Your "earliest electronics repair", and how old?

[Chris Brown]

Not sure if this technically counts as a "repair" but funny story none-the-less. I was about 7, trying to hook up cable TV in my bedroom at our new house. It wouldn't work at all. I traced the cable on the exterior of my house starting from where my bedroom was as it made it's way over to our main cable distribution box (where the cable came in from the street). There was one spot where the cable was disconnected. It looked like there had been a coupler or perhaps a splitter in-between at some point in the past, as both sides of the cable already had proper ends crimped on them.

Well, I didn't have any couplers or splitters that I could use to join those coax cables together. What I did have was a multitude of 75-ohm to 300-ohm converters, like what you would use to hook up coax cable to a really old TV that only had rabbit-ear connectors. I took two of them and taped the 300-ohm ends together to essentially create a coupler for the two coax cables. It worked great.

Later that day a guy in a truck stopped near our house and hopped out holding an instrument in the air that looked like something from Ghostbusters. He gradually made his way over to, and found my improvised adapter. Apparently my adapter was causing frequencies that were supposed to be isolated within the closed cable-TV network to be inadvertently broadcasted into the airwaves, causing some kind of interference with other local broadcast/communication frequencies. The guy was nice, switched it out for a proper coupler and left.

 

[Doug G.]

"Technician 2, we have a report of spurious interference in sector 6. Please investigate."

"Hey kid, are you SURE your dad didn't put this :"coupler" on there?"



Doug

 

[Doug G.]

I think the Royce 23 channel CB radio I had/have is still out in the garage in a box.

And, SK was the prefix for RCA replacement components. ECG was Sylvania/Philips.

Doug

 

[BillyTheKid]

I was about 10. My Harmony Rocket had wiring issues. I pulled the harness out of the guitar, re-soldered the problem connections and re-installed it. I also replaced the broken plastic output jack plate with a hunk of orange hot-wheels track.

 

[Lavane]

I was about 10. My Harmony Rocket had wiring issues. I pulled the harness out of the guitar, re-soldered the problem connections and re-installed it. I also replaced the broken plastic output jack plate with a hunk of orange hot-wheels track.

That's a better use of a hot-wheels track. My brother and I would just smack the crap out of each other with them.

 

[Doug G.]

Yeah, the harmful things we do as kids. My best friend and I had just bought new hooded sweatshirts (they call them hoodies these days - the exact same thing) and he had some sulfuric acid his older brother and my older brother had bought (yes, you could buy stuff like that in drug stores in the sixties) to make hydrogen from aluminum foil and they had a bunch of hypodermics because his mom's friend was a nurse and gave them to his mom. I guess they had an expiration date, even in those days.

Anyway, we filled a couple of hypodermics with that acid and shot it at each other, hitting each other in those pouches on the front of those brand new sweatshirts. Needless to say, you can imaging what those pouches looked like the next day. At least we didn't aim for each other's faces.



Doug

 

[Lavane]

Yeah, the harmful things we do as kids. My best friend and I had just bought new hooded sweatshirts (they call them hoodies these days - the exact same thing) and he had some sulfuric acid his older brother and my older brother had bought (yes, you could buy stuff like that in drug stores in the sixties) to make hydrogen from aluminum foil and they had a bunch of hypodermics because his mom's friend was a nurse and gave them to his mom. I guess they had an expiration date, even in those days.

Anyway, we filled a couple of hypodermics with that acid and shot it at each other, hitting each other in those pouches on the front of those brand new sweatshirts. Needless to say, you can imaging what those pouches looked like the next day. At least we didn't aim for each other's faces.



Doug

It's crazy to think of all the chemicals that used to come in chemistry sets back then. I had several large ones. Nothing like turning a kid loose with dangerous chemicals and an alcohol burner. around '69 I had a friend who's dad was a dentist. We would root around in the trash can out back of his office for hypo's. Ditch the needle and use them for squirt guns. Every once in awhile we would get stuck and the end of a finger would go numb.

 

[ListenLoud]

I assume we aren’t counting appliances vivisected. I got into real recording and broadcast stuff in high school in the 1970’s. Whew, you could heat a house with some of the amps back,well,small house anyway.

 

[ListenLoud]

I remember getting my mom to pick up some RF output finals for a CB when I was probably 13 or 14. Got the address to the parts supplier and the part numbers. Even gave her the money for them. Radio was a Courier Caravelle 40D, a real oddball with plug in modules for each section. I'm sure there were other things, just that one happens to be a clear memory.

years later I fixed some Realistic for a friend and it was identical inside. Only two radios I ran across constructed like that.

