Amazing how accurate and stable this thing is. The only special design feature of the oscillator seems to be that the coils are wound on ceramic tubes for more rigidity and probably less thermal expansion. Would be interesting to see how the frequency drifts from a cold start to when it has run for an hour or so.
Congratulations to the Cat's owner and almost unlimited patience. These generators are so user friendly that restoration work always pays off. GREAT work!
We had this model at school (in Romania), but was not very much used in late 90s. However, I loved Tesla products, ICs and test equipment. I had a grid-dip-meter made by Tesla when I was into RF. That was the most stable and impressive tool that I had and I always regret loosing it. I remember that after having it for few years (in early 2000s) I went to check its calibration. It was perfect, altough it was made in 70s.
I've been told that in spite of overall poverty in the Soviet Union anything meant for the military typically was of high quality or at least much higher quality than similar items for general public. Might be a similar reason here, a frequency generator isn't exactly a common household item.
@@BitterCynical Those generators were built to be used in electrotechnical schools, laboratories and also repair shops, so stability was needed for repairs when you have to align IF or HF circuits in AM radios. There were no private shops, all were owned by state/municipalities.
@@fabiocattaneo9434 It was a drop of nail color, applied with the brush that was part of the bottle. That was common practice in Czechoslovakia. Even consumer grade electronics has this on the screws, to know if anyone tampered with the device. Good to know if you want to check for warranty and possible warranty voiding.
Just saw you posted a looong video of some vintage equipment, YES, it’s quitting time for me in 1 hours and 33 minutes, can’t wait to get home on the sofa and watch it😊
Two weeks since your last video but you spoiled us with this beautifull restoration. Thanks for your efforts! Especially when there is HF involved my radio amateur ears are pointing to the screen. Dekuji! 73 tnx ON5GS
Thank you very much for this video and all the effort you put into the repair, filming and editing of it! Always great to see such vintage devices almost double as old as myself. Vacuum tubes are an amazing technology.
You made that thing happy!!! I had to do the power resistor mod to a professional archiving RTR tape recorder for work earlier this year. At work they had at least 15 volts over voltage on the mains and one of the reel motor-to-motor tension control circuits did NOT like that. It was a small ceramic resistor that began shorting turns. Problem manifested as the tape tension getting so high it was winding up all warped, and would not completely run through the machine; (and of course the resistor got ridiculously hot, tried to burn me badly). SO temporarily I replaced that one resistor with over 100 power resistors because that's all I had.
Very good! You master vacuum tube technology also, and the analysis and mods regarding heater voltage and undersized power resistor replacement was very nice!
42:23 I live just a couple of kilometers away from that transmitter. You can clearly see it out of my window. I don't know how much of it is true, but local farmers, closest to it, report that they can sometimes see sparks between components of their farming equipment.
Tušil som, že bude video aj o tomto prístroji, keď som ho v jednom tvojom staršom videu videl spolu s tými číslicovými stopkami a aj na toto video som sa veľmi tešil a samozrejme som sa opäť tešil oprávnene, bola to paráda, pekne si tento prístroj zreštauroval a môže ti pekne slúžiť, keby si niekedy potreboval zladiť nejaké to rádijko.
Dobré odpoledne :) My favourite CZ station is Radio Krokodyl in Brno ❤What a beautiful internals that unit has! But then I would not expect less from such a beautiful country ;) The unit has some serious shielding, it was definitely made to be as accurate as possible. I wonder if it was coupled with all the correct components if it could act as the oscillator side of a radio? In essence a VLF-SW oscillator. Either way, a very handy thing to have in the lab :D Thank you so much for another fantastic look into past electronics that were clearly designed to last as long as possible :)
Amazing fascinating video.I wonder if you are able to make a series where you take common / cheap appliances apart and explain their working. Electronic boards from inside toys (with the prerecorded audio, lights, animatronic systems)
Damn, I just found out where Radio Romania actualități was transmitting from. That station was so powerful that my old pair of Logitech speakers could receive the signal If I turned the volume to zero believe it or not. 😂😂
1:38 In what situations was there a 120V mains in USSR? Was it 120V phase and neutral / 220V between two phases? I also have Tesla incandescent lamps from the 70s that are 120V, a Czech collector told me that they were used in trains
120V was also used in Czechoslovakia in some districts connected in 1910s-30s to local power sources, before national power grid was built. Because voltage change to 220V would require rebuild whole electric instalation in those objects, 120V were lately tranformed from power grid. It was used in some places till 80s-90s. So it wasnt 220/110V system like in US but standard european 3 phase + ground system just using 120V instead 220V (or 230V lately). In USSR 120V system was different, isolated from ground.
