- transistors were just on the horizon.
Enjoy watching your videos. I like how you find the problem without recapping. I saw someone recap a simple five tube wonder only to still have problems hahahaha. He was on the right track by replacing the electrolytic first but after blaming all the paper caps and seven videos later it still doesn't work hahahaha. I know what it's like to encounter SMD for the first time I shouldn't talk. I already know the problem is alignment either someone screwed every slug and trimmer out of whack or it has silver mica disease because of the smaller IF cans or both. On video seven the radio sounded like it had somehow an open circuit in the grid of the audio and was only picking up stray ac and sending it to the speaker. When the volume was turned up all he got was stray ac hahahaha. All new caps. It wasn't doing that with the bad wax papers. Update...video nine... hahahaha five tubes...oh boy
exactly, make sure it basically 'works' and/or all 'unobtanium' parts are good before thinking of recapping, or you've wasted all that time, effort and money if something major has failed, i had that with a late 30s murphy set someone asked me to service, several tuning coils had been chewed by some sort of creature, making it a write off in terms of a radio, so i got it working as an 'amplified' speaker, switched to the 'gram' position, not doing unnecessary cap replacement, which was ok with the owner
I love the zenith packaging on the tubes,very cool.
Wow thanks for the tube materials info, I wish I knew this as a kid, I used to sniff old broken tubes a kind of metallic smell. Too late now..
My procedure is to use an independent source of B+ and a neon to see if the smoothers will re-form and then change the o/p valve g1 coupler if it is a wax/paper capacitor & go from there.
but usually every paper capacitor WILL be leaky. You just need to hear noise and know the audio & IF strip are fine.
Wow I'm early to the party for once, thanks man. Haha wow, AA5 radio with a huge birdie in it. Hope you got it "cheep"...
One thing with using a dim bulb. Most you channels forget to say got to be a incandescent bulb not a led bulb. Lots of beginners will just find led bulbs and try using them. Got to find a old incandescent light bulb for a dim bulb tester too work.
40 and 68 watt LED bulb?
Hey Shango, I am currently working on a Stromberg Carlson 1101 radio and it has a 150 ohm resistor between the .01uf coupling capacitor and the 35L6 tube. It looks original from the factory. I've seen others posting videos of the same radio and they show the same capacitor and 150 ohm resistor so I believe it's original.
I have that RCA Receiving Tube manual, it's in bad shape too , and that page that shows what materials go into making
a tube is quite a shock. So much stuff in those tubes ! The list is alphabetical however and includes every tube not any
or the average tube. The secret word for today is, wheat flour. Yummy! Probably an ingredient in the Bakelite base.
Agree. Also wall paper paste.
We had a zenith am table tube radio in a red Bakelite case. I believe my parents bought it in 1950 and it looks similar to this one.
Thank you Shango0. Awesome troublr shooting how to. All my best.
I just got my confirmation that I'm in the queue for a Genuine Russian Malachite! We'll probably get it from the same production run.
That 100 ohm is probably somebody's grid-stopper. You still need the grid leak to ground, though.
Great resurrection repair. Lots of voltage checks can tell you what's wrong. B+ should be about 105 Volts. Whomever put that 100 Ohm in and took the 47 K out didn't have a schematic to actually repair it, just grabbed what he had to make it
work back in the day. The sign on the store probably said "Electronics repaired while you wait".
You could transplant those parts to a duplicate "breadboard" layout, with tube sockets and brand new caps and resistors, exactly following the layout of the Schematic. Much easier to follow, and understand.
Fingernail polish works great for gluing those speaker tears. Probably wouldn't work on large woofers, but great for those small ones. An old trick.
I have such respect for you. Keep up your great work and commentary. Blessings to you and your loved ones this Christmas season and throughout the New Year...
Shang loves loctal tubes sockets. Good luck with it !
And speaking of KNX going on FM, I heard that 1010 WINS in NYC is going on FM at 92.3 starting October 27th. I read about it today.
malachit sdr in the beginning, vs "malachite green" at 9:36 which you nearly missed....just a row above...
like that book with all the valves love to my hands on one of them i like collecting old books like that
Yeah, that was a cool book
I think you can download all all the RCA tube manuals online in PDF.
to glue up paper cones, and foam rings, (besides using the glue from the producers)... Buy a PVA based wood glue, that is made for usage outside, and freezing. Lay out a line on a piece of paper, let it dry/harden, and bend the paper, the clue should not "break", but bend a good bit. So it is sort of semi hard.
After the test you can safely use it on you speaker for repair.
Nice tip. I have replacement foam for some Cerwin-Vegas that have rotted out and I have been searching for a readily available, correct glue that doesn't set up too quickly to allow me time get everything in place.
if the break is on a piece that 'flexes' its better to use a latex based glue as pva will be a bit too rigid
What about contact cement?
A tip I picked up on from another RUclipsr channel is to use Dap contact cement (the original not water based). It works GREAT! It never becomes brittle and after repairing the crack/ tare, you can coat the entire cone with it if one chooses to.
@@andygozzo72 single plies of soft toilet paper work great as a reinforcement in areas that flex on speakers without foam.
