Heathkit GR-11

From Shopgoodwill.com. Needed a recap, and the 17c9 tube replaced. While cleaning it with denatured alcohol I accidentally removed the Heathkit silk screening from the front.

 Picture taken before the recap.

The unit needs an antenna but gets really good reception. Speaker is a little small. I may put it in a new cabinet later and give it a better speaker. All the plastic standoffs were broken, but I found them inside the radio and epoxied them back on.

That's some mighty fine police work, Lou

Got a call this morning at 6:15am. Unknown number. I answer and a man asks to speak with ****. I'm like "there's no **** here". He says "This number does not belong to an older woman with a walker?"

Wait what?

So somehow when the police report was made they put my number for the number that was on the note. So I gave the "detective" the correct number and we will see what happens.

Old Woman is a Thief

What is this world coming to when strange old women come to your house, fish around in your mailbox and thieve your wife's rolling crate!

Oh and before she does that she leaves a note at the base of your security door with her phone number.

 

Yesterday my wife comes home and discovers the rolling crate she had recently purchased is gone.

I searched the events on the surveillance system and found the following:

If you aren't interested in watching the whole thing:
she comes up our drive way. Looks at our stuff, rings the doorbell and snoops in the mailbox.

she then snoops some more and goes around to the side of the house.

she returns and writes a note that she places in our security door in a location we would have NEVER found.

She empties the crate folds it up and puts it in a plastic bag and takes off.

Today I got home about 6:30pm Called the police non emergency line. Burned a CD of the video. The officer showed up about 7:45 he was here about 30 minutes. He asked what I wanted to do? I wanted to press charges. He watched the video and wrote up a report and said that he did not think anything would come of it. I said "that's fine, since she may be doing this to other people I wanted something on file". I gave him the note and the cd. will they call the number in the note and pursue this? probably not.

So once again... as long as it is not particularly an expensive item that gets thieved, and you do not get personally caught, crime does pay.

Zenith Z374 AM/FM Clock Radio

Picked this up at goodwill. It was sitting on the test table plugged in. I did not even test.

I just bought it. I took it home and initially could not find anything wrong with it.

I did notice one major issue. FM would quit working and you would have to switch from AM to FM to get it back. Then it would drop out again.

I tested all the tubes and found that the 17ew8, and 12be6 were week. The 35c5 was intermittent and probably the reason FM would drop out. replacing all fixed the problem. The only issue remaining is that the alarm function of the switch does not work. I will have to troubleshoot that later.

Eico 377 Signal Generator

Snagged this at a goodwill for an exorbitant price. It did not work, but that was to be expected.

 It will need all new capacitors, of which I have already started working on. This thing has more electrolytic caps than anything I have worked on before.

 I counted 4 discrete caps and 2 dual section capacitors for a total of 8 electrolytic caps and 3 paper caps.

I ran out of 20uf capacitors and had to order more. I also replaced 3 out of spec resistors.

Bradford WTG 61507 AM/FM Radio

Picked this up in Prescott at an antique store. It needed all non ceramic/mylar capacitors replaced. I installed a fuse and an MP3 audio in. Still needs an alignment.

It is a Japanese made radio.

I was not able to find a schematic for it.

Bose Wave Radio Generation I Version 2

I recently acquired a 1st generation BWR from a goodwill for $8. It would only output a buzzing noise but everything else worked.

 

I did my research and found out the following in regards to the first 3 versions of this radio:
They are ALWAYS on. The on off button is just a mute button.
The capacitors in them are mostly low quality.
IF you get an early BWR and it works you WILL be recapping it soon.
I would recap it now as the TDA7374 can be blown out when the caps go bad.
There are more than 40 ecaps in them.
The board in my model (version 2) is prone to solder pads breaking and coming off.
look for a film on the board around the capacitors if it is there clean the board.
Replace ALL small capacitor in the unit, even on the display. You can usually skip the 10000uf main filter cap.
If your tda7374 is bad it can be replace with a tda7375. Ebay has them for $6 to $12

My impression of the sound from this radio, since I had never heard one before.
It is very good. I would compare it to a ported 2 way bookshelf speaker with a 5 or 6 inch woofer and a 2 inch tweeter.
Contrary to what I have been reading it is stereo. Confirmed with some songs with discrete channels.
The left speaker is the mid range "woofer" (and left channel) with low frequency sound channeled through a port by the right speaker. The right speaker is mid to high range as well as right channel.
A big part of the sound is the built in equalizer, I would liken its output to the "loudness" button on an older stereo or the old smiley face on a graphic equalizer.
The TDA7374 is interesting, it is a Dual Bridge audio amplifier for car radios.

My radio has an external AM antenna which has relatively good sensitivity. Newer versions have a loopstick.

I will be keeping this one as I made several mistakes working on it that I corrected but would not in good conscience sell to someone else. I will keep an eye out for them as they sell for $125+ on ebay.

Some schematics are available here.

I have read on several forums that you can also call Bose and they will send you the schematics for your radio.