@@xsc1000 So basically it was the way it is here in Brazil (but 50hz). Here in most places we have 3 phases 127V or 220V between two phases. There are also places with the same standard as Europe 220 or 230V L-N and 380-400V between two phases.
Of course :). I don't like my equipment to be in a bad condition :D I also plan to restore my BM366 capacitance/inductance meter and BM365U RC generator :).
I really like all this Cezh Tesla equipment. It helps to counter balance the horrible lonE skuM to a satisfying degree. I have to ask: are there many instances of russian markings being changed to Cezh on such equipment, simply out of sentiment? I could imagine people in your country selling kits of labels for this purpose.
That cast aluminium filter screened housing is nice - this sig gen might have been quite expensive in its day ? Also, quite a comprehensive meter driver circuit :O)
Tesla did in past reliable and valuable stuff. I admire their made in 60ties tape recorders - they win in sounding simplicity and reliabilty with much more priced competitors . I still also have the same seria acoustic generator as I remember BM 361 which I failed to repair only because I got it from scrap with mains transformer removed and not available . - any attempts to make it back to full operation were not succesfull but I found the mechanical cabinet co valuable that modified it to SSB SW converter. - added lights to scale and even not use any more it's at least beautifull thing. I used it as requisite in my music clip "not dark yet" in my channel
@@DiodeGoneWild Уважаю людей, которые ценят старые технологии, а не просто сдают их в металлолом. Мне как то раз один знакомый принёс блок гиростабилизатора (от какого то самолёта 60х годов). там все шестерни так чётко подогнаны и без проблем вращаются спустя больше полувека.
In such devices where load/impedance of transmission line is constant. Voltage level actually is RF power level. Also is is probably Russian variant of BNC.
I'm using this RF generator to accurately find the frequency of a radio station. The closed the generator is to the frequency of the station, the lower the beat frequency is. The beat frequency is basically the difference between the generator f and the station f. When the beat f is virtually zero, the generator f is very close to the transmitter f, and so I can read it using a f meter.
@@DiodeGoneWild At 41:42 what is this device called what you connected your BM368(looks like some kind of AM radio)? So you connected BM368 to this device and started trying out different frequencies until you hear the radio sound? Or how this process looks like? How did you connect them? How can I do same with signal generator(using sine waves)?
The AM radio isn't connected to the BM368. There's just a piece of wire connected to the output, a tiny transmitting antenna. The radio receives both the signal from the station and the signal from the BM368 via the air. The frequency meter is connected directly to the other BM368 output (>0,3V), measuring the frequency.
When any of the Comecon (CMEA) countries wanted to export sth. to the USSR they had to provide a localized Russian version of the front panel and documentation, but when the USSR was exporting sth. to other Comecon countries it was always in Russian. Please remember that not all Comecon countries use the Cyrillic alphabet, not to mention, that they haven't speak Russian.
@@DiodeGoneWild True, but unlike today with English, they usually really didn't want to do that, and didn't really care about that subject, so they were taught Russian, but they didn't learn it.
Its more complicated. From 70s soviet goods for export even to eastern block countries used english, not russian. Usually front panel had english marking, back panel used combination of english / russian with price in roubles for soviet domestic market - so it was common for both markets. Btw only Bulgaria and USSR use cyryllic, all other eastern block countries use latin.
This video could have been longer. Although about halfway in, I was lost following you, you are fast. And I am no electrical engineer. I studied mechanical engineering so we had only a little and pretty basic electrical courses. Amazing video, thanks.
I guess almost nobody would even open the video, if it was even longer. So I tried to edit it to be as short as possible and talk fast. If your brain is overheating, you can always pause it for a minute :).
If you're wondering why he is putting his hand pretty liberally into a device running at 220V: the Variac is acting as an isolation transformer, so touching a single lead would have no effect.
No, a typical variac is NOT like an isolation transformer. It's an autotransformer with just 1 winding, it can't isolate. I can touch it because I'm not in contact with anything grounded. There's no return path for the current. But of course, do this at your own risk.
A Diodegonewild video is already reason to call this a great day.
But a Vacuum Tube diodegonewild video makes this day the best of the week
And a video with deadly power supplies..😂😂😂😂
Amazing how accurate and stable this thing is. The only special design feature of the oscillator seems to be that the coils are wound on ceramic tubes for more rigidity and probably less thermal expansion. Would be interesting to see how the frequency drifts from a cold start to when it has run for an hour or so.