Will KNX keep their AM signal on 1070? In my market of Salt Lake City, Utah, KSL added FM in about 2005 at 102.7, but they absolutely kept their AM signal at 1160. This all means that KNX would have to announce themselves as KNX News Radio 97.1 FM and 1070 AM since it sounds like they are keeping their AM signal and merely began simulcasting on an FM signal.
Nah, they'll only mention the FM, tonnes of stations do it - they have to keep their AM because of their original license, no AM, no FM either....if they could, they'd probably just bin the AM and keep the FM, but the FCC Laws are as they are.
Have you ever used the liquid rubber brush on black electrical tape stuff for speaker tear repair? Dave Tipton uses it on his channel and I've tried it a couple of times and it seems to work very well. No less aesthetically pleasing than the repair here but the rubber allows the speaker to move just fine...dries in a couple of hours.
I use the special sealant for glued in car windscreens. They supply one cartridge per windscreen when you buy one. I always keep the leftover in a can, diluted with the matching solvent. That stuff is by far the nastiest glue I know of.
@@albinklein7680 What do you thin it with?
@@MrCrystalcranium with the solvent with the most warning labels on the can of course!
Jokes aside; i use the recommended solvent. Iirc. it's Sika Thinner S. It's basically xylene and methylpentane.
A little acetone added to liquid black electrical tape and it works great for repairing those speaker cone cracks!
You could put the mixture in a small glass bottle and cap it good. Turn it upside down and it won't dry out.
@@albinklein7680 Glues in loose tubes into their bases as well
Man, 50 cents for a book! Absolutely amazing! lol.
Amazing trouble shoot repair
hey from the UK, i love your videos 😁
SHANGOO66. MARY CHRISTMA,S HAPPY NEW YEAR 🌲🌲🌲⛄
So where did you order the non counterfeit SDR from? Be nice to find a source for them.
I had the same radio, came in a wood case we refinished
Regards from Brazil.
Marble dust and wood fiber were common fillers in Bakelite.
Just about all the AM stations here in south central Pennsylvania near Harrisburg, have a low powered FM channel as well. I have noticed that most of the distant 50,000 watt AM stations we can receive here at night announce they have a FM channel. I wonder why, are they going to eliminate AM some day? I miss the days when the clear AM channels at night time did not experience co channel interference from other AM stations that now stay on the air after sun set.
Love your videos You make repairing antique radios seem easy. I'm in the process of repairing a Packard Bell Model 45 A radio. Do you have any information about this radio? I got a schematic for a Model 45 M but it's not very easy to read, and I don't know if it's close to a model A. Couldn't find anything on a model A. Thanks. Any help would be appreciated.
Finally a AA 5 radio repair thanks
Great video as always. I hope that Audacy makes a similar move here in Minneapolis with WCCO-AM. I'm really surprised they don't have any presence on the FM band (aside from an HD-2 signal on one of the worst performing stations in the market)
Perfect the afformance.
I lost it.
Kcbs still has there am station and have a spot on fm here in the SF bay. Just time tell kcbs will turn there am station off as well. Here in the SF bay we just got kgo and kcbs of the big boys on am. All the other am station and few and nothing great to hear. Most the comp that had am station here sold them out in the 1990s. You down in Southen cali got way more am station then we got up in northern cali. The end to am is slowly coming. Me and you miss it. The new younger people will not care when am goes away. But keep working on all your stuff. Like seeing the old stuff come back to life.
I didn't know California had "smell good Plumbers" too. We've got them in Wisconsin too, but I've never smelled them...I wonder if ours smell like beer and bratwurst and yours smell like surf and pot?
Waukesha is only 30 minutes away from me. I shop there and I have friends that live there (luckily none of them got caught up in the massacre). The reports went away for the same reason that "Asian Hate Awareness" vanished (because Afroamerican people were statistically the main perpetrators)....As soon as the news reporters hear that Afroamerican people are committing hate crimes against White people, Asian people or anybody else they squash the story as hard as they can. According to the Geroge-a-SaurosRex controlled Nazzi main stream media 'all Afroamerican people are persecuted saints and if you find evidence to the contrary your you're a blanc supremecist'.
They're people like everybody else, and just like all other groups of people they contain mostly good people, but ALSO contain a certain percentage of people that are BIGOTS, CRIMINALS, Anarchists and other societally detrimental things. Just as we shouldn't let race stop us from praising and promoting good people, we also shouldn't let it stop us from condemning the most despicable scum of the earth.
Double standards can go to hell.
KVAXX - FM
Funny stuff. And right on cue, "blah blah blah, booster blah blah"
Yeah, Snaileyville's big AM station also has an FM simulcast...
All loctal tubes manufactured here in Germany were made by LORENZ. Strangely we never have any contact
corrosion issues with these, maybe Lorenz used a different alloy for the pins..
I never liked the 5 tube radio because of its limitations but my Atwater Kent radio was outstanding not because it could also pick up SW but because it picked up radio stations all over the country. I never liked the local stations but to listen to classical and big band music was sweet. They should have added one more tube and stage to the radio. I know there are 6 tube versions that have an extra 12BA6 tube or the octal version. An RF amplifier helps pull in the distance stations. 73
General radio question: When we say a radio has 2 IF stages is that a count of the IF amplifier stages or the IF filter stages or something else?
