8/24/2013

Emerson 641B

Another Ebay purchase made with birthday money from my Mother-in-law. I saw one just like it in a local antique store for $40 but cosmetically in worse condition.The knobs on the one in the antique store were munged.
 Pic below taken after I removed the old filter cap.
It hummed on power up which means the electrolytic power filter caps were bad. I replaced them. 

I powered it up again and the hum was gone, but all I got was horrible static and faint KTAR 620am.
Hmm.... I then did a full recap, but the static persisted. Attempting an alignment did not improve anything. Some research makes me think that it has silver mica disease and I had to rebuild the 1st IF transformers. I replaced the power cord at this time.

Once I had the 1st IF Transformer rebuilt, I did an initial alignment and found it was still a little weak. I tested all the 6BJ6 tubes and found two were not as good as I would like. I picked up 4 NOS tubes and replaced all the ones in the radio (since the NOS ones tested better than originals). I did a final alignment, installed an audio in, and the radio works great.

8/23/2013

3 Radios from Ebay

I got these 3 radios off of ebay Monday 8-12-2013 at 6:00pm (Birthday money from Mother-in-law). With local pickup I got them for a really low price. Met the seller at a Walmart on 19th ave and bell.

Left to right.
Zenith - 2-2034
Motorola Model AT28AH
Westinghouse Century CR-510

The Westinghouse was not working and I had to replace the multisection electrolytic capacitor since it was shorted. the Power switch would not make contact (shot of deoxit), the 35w4, 50c5, and 12av6 had burned out heaters. Did an alignment, and it seems to be really sensitive. I had it fixed by 8:00pm.

The Motorola needed only slight repair. I did an alignment on it as well.

I parted out the Zenith as it was microphoning and had lots of problems. I thought it was ugly anyways.

8/20/2013

Sears Silvertone 8013

Got this radio off of ebay as well. I should have looked closer at the pics as there are cracks on top and bottom. I fixed them with epoxy and found a missing piece inside the chassis. I also had to epoxy the plastic pieces that the screw for the back panel screw in to. The plastic in this radio is very brittle.
 If I remember correctly this radio did not need a recap. I did replace the phono RCA jack with a 3.5mm Audio/MP3 input. Picture below is before that.
I could not find a schematic etc. for this radio on line but everything was on the bottom.



8/18/2013

General Electric T104A

Got this off Ebay for a nice price. Needed a minor recap, and added an Audio/MP3 input on it.
 Created a replacement sticker for the back and dyed it with coffee.
It's nothing exciting to look at but was in such nice condition I could not pass it up.

7/23/2013

Newcomb B-100 Schematics

Seems there are 2 different versions of the Newcomb B100 radio. An early one with octal tubes and a later one with 7 pin mini's. Top radios is the newer version and the bottom is the older. Right click on each picture and select "open link in new tab" for the full size version.
This is an under chassis picture of the early model
This is an under chassis of the newer model.
Here is the schematic for the new model.
Here is the schematic for the older model.
The older model is better in my opinion. Sounds better and works better.

7/14/2013

Sears Silvertone 5009

Here is an AM radio I picked up from ebay.
It was listed as "for parts not working". The original picture showed it was very dirty. When I got it it had a bunch of problems. It took about 2 days to track them all down. I thought it had silver migration disease in the IF filters (it did not) I recapped it, I had to go through the circuit board and re-solder EVERY component. I had to tighten up and solder the tube sockets, In the process of working on it I broke a very fine wire on the oscillator coil and had to fix that. I replaced a few resistors. I took it apart and cleaned the case with simple green. I did a full alignment, and the only thing left is to fix the melted plastic on top and replace the interlock cord.

7/13/2013

Motorola B12WA

When I was a kid we had one of these.
It died in the late 70's. I took it apart and trashed it. I found one on ebay.