What a work of art. Even the gear for the tuner is split-loaded to eliminate backlash. Considering its age it is surprisingly accurate.
Congratulations to the Cat's owner and almost unlimited patience. These generators are so user friendly that restoration work always pays off. GREAT work!
Ah, almost 45 minutes of repairs and improvement! I love it. Thank you!
30:11 wow, iskra capacitor, made in Yugoslavia.
Yes, a lot of TVs in Czechoslovakia used to contain these.
Ta technologia to początek mojej nauki o elektronice - pozdrawiam Ciebie.
We had this model at school (in Romania), but was not very much used in late 90s. However, I loved Tesla products, ICs and test equipment. I had a grid-dip-meter made by Tesla when I was into RF. That was the most stable and impressive tool that I had and I always regret loosing it. I remember that after having it for few years (in early 2000s) I went to check its calibration. It was perfect, altough it was made in 70s.
I wasn't expecting such build quality.
I agree , take a look : each screw , each nut has been secured using a drop of threadlocker!
I've been told that in spite of overall poverty in the Soviet Union anything meant for the military typically was of high quality or at least much higher quality than similar items for general public. Might be a similar reason here, a frequency generator isn't exactly a common household item.
@@BitterCynical Those generators were built to be used in electrotechnical schools, laboratories and also repair shops, so stability was needed for repairs when you have to align IF or HF circuits in AM radios. There were no private shops, all were owned by state/municipalities.
@@fabiocattaneo9434 It was a drop of nail color, applied with the brush that was part of the bottle. That was common practice in Czechoslovakia. Even consumer grade electronics has this on the screws, to know if anyone tampered with the device. Good to know if you want to check for warranty and possible warranty voiding.
Why does it need such elaborate LC low pass filters?
That's mainly to prevent it from radiating the signal. You only want the signal to come out of the output.
Just saw you posted a looong video of some vintage equipment, YES, it’s quitting time for me in 1 hours and 33 minutes, can’t wait to get home on the sofa and watch it😊
Thanks!
Thank you for your support! ;)
Thanks
Two weeks since your last video but you spoiled us with this beautifull restoration. Thanks for your efforts! Especially when there is HF involved my radio amateur ears are pointing to the screen. Dekuji! 73 tnx ON5GS
Love this analysis and tuning!
Thank you for your appreciation and support! ;)
Thank you very much for this video and all the effort you put into the repair, filming and editing of it! Always great to see such vintage devices almost double as old as myself. Vacuum tubes are an amazing technology.
You are like a living encyclopedia of electronics :)
My dad was made in Czechoslovakia too.
Pozdrawiam Czechów i Słowaków - z jednymi i drugimi piłem wódeczkę - mam szwagra Czecha.
Damn, great old days engineering work from TESLA....!!! Great video.
Have an extinguisher on me 😊
Thank you! ;)
If I understand correctly, using the external modulation mode, you can use this RF signal generator as a low-power radio transmitter.
Yes, you can.
Of course :)
I guess that was the idea.
You made that thing happy!!! I had to do the power resistor mod to a professional archiving RTR tape recorder for work earlier this year. At work they had at least 15 volts over voltage on the mains and one of the reel motor-to-motor tension control circuits did NOT like that. It was a small ceramic resistor that began shorting turns. Problem manifested as the tape tension getting so high it was winding up all warped, and would not completely run through the machine; (and of course the resistor got ridiculously hot, tried to burn me badly). SO temporarily I replaced that one resistor with over 100 power resistors because that's all I had.
Very good! You master vacuum tube technology also, and the analysis and mods regarding heater voltage and undersized power resistor replacement was very nice!
Love the LOOKS of the device!
Oh hell yeah a fairly long vid! Your videos have been fascinating lately man, really great finds!
Wasn't expecting to hear a radio station from my home country (romania) on a Diodes Gone Wild video.
Radio Rosii sounded good! As I've said many times, your videos are never too long. Great video. Lots of Ohm's law calcs there, keep 'em coming
42:23 I live just a couple of kilometers away from that transmitter. You can clearly see it out of my window. I don't know how much of it is true, but local farmers, closest to it, report that they can sometimes see sparks between components of their farming equipment.
Best regards and a doggy coffee from Germany! 😁
Thanks for your support and appreciation ;).
Tušil som, že bude video aj o tomto prístroji, keď som ho v jednom tvojom staršom videu videl spolu s tými číslicovými stopkami a aj na toto video som sa veľmi tešil a samozrejme som sa opäť tešil oprávnene, bola to paráda, pekne si tento prístroj zreštauroval a môže ti pekne slúžiť, keby si niekedy potreboval zladiť nejaké to rádijko.