L.A. Oldies is still Oldies. Just much older now. Which is better now.
Maybe some clever service technician put that resistor to make tube fail soon to charge for more repairs. They used to do that in my country. I personally discovered that kind of fraud on TV I once sent for repair. Cheers! S
They have everything in those tubes BUT the Kitchen Sink.
Shango it was a Domestic row that resulted in the guy leaving running down 20-30 people.
I understood it was a domestic row that resulted in the guy running over his ex-wife and child with the same van a few weeks earlier. Maybe thug shouldn't have been released on 1,000 $ bail ?
27:10 Could it be the contact surface of the pins, rather than the filament itself? I wonder if the reading would change if they were scraped down.
The AM locals in my area went to FM. Same frequency as well. Even has RDS. So what is the issue with the SDR being Chinese?
Thanks for another interesting video
Old radio techniques still work today. But, there are as many as the day is long and most work also. For newbies, try staying away from hypotheticals.
Still getting knx am here in western Canada at night. Fm isn't always an improvement. Gotta get another aa5.
Good that we have some functioning news in Denmark then.
The guy in the car was known already to the police and was pursuied by the police at the time where he went down the road with all the people he didnt know they were there.
A mobile phone recording a pedestrian was making did show the man was trying to avoid driving into people.
So I guess that was not exciting enough for American news, since there were no terrorism or Trump aasault involved.
Thanks for the video, love them.
Facts must change by the time they get overseas. Almost every US news source says he was fleeing the scene of a domestic assault, but was not actively being pursued by police at the time of the incident. He drove past a barrier, and an officer, who fired once at him, but stopped due to the amount of civilians in the area. There's plenty of info about the incident online, the broadcast news coverage here is being suppressed because it does not fit into " the current narrative" of crime in the US
One more nail in the coffin for the death of AM radio.
I enjoy DXing AM radio, the content not so much but I would miss it should AM dry up and go away.
It has a lot longer range. I would think that would count to advertisers. Around here its an old folks demographic. Talk radio, bible thumpers etc.
Good stuff as usual. I wonder what kind of radio is "equivalent" to an "All american five" here in Italy / Europe, because I have never seen anything like that...
I suppose the usual 5/6 tube superhet AM radio, the small models built from the end of the war to the mid 50s when FM was being introduced. There's a lot of them around, but with a better quality than AA5 I think. I do have a Philips BI-192 5 tube am radio, that could be an equivalent to an AA5
I love your aproach to these repairs. Plug it in and fill it with jumper wires, if it works restore it. LOL.
You did not point to the digital carrier. More like the 19kHz stereo pilot. The IBOC carrier is nested in the digital wideband at the extremity of the 200kHz channel.
Lots of ppl dislike the digital, mostly on AM they dislike it, FM it seems to work better on, more room I guess, with superwide North American Channels especially. It sounds like a waterfall apparently, but anything like that my brain tunes out automatically.
8:15 "Speaker with happy ending" 😂
I never knew there was a budget speaker who I thought you guys should have figured it out but it doesn't work we always did
So changing those you've got to suffer and you're in go ahead and change it They're bad
It's probably the reason why the original tube was blown
KNX is now taking over the FM band too?!
Wheat Flour? You gotta be kidding me! Who made it Betty Crocker?
It's amazing the amount of dedication you put into these rehab and fixing these. Been following you for a while. I have a very old Westinghouse Tube radio that may need a rejuvenation
Hangoo66 1948 TRAVLER 5 TUBES AM. RADIO RECEIVER COOL
Gonna be odd hearing KNX on 97.1 FM on your channel. 97.1 in my area is a Rock/Alternative Station called 97.1 the Eagle.
I'm guessing 10 years ago 97.1 FM in L.A. was KLSX Classic rock radio.
It's not about the AA5 radio. It's about the restoration process. Step by step procedure performed on a dime a dozen AA5 by an expert AAA restorer.
When the Chinese nukes drop, Shango would make great company. I like the cut of his jib.
Would you nuke your best customers?
38 mins 20s I'd like to see that guy unblock a drain over the phone
Schematic looks like it went through a fax machine
That Guy - Yep, and not a laser fax, one o' them thermal paper ones. Since the lines are straight, at least it is better than a Qwip.
Your savvy political commentary tells us that maybe there's hope yet for CA 🤣☺️
On the Malachit SDR radio receiver can you record your stations your listening to and use a AM loop antenna on the radio
Dont know about recording but you could take an old ferrite antenna from an old radio together with the tunung capacitor and connect them in parallel and then connect it to a plug that fits the radio.
As you tune the radio you will also have to tune the capacitor for max. signal.
Will work very good though.
You could also use a frame antenna but it will be larger.
the high quality hongotonkulative blughemongler
@8:48 - The fact that the materials list is legible and in alphabetical order and none of the listed materials are misspelled tells a story in itself of good workmanship, pride, education, and attention to detail. You don't get that these days. That one thing is a good example how how things were and sadly will never be again.