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Romeo Wolf

Romeo Wolf

Super Member
Today I lent my GE P780B radio to my 9th grade English teacher so he could have his next-door neighbor (who is a veteran electronics technician or something like that, don't remember) service my set and get it back to optimal working order.

Of course, there are no guarantees that he will get to it instantly, and if it's too difficult for him to work on, he'll bail out and lend me back the radio. But it's a small price to pay compared to labor rates that I can't be bothered to chuck my cold, hard cash at.

Have you guys got a fellow neighbor who's repaired your equipment? :)
 
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I have a ham radio friend who was a Motorola service technician so he can fix anything at least so far for me But I do not have the knowledge to repair electronics and you do have to have knowledge.
 
Romeo Wolf said:
Today I lent my GE P780B radio to my 9th grade English teacher so he could have his next-door neighbor (who is a veteran electronics technician or something like that, don't remember) service my set and get it back to optimal working order.

Of course, there are no guarantees that he will get to it instantly, and if it's too difficult for him to work on, he'll bail out and lend me back the radio. But it's a small price to pay compared to labor rates that I can't be bothered to chuck my cold, hard cash at.

Have you guys got a fellow neighbor who's repaired your equipment? :)
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I hope it works out for you.
 
Got an electronic wizard beside me, but he's getting pretty long in the tooth now.

Has has helped me out in the past, esp with theory on anything electric.


Q
 
I've done all of my own work for a long time but that mostly centers around auto/motorcycle/home. Electronics doesn't come up much although I have fixed the gas solenoid on the dryer and the electric eye in the oven.

I wish my dad were still around to fill in the details (this happened when I was small a.k.a. a very long time ago) but to make a long story short one of our neighbors brought him an electric can opener that wasn't working. When dad opened it up, he found a bunch of stripped plastic gears. Using materials and equipment at work (dad was a tool and die maker) he made a bunch of new, steel gears for it.

I remember my dad saying it was the "most expensive can opener in the world".
 
Half the fun of being a kid with a lot of time is taking things apart and trying to fix them. You can get a mulit-meter for cheap, sometimes Harbor Freight gives them out for free, and just start messing around. Learn what the symbols are and what the numbers and bands mean on the components. The basics aren't that hard once you get a small grasp on the equipment and that radio would be a great project with big parts and huge solder blobs. Use caution around any capacitor, when you least expect it they will explode, make sure your read the do's and don'ts for electronic repair.
 
Bone Yard said:
...Use caution around any capacitor, when you least expect it they will explode, make sure your read the do's and don'ts for electronic repair.
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Usually only when installed/connected in reverse polarity. Which, at last count, I think I stumbled on four occurrences of that happening just in the last week or so. Who knows how many I missed.
 
Romeo Wolf said:
Today I lent my GE P780B radio to my 9th grade English teacher so he could have his next-door neighbor (who is a veteran electronics technician or something like that, don't remember) service my set and get it back to optimal working order.
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If you're going to continue collecting vintage gear you need to learn to fix it yourself. Obviously, this only applies if you want it to function properly. If you're content to just look at it sitting on a shelf, that's another matter.

I would strongly suggest that you ask your teacher to introduce you to the veteran tech. Then see if he'll teach you how to repair stuff. He would likely be thrilled that a teenager is even interested in old radios.
 
One of the CRNA's that retired from our surgery center fixed my Grado headphones. The wiring from the left phone became detatched.
 
Update: Unfortunately the local technician couldn't really do anything to my set. He claimed the solder was "too old" to work with, which is a passable excuse in my terms of research of this radio. The PCB has all the disadvantages of being single and double-sided, even though it's only single-sided with plated-through holes.

Some units have also been known to suffer from bad solder traces from corrosion, and I believe they also used lead solder. So it makes sticking solder with ordinary flux very difficult.

I'd still love to see this set restored back to good operational order, though. It's definitely worth a restoration.
 
Romeo Wolf said:
Update: Unfortunately the local technician couldn't really do anything to my set. He claimed the solder was "too old" to work with, which is a passable excuse in my terms of research of this radio. The PCB has all the disadvantages of being single and double-sided, even though it's only single-sided with plated-through holes.

Some units have also been known to suffer from bad solder traces from corrosion, and I believe they also used lead solder. So it makes sticking solder with ordinary flux very difficult.

I'd still love to see this set restored back to good operational order, though. It's definitely worth a restoration.
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Lead based solder is not illegal for private users to buy or use. Buy a roll of this and re-flow the joints yourself. It's 60-40 Tin, Lead. $6 @ Amazon
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Romeo Wolf said:
Update: Unfortunately the local technician couldn't really do anything to my set. He claimed the solder was "too old" to work with, which is a passable excuse in my terms of research of this radio. The PCB has all the disadvantages of being single and double-sided, even though it's only single-sided with plated-through holes.

Some units have also been known to suffer from bad solder traces from corrosion, and I believe they also used lead solder. So it makes sticking solder with ordinary flux very difficult.

I'd still love to see this set restored back to good operational order, though. It's definitely worth a restoration.
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The solder was "too old"? Never heard that one. And all the solder back then used lead. Much of the modern solder does too. It's actually much easier to work with than the lead-free stuff.

I've restored lots of vintage tube amps that are older than any little transistor radio and I've never had any issue. That said, they've all been wired point to point and I do know that it's possible for vintage circuit boards to be damaged. But, if you're careful, it should be do-able.

I sounds to me like he just didn't want to work on it and makes me wonder just how qualified he is.

This reinforces my earlier suggestion, and the suggestions of others, that you really need to learn to work on these yourself. A unit that isn't working is the perfect candidate for you to start with. If the board gets damaged, oh well. It didn't work anyway and it's still going to look just a cool on a shelf as it did before.

If you haven't already done so, you might want to register on the Antique Radio site. They have a forum that's exclusively about early transistor radios. I'm sure there are members there who would be absolutely thrilled to help a teenager who's interested in radios. Tell the story about solder that's "too old" and they'll be :rflmao:

https://antiqueradios.com/forums/index.php

I bet they would gladly walk you through the repair process and there might even be someone on there who is local to you and willing to give you hands-on lessons.
 
It’s really cool that lots of you guys are techs and can fix your own gear. That’s a useful skill and one to be proud of. But if your logic about having to learn because you have to to own it carries over, you would also need to be an appliance repairman, computer tech, auto mechanic, roofer, carpenter, etc.
Most of us think we’re kinda handy with tools but most of the tradesmen I know took years of experience before they were proficient at their job.
No offense fellas
 
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