Nareszcie coś naszego - żróweczka POLAM.
I LOVE LONG FORM CONTENT!!!
This is awesome, I love your long videos 👍👍👍
Really interesting, I like them old things, was not disappointed👍😊
Super interesting. I like watching your long videos. Keep up the good work 🙂👍👍
great video again! Thanks for excellent explanations, sir.
Awesome !
This was simply Great vid!!! My humble thanks.
Fantastic video!
That is a very well-made RF generator for its size. It reminds me of a Marconi product.
This thing looks soo cool
Dobré odpoledne :) My favourite CZ station is Radio Krokodyl in Brno ❤What a beautiful internals that unit has! But then I would not expect less from such a beautiful country ;) The unit has some serious shielding, it was definitely made to be as accurate as possible. I wonder if it was coupled with all the correct components if it could act as the oscillator side of a radio? In essence a VLF-SW oscillator. Either way, a very handy thing to have in the lab :D Thank you so much for another fantastic look into past electronics that were clearly designed to last as long as possible :)
All super interesting...
Amazing fascinating video.I wonder if you are able to make a series where you take common / cheap appliances apart and explain their working. Electronic boards from inside toys (with the prerecorded audio, lights, animatronic systems)
Damn, I just found out where Radio Romania actualități was transmitting from. That station was so powerful that my old pair of Logitech speakers could receive the signal If I turned the volume to zero believe it or not. 😂😂
All these silver-mica caps and tubes made me feel as if I am watching shango066 video :)
Analog electronics are so sophisticated and genius. Nowadays everything is just done on an integrated circuit.
1:38 In what situations was there a 120V mains in USSR? Was it 120V phase and neutral / 220V between two phases? I also have Tesla incandescent lamps from the 70s that are 120V, a Czech collector told me that they were used in trains
It could have been an output of a generator; basically 3-phase 220V, and UN/L was 127V
120V was also used in Czechoslovakia in some districts connected in 1910s-30s to local power sources, before national power grid was built. Because voltage change to 220V would require rebuild whole electric instalation in those objects, 120V were lately tranformed from power grid. It was used in some places till 80s-90s. So it wasnt 220/110V system like in US but standard european 3 phase + ground system just using 120V instead 220V (or 230V lately).
In USSR 120V system was different, isolated from ground.
@@xsc1000 So basically it was the way it is here in Brazil (but 50hz). Here in most places we have 3 phases 127V or 220V between two phases. There are also places with the same standard as Europe 220 or 230V L-N and 380-400V between two phases.
cool restoration but you forgot to check/record the heater voltages after the modification. How much it dropped from the original 7,1V?
I checked it, it was 6.3 - 6.4V
@@DiodeGoneWild thanks for your reply, seems like the machine is in pristine condition now.
Of course :). I don't like my equipment to be in a bad condition :D I also plan to restore my BM366 capacitance/inductance meter and BM365U RC generator :).
@@DiodeGoneWild I am looking forward to see it than.
I really like all this Cezh Tesla equipment. It helps to counter balance the horrible lonE skuM to a satisfying degree. I have to ask: are there many instances of russian markings being changed to Cezh on such equipment, simply out of sentiment? I could imagine people in your country selling kits of labels for this purpose.
That cast aluminium filter screened housing is nice - this sig gen might have been quite expensive in its day ? Also, quite a comprehensive meter driver circuit :O)
Tesla did in past reliable and valuable stuff. I admire their made in 60ties tape recorders - they win in sounding simplicity and reliabilty with much more priced competitors . I still also have the same seria acoustic generator as I remember BM 361 which I failed to repair only because I got it from scrap with mains transformer removed and not available . - any attempts to make it back to full operation were not succesfull but I found the mechanical cabinet co valuable that modified it to SSB SW converter. - added lights to scale and even not use any more it's at least beautifull thing. I used it as requisite in my music clip "not dark yet" in my channel
That's BM365U ... a 25 Hz - 30 kHz generator. I have one, I plan to restore it and show it in some future video ;).
Откуда вы такого дедушку отыскали, ещё и в довольно приличном состоянии. ? :D
A good guy working in a scrap yard saved it and gave it to me in exchange for some nixies.
Pozostałość 68 roku.
@@DiodeGoneWild Уважаю людей, которые ценят старые технологии, а не просто сдают их в металлолом. Мне как то раз один знакомый принёс блок гиростабилизатора (от какого то самолёта 60х годов). там все шестерни так чётко подогнаны и без проблем вращаются спустя больше полувека.
