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Your "earliest electronics repair", and how old?

Lavane

Lavane

Lunatic Member
So I saw this thread,
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...udio-repair-story.346831/page-6#post-15390464
And thought, what about your earliest electronics repair?
My earliest was when I was around 6 or 7 years old. Both my parents were working at the time and our big-0-Packard Bell 27" B&W TV died. There was sound, and the only thing you saw was a horizontal line on the tube. The week end was coming and I was panicking about missing my Saturday morning binge of Loony Tunes. My parents weren't taking this problem seriously. So after school I called a TV repair shop and told the person on the phone what the TV was doing. He asked for the brand and model number off the back. After exchanging the info, he told me it was probably the vertical sweep tube. He even told me the tube number. After hanging up I twisted the retainers loose that held the back on, found the tube and pulled it. Stupid thing to do for a kid, but this was a crisis! When my mother got home I told her about the repair call and handed her the tube that needed replacing. The next afternoon she arrived with a new tube. Once installed the TV worked and crisis averted. :biggrin:
So whats your earliest repair?
 
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9 or 10 years old, I replaced the VHF tuner on a small TV set. One of the channel tuning cores had cracked and my parents helped me get a replacement unit. I remember using my dad's Weller soldering iron. I suspect my handiwork was marginal but it got The Muppets and Bob Newhart back into the house.
 
I started using a soldering iron at 9 years old. Building crystal radio's and such.
All I had to use at first was my father's big weller. I did did mash a few tips before figuring it out.
 
I know there were earlier ones but the most vivid one was when I was about 10-11 when we had one of those early sixties 19" Philco portable TVs that were kind of shallow from front to back and the two main knobs were on the top.

It worked fine until it warmed up for a while and then the picture would roll, vertically. I reasoned that it had to be thermal since it had to be on for a while before it failed.

The vertical oscillator and output were in one tube and it was a Compactron, or the like (I forget some of those other "super tubes" with multi sections and 12 or more pins). There was a disc capacitor right up against this tube and I knew some basic electronics by then and there were no resistors that looked cooked or anything so I figured it was probably that capacitor.

Now, I had no equipment and I don't remember where I got a replacement capacitor but there was a local electronics supply store in town, then, so that's probably where it was.

Anyway, I knew how to solder and it was kind of a bearcat to get to the back of the board but the new capacitor fixed it. I was SO proud of myself because the whole family relied on that TV to watch during meals. Yes, we were a two-TV family by the early sixties!

Doug
 
At 13 or 14. I was repairing CB radio's and linear amplifiers with Dad's assistance. .CB, SSB, Amateur and Business band radio was Dads part time gig. He worked fulltime for SEARS service dept. (Electronics Div. 57)
 
I was about 13 when I found my dad's mono castoffs in the garage and tried to make good of them. Grommes Little Jewell and a Craftsmen Tuner/preamp. I didn't actually fix anything, and later I lost that valuable equipment, including a Webster- Chicago wire recorder, when my evil stepmother gained control of my storage space.

I'm not sure that I actually fixed anything that time, but I continued to experiment and blew my first circuit breaker at about age 14. Gotta test those things!
 
Don't recall the exact nature of the problem nor the "fix" -- I kinda recall it being a cable input jack problem -- involving an early '60s Teisco electric guitar. The problem, and this I recall clearly, pertained to the guitar and not the amplifier or cable (cord).

This would have been around 1966.

PS: It might have been a PUP selector switch problem.
 
Doug G. said:
I know there were earlier ones but the most vivid one was when I was about 10-11 when we had one of those early sixties 19" Philco portable TVs that were kind of shallow from front to back and the two main knobs were on the top.

It worked fine until it warmed up for a while and then the picture would roll, vertically. I reasoned that it had to be thermal since it had to be on for a while before it failed.

The vertical oscillator and output were in one tube and it was a Compactron, or the like (I forget some of those other "super tubes" with multi sections and 12 or more pins). There was a disc capacitor right up against this tube and I knew some basic electronics by then and there were no resistors that looked cooked or anything so I figured it was probably that capacitor.

Now, I had no equipment and I don't remember where I got a replacement capacitor but there was a local electronics supply store in town, then, so that's probably where it was.