Yup, parts is parts.

 

[ListenLoud]

It's crazy to think of all the chemicals that used to come in chemistry sets back then. I had several large ones. Nothing like turning a kid loose with dangerous chemicals and an alcohol burner. around '69 I had a friend who's dad was a dentist. We would root around in the trash can out back of his office for hypo's. Ditch the needle and use them for squirt guns. Every once in awhile we would get stuck and the end of a finger would go numb.

I remember sitting at a picnic table in 1978 in hot, hot sun cooking circuit boards for set of equalizers I was building. Sticking my nose up close to see how things were progressing. Inhaling God knows what.

 

[avionic]

Learned about " positive ground " on some semi's.

Truck drivers were always dropping off Pearce-Simpson mobile units - With write up of constantly blowing fuses. PS was smart with putting a diode across the power input wires. So if the polarity got reversed it would burn up the diode ( short out ) and blow the fuse.

 

[Justgotohm]

At 16 I found a Onkyo receiver on a curb, black plastic, maybe late 80’s model or so. It was inop so I opened it up, there was a crack in one of the circuit boards, some weird damage, thinking back.
I traced each trace and installed point to point wiring to close the traces that had been separated. There were maybe 10-15 points I had to close. I ended up giving it to a good friend at the time, I do know as of 2017 he was still using it.

 

[gadget73]

Truck drivers were always dropping off Pearce-Simpson mobile units - With write up of constantly blowing fuses. PS was smart with putting a diode across the power input wires. So if the polarity got reversed it would burn up the diode ( short out ) and blow the fuse.

annoying when someone discovers the reverse protection diode and cuts the thing out to make it go again, and then proceeds to hook it up backwards with no protection diode.

 

[OvenMaster]

I was 12 when I fixed the AC adapter for my GE portable cassette recorder. I used a coping saw to get it open, and saw a cracked circuit board. I fixed the broken trace with a whole lot more solder than was needed but it worked. I wrapped up the adapter with electrical tape. It lasted ten more years.

 

[jrtrent]

I started using a soldering iron at 9 years old. Building crystal radio's and such. . .

I've never been much of a do-it-yourselfer in terms of repair, but I did enjoy putting together a few kits, with the soldering iron being kind of a natural progression from wood burning art kits.

The only two repairs I recall making were replacing the on-off/volume switch in my grandmother's GE radio/record player (as a teen, if I recall correctly) and replacing the non-working turntable in a similar console unit for a friend's grandmother. The switch replacement was pretty easy only because the guy at the parts store cobbled together from different parts something that would work in place of the no longer available original. The turntable replacement was also pretty easy since I already had a BIC 920 (which I had purchased new with no base when they were being closed out) and the use of my dad's handheld and table model jigsaws to make a cut-out support for the BIC. With an ADC QLM 30 and a cheap phono stage screwed in place, it worked very nicely.

 

[DEAFASABAT]

I started playing around with wiring electric train layouts when I was about 10. I enthusiastically experimented with anything that had wiring in it.
But the first really significant repair, which came to benefit the entire family, was arguably the genesis of my interest in electronics and its leading up to a long and varied career .
Shortly after we had moved from New Jersey to California in 1966 my father came home from a garage sale with a beautiful Packard Bell 23" black and white console TV. My recollection is that he had paid either $2.00 or $4.00 for it. It was a top of the line model when new (1961), including a record changer and AM/FM Stereo radio.
The TV part was fully operational, the picture quality outstanding, as good as it got. But it did not produce any sound.
Once I had removed the rear panel I grabbed a flashlight and started noising around its innards. Within a few minutes I found an RCA cable that was hard wired to the TV section that ran to the radio/amplifier, connected with RCA plug and jack. The RCA plug had mechanically failed, resulting in the cable being shorted.
I did bit of repair using pliers and a soldering gun, and Presto! It was fully functional.
I was 15 years old. A late bloomer lol.