In such devices where load/impedance of transmission line is constant. Voltage level actually is RF power level. Also is is probably Russian variant of BNC.
Magic -!!
can You mesure the harmonic content of this generator using FFT in Your Owon digital oscilloscope?
Hey. Can you explain more what you did at 41:40 by listening AM radio? I don't understand this part. This TESLA BM368 is just a signal generator.
I'm using this RF generator to accurately find the frequency of a radio station. The closed the generator is to the frequency of the station, the lower the beat frequency is. The beat frequency is basically the difference between the generator f and the station f. When the beat f is virtually zero, the generator f is very close to the transmitter f, and so I can read it using a f meter.
@@DiodeGoneWild At 41:42 what is this device called what you connected your BM368(looks like some kind of AM radio)? So you connected BM368 to this device and started trying out different frequencies until you hear the radio sound? Or how this process looks like? How did you connect them? How can I do same with signal generator(using sine waves)?
The AM radio isn't connected to the BM368. There's just a piece of wire connected to the output, a tiny transmitting antenna. The radio receives both the signal from the station and the signal from the BM368 via the air. The frequency meter is connected directly to the other BM368 output (>0,3V), measuring the frequency.
@@DiodeGoneWild Thanks. So I could try same with my signal generator and AM radio?
Film capacitors from REMIX in Hungary, Soviet and East German tubes...
41:37 this is actually funny!
Turn LC generator to regenerative multiband receiver 2in1 ( radio receiver and generator ).
37:13 why is that connector on the left side so sad ?
Do you mean the double diode symbol?
@@DiodeGoneWild It's a joke. I was talking about the DIN like connector near your thumb. It looks like unhappy smiley.
amazing 😂
What means when is getter in vacuum tube black
A shiny black (or metallic look) getter means there's a good vacuum. A white getter means air.
@@DiodeGoneWild OK,thank you
"portable equipment" means it has a handle :)
With such small dimensions and just 7.5kg, it's quite portable for a tube era!
Есть что-то этакое в подобной аппаратуре.
When any of the Comecon (CMEA) countries wanted to export sth. to the USSR they had to provide a localized Russian version of the front panel and documentation, but when the USSR was exporting sth. to other Comecon countries it was always in Russian. Please remember that not all Comecon countries use the Cyrillic alphabet, not to mention, that they haven't speak Russian.
People in Comecon countries had to learn Russian in schools.
@@DiodeGoneWild True, but unlike today with English, they usually really didn't want to do that, and didn't really care about that subject, so they were taught Russian, but they didn't learn it.
@@TzOk You're probably writing about yourself? It was always individual, it was easy for some, harder for others, just like English.
W moim kraju szkolnictwo było na dobrym poziomie "za komuny" - na Ukrainie mogłem się dogadać, ale w Rumunii i Bułgarii już nie - oczywiście po rusku.
Its more complicated. From 70s soviet goods for export even to eastern block countries used english, not russian. Usually front panel had english marking, back panel used combination of english / russian with price in roubles for soviet domestic market - so it was common for both markets.
Btw only Bulgaria and USSR use cyryllic, all other eastern block countries use latin.
Old paper capacitors like to explode.
This video could have been longer. Although about halfway in, I was lost following you, you are fast. And I am no electrical engineer. I studied mechanical engineering so we had only a little and pretty basic electrical courses. Amazing video, thanks.
I guess almost nobody would even open the video, if it was even longer. So I tried to edit it to be as short as possible and talk fast. If your brain is overheating, you can always pause it for a minute :).
Am I right in thinking that this instrument looks very Philips?
Słyszę Ciebie, a napisy ruskie - masz to z roku 68???
To ptanie retoryczne i historyczne.
Nice repair as always..
That finirsi multimeter in my opinion is not a good one.
I have zero trust on those finirsi equipment.
Zaufanie daje też portfel.
crazy events... low views. hi.
Sir where are you from?
Mam ten sam problem i chętnie posłucham.
Danyk is Czech
If you're wondering why he is putting his hand pretty liberally into a device running at 220V: the Variac is acting as an isolation transformer, so touching a single lead would have no effect.
No, a typical variac is NOT like an isolation transformer. It's an autotransformer with just 1 winding, it can't isolate. I can touch it because I'm not in contact with anything grounded. There's no return path for the current. But of course, do this at your own risk.
I think he has a separate isolation transformer as a variac iis not necessarily isolated.
Thanks!
Thank you for your support!