Anyway, I knew how to solder and it was kind of a bearcat to get to the back of the board but the new capacitor fixed it. I was SO proud of myself because the whole family relied on that TV to watch during meals. Yes, we were a two-TV family by the early sixties!

Doug
Click to expand...
It's scary to think at that age we were poking around inside TV's with High voltage. :D
 
roughly 17, installing a new head unit in my car (first car, first head unit replacement)
didn't know jack about jill but wasn't an idiot and got it installed and working even after destroying some interior pieces pieces due to installation ignorance and no internet in those days
sure the radio worked but i lost all my dash lights with my sure(tostarta)fire installation method
drove it like that for at least a month or two until i figured out my installation error (don't just jam power connectors into your fuse panel)
 
Replaced a batt at 11, does that count?

Dropped said transistor radio, that fragmented on impact.

Had to do the necessary plastic surgery of gluing back together.


My first audio repair! :bigok:

Q
 
Quadman2 said:
Replaced a batt at 11, does that count?

Dropped said transistor radio, that fragmented on impact.

Had to do the necessary plastic surgery of gluing back together.


My first audio repair! :bigok:

Q
Click to expand...
I dropped my pocket radio when I was 10. Rubber bands and bandaids to hold it together. :thumbsup:
 
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When I was a teenager I acquired a shortwave radio - an old one with tubes and a wooden case. I polished it up and repaired the loop antenna on the back. If I had it today I would recap it, as the caps were sealed with beeswax, IIRC. Back in those days, in my mind, parts was parts.
 
I remember trying to repair an old tombstone radio when I was in high school.
I had the radio i5self out of the housing. I wasn't getting any sound. So I put my ear up against the speaker, grabbed the shaft on the volume control and had some serious voltage shoot through the side of my head. It knocked me across the room. Man that hurt! I was much more careful after that.
 
You guys were doing much better than I was. Around age 8 I started taking electronics apart, but wasn't actually successful in putting anything back together and making it work again until I was around 12. And this was starting off with things that worked!

Around age 12 I started taking money I made by mowing lawns etc and riding my bike down to Rat Shack. Then carrying the stuff back on my shoulder. Almost had a few crashes carrying speakers that way.

I’m lucky tubes were long gone by the time I was a kid. I probably would have died otherwise.

As a side question to this, do you guys remember your first time getting shocked? Either AC or DC.
When I was 5 or 6 I remember I unplugging something from the wall and touching both the hot and neutral. It was the first of the many shocks I’ve had.
DC was when I got my first car at 16. I was hooking up a power wire for a sub amp and forgot it was live.
 
I was probably about 10 or 11 and really into Treasure Hunting. I had a metal detector and had a hard time hearing the faint signals from those pop tops down deep when in areas like parks and places with more noise. So I pulled a 1/16” jack from an old radio and wired it into the speaker like I observed on the donor. That way I could use the earphone from my little AM radio to better hear the detector tone’s. It worked great and I was particularly proud of the implementation as it looked much better than any of my prior electrical fixes.
 
elitopus said:
You guys were doing much better than I was. Around age 8 I started taking electronics apart, but wasn't actually successful in putting anything back together and making it work again until I was around 12. And this was starting off with things that worked!

Around age 12 I started taking money I made by mowing lawns etc and riding my bike down to Rat Shack. Then carrying the stuff back on my shoulder. Almost had a few crashes carrying speakers that way.

I’m lucky tubes were long gone by the time I was a kid. I probably would have died otherwise.

As a side question to this, do you guys remember your first time getting shocked? Either AC or DC.
When I was 5 or 6 I remember I unplugging something from the wall and touching both the hot and neutral. It was the first of the many shocks I’ve had.
DC was when I got my first car at 16. I was hooking up a power wire for a sub amp and forgot it was live.
Click to expand...
Yup. About 4 ir 5 years old. I stuck a hair pin into a socket. It don't stop me though. My mother caught me trying to do it again and would stick me in the butt with a sewing needle if I was close to doing anything with an outlet. Apparently I thought I was getting shocked when I got to close to an outlet. It worked though.
 
I envy those who started young. Putting together Heath kits would have been a dream to do when I was a kid. I had no exposure to such things at that age. I don’t count anything I may have done before the age of 45 as any sort of meaningful electronics repair. That’s about the time I found this site and started learning as much as I could comprehend. 11 years later and I continue to enjoy it immensely :beerchug:
 
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