 

[markthefixer]

early grade school my mother embargoed non age appropriate reading material. I had become too enthusiastic about something I read, in her presence, and she did not understand what I was talking about. I was a VORACIOUS reader. Then... I was bored silly. I surreptitiously read a dictionary cover to cover. TWICE.
In that time period an old Newark catalog happened into my surreptitious possession. Talk about an eye opener...
a few years later the B/W tube TV just stopped dead.
It's repair call just plain wasn't in the budget for a while....
I BEGGED my Dad, to let me pull the tubes to test them at the store when he went next.
Proved I knew how to pull, label, carry-protect, and return them to the right places.
BET my allowance to cover unsuccessful purchases.
Eventually, he relented...
At the store, he came back to the tester, and I was ready.
Showed him one slow red to yellow to barely green tube, asked him if the timing was familiar? Reminded him how the set would roll for a minute. opened his eyes.
Told him we needed 3 tubes, a fourth to cure the roll - or it could wait until the tube died completely....
we got all 4
got home, Dad came in as I just finished getting it back together. Quick double check, plugged it in. It WORKED!! Picture like new!
Dad:"Honeyyyyy - Mark fixed the TV!!!".....thump thump thump........... Mom: WHAT????? Dad: Mark fixed the TV!!!
Of course it was sitting there turned on..... (Mark had yet to graduate grammar school)

That was the end to "age appropriate reading material".....
seen as how her grade school son had done something that grown men made CAREERS of.

 

[Lavane]

I was one of those kids that took everything apart to see how things worked.
Not a thing parents usually like. Most times I was able to get things back together and working though. If they only knew how many power tools, appliances and the like I had acually torn apart.

 

[Champco]

It's scary to think at that age we were poking around inside TV's with High voltage.

Yes so true: 1963 .... 9 or 10 My Saturday morning cartoons were blinking on and off and like most people I would swat the side and it would come back on for a bit. Home alone I pulled the set away from the corner wall and pushed on the tubes till one of them made it work. But when I let it go it would go off again. So being the little creative rascal I was I tore off the cover of a book of matches. Folded it a few times and shoved it under one side. Yes I did unplug it first. Turned it on and it was fine all morning and I forgot about it. I left it on and took out the trash. When I came back in the house was full of smoke.
I panicked and called the FD. I then recalled the matchbook and looked in back and sure enough it was the source. It had charred and smoldered so I removed it. Too late here comes the FD. Two of the firemen were wise enough to come up the back stairs and saw the haze. I told em what i had done and convinced them it was solved.
A lot of houses were always burning in my neighborhood. Whenever we heard the sirens we would run over to watch. One of these days a hammer was tossed out of the house and bounced in the alley. It was a little charred and still smoking on the handle but was fine so I took it and went home with it. Well This hammer was sitting on the table right by the door and it caught the eye of the fireman. Here I was again convincing the fireman it was not burned in my house. I told him where i got it, He gave me a stern look and walked out the door.
So far all I have done is trouble shoot. I removed the tube and with a tooth pick tightened the socket female's and the pins were tighter. I also at some time adjusted the yolk on the picture tube to straightened the picture as well as learned to adjust the horizontal hold and vertical sweep on that set. I cannot recall who was advising me on these things. I got good use out of that set

 

[Lavane]

Yes so true: 1963 .... 9 or 10 My Saturday morning cartoons were blinking on and off and like most people I would swat the side and it would come back on for a bit. Home alone I pulled the set away from the corner wall and pushed on the tubes till one of them made it work. But when I let it go it would go off again. So being the little creative rascal I was I tore off the cover of a book of matches. Folded it a few times and shoved it under one side. Yes I did unplug it first. Turned it on and it was fine all morning and I forgot about it. I left it on and took out the trash. When I came back in the house was full of smoke.
I panicked and called the FD. I then recalled the matchbook and looked in back and sure enough it was the source. It had charred and smoldered so I removed it. Too late here comes the FD. Two of the firemen were wise enough to come up the back stairs and saw the haze. I told em what i had done and convinced them it was solved.
A lot of houses were always burning in my neighborhood. Whenever we heard the sirens we would run over to watch. One of these days a hammer was tossed out of the house and bounced in the alley. It was a little charred and still smoking on the handle but was fine so I took it and went home with it. Well This hammer was sitting on the table right by the door and it caught the eye of the fireman. Here I was again convincing the fireman it was not burned in my house. I told him where i got it, He gave me a stern look and walked out the door.
So far all I have done is trouble shoot. I removed the tube and with a tooth pick tightened the socket female's and the pins were tighter. I also at some time adjusted the yolk on the picture tube to straightened the picture as well as learned to adjust the horizontal hold and vertical sweep on that set. I cannot recall who was advising me on these things. I got good use out of that set

There were probably a lot of us kids back then that poked around in the back of those old TV's. A saturday morning without Bugs Bunny would have been the end of the world.