My father had one of these radios. Wasn't 2 way power just batteries. It went through a house fire in 1966. The case was badly burned and the front display was totally melted. The fire was in the kitchen and the radio was on top of the refrigerator. My father turned it on and got a hiss out of it and when he through it in the trash can it started playing. I took it out of the burned case and made a wooden box for it and was listening to ball games on it. Good radio! Took the licking and kept on ticking!
C8 is part of what is called a bootstrap circuit. It is a type of positive feedback to the base of the output transistors to give an effect similar to a constant current source. If the cap went open, the output would still function but would lose a bit of power.
I, too, was gifted one as a Christmas present in 1974. I was very happy with it, and used it for many years. Los Angeles region comment: Likely by now you figured out 1260 changed from oldies to classical.
I remember as a youngster in 1968, transistor radios were *still* quite novel. You was "cool" if you had one, especially if you had your earphone plugged into the jack.
I bought one of there for my Mom when I was a kid so she could listen to the radio while she was fishing. She used it for years. I wish I knew what ever happened to it.
Who knew heating the end of an electrolytic capacitor could bring it back to life ? That was especially true for the second one! Brilliant piece of detective work and solution there Shango! Mic drop solution!
Those were so common when I grew up, the one that came to me about 12 was also quiet, I wasn't advanced enough to figure it out at the time. I'd never heard of the heating capacitor trick, that's amazing.
That exact model was our household radio in the 1960s. Although I don't understand much of what you say about the schematic, I still enjoy your videos!
That's exactly how I would change the caps, I've done similar for surface mount as well. I've been slagged for it but at the end of the day the less you disturb the better.
I want to enjoy a nice, quiet Christmas. Quiet in the sense of a peaceful Christmas. I'll even say, "Merry Christmas," if people can put aside their opinions to come together in peace and harmony. Just leave your politics at the door, and let's have some yuletide fun. I know it's a tad early, but it's been a hell of a stressful year, and I need to relax. I'm sure you could use a little R and R yourself.
I like that you fix up all these radios and TVs and get them back up and running but what I miss the most in your recent videos is the commentary about what's going on in the world. I enjoyed that in your older videos.
I collect and recap old tube radios also have a few 60s and 70s transistor radios some do just what you showed. Thank you for this info video it really helps. Thank you for making it.
Sounds like a new one when u replaced the 2 bad capacitors in it. Very well made for a 50 year old Japanese am/fm transistorised radio,,,with a quick repair job.
Quality over quantity, as they say. I'll just appreciate it even more when you do post another video! The ebay prices on this model are irritatingly high, I'm just going to hope I find one at a rummage sale some day.
My parents are in their 90's and still fully independent and fully functional mentally and physically. They may have lived through the depression as kids in the 1930's but I told them they hit the jackpot for living their lives during the best years in this country.
Great trick to low ESR. Easier than to parallel with a smaller one. Two days ago I paralled a 47uF with a bad 250uF output cap. The oldie came back to life.
I would do that heating up electrolytics all the time, especially in the older Mitsubishi widescreens, those sets would have literally dozens of bad caps... It's a great trick and works well. Good job Shango..!!
When you find one of these they are usually beat to hell because they were very popular on construction sites. Pretty much the construction worker's official radio.
Great diagnosis and repair job, nothing at all sloppy or wrong with connecting the new capacitors as you have, I would have done the same thing. A lot of these little portables are difficult to remove the chassis, I have seen a couple of similar models where you even had to remove the dial pointer from the dial cord, to get the chassis out!
Looks similar to something grannysnail gave us back in the early-'80s. Ours had the ability to 'recharge' the 9 volt battery used for it. Remember trying (in vain) to light an Estes rocket motor starter. Dangerous toys and dumb li'l whelks - ah, the good old days...
The P977 series replaced the P975 series which were made in the USA. The P975 did not have the AC feature and had die-cast chrome front and side plates. The switch to the P977 series were assembled in Hong Kong and had aluminized plastic plates. AC/DC operation was added. Servicing either was a nightmare. Much worse than their previous worst the P-780 and its AM/FM twin. Most of these work but sound quality is often less than great. Re-capping is a cure but few will tackle it.
That is indeed the proper mindset, however, unfortunately, this has all been going this direction for quite a few decades now, nearly 60 years. we were moving in this direction and we cannot stop it at this point. It's time to Simply form no go zones to keep all the useful idiots out.
@@billmyke746 Listening to the 6:00 a.m. news on the AM.... It's really heartbreaking listening to the incoming "President Elect" picking his new cabinet. Blinkin... Don't know yet if I spelled it right. They say he likes treaties and the U.N. They said internationally there's a sigh of relief... Very upsetting people don't understand what's happening to this country and all of we the people. And you are right. It's been going on decades and really hundreds of years. People aren't aware. They are misinformed or uninformed as Denzel Washington once said. God Bless the United States of America!
I've never seen electrolytic capacitors with those values. That is an old school transistor radio. Interesting heat sinks over the transistors. I heard what appears to be a Mexican radio station, over the airplane. Thanks for sharing this. Cheers!
I have a radio just like this I got from my grandpa at a yard sale because it didn't sell. I pulled this out of a box 2 days ago and was thinking about fixing it. Suddenly I see this video on my suggestion feed. How weird is that?
Christmas music being played at any time is infuriating.. lol ... no but seriously, I was in a shopping centre the other day and they were playing Christmas music.. by the other day I mean halfway through November? That's ridiculous
That 30uF cap in the final audio stage is called the "bootstrapping" cap and makes R52 (470ohm) work as a constant current generator by maintaining constant voltage across it. It is needed because the output transistors need significant driving power (i.e. hfe goes down) when delivering high currents into a low-impedance load (speaker). Without that cap feeding back power, the driving power to one direction (through only the resistors) would be inadequate. The driving power in the other direction is ensured by the driver transistor (Q9). The bootstrapping capacitor feeds some power back in order to help driving the output stage.
The 30 mfd C8 is a "bootstrap" capacitor. It provides a little positive feedback from the output of the emitter follower output back to the increase the input impedance. It helps provide a larger output swing, especially on positive half cycles. It is stable and won't cause feedback since an emitter follower has a gain less than 1.
I have a later upright plastic cabinet version of this GE, two-way power AM-FM radio. It's my "shed radio" up at our summer place, and it works great, very sensitive radio.
That's a neat trick to lower the ESR of an electrolytic by heating it with a soldering iron. If you want to listen to it, just put the whole radio on a hotplate.
I was watching a documentary about the unabomber. Whenever they are reading from Ted's journal entries the narrator's voice sounds alot like Shango066. Especially the excerpt which Ted was disappointed that one of his destructive devices didn't work as it was designed.
Have one of these I think must of gotten it when I was in high school. Really good sounding radio. I just noticed mine is missing the AA holder, and someone put a 9 volt terminal on mine.
i was a wonderin" where You went too as didn't see any video last weekend, was wiondering what the heck happened over there, well hopefully things work out and then you can get back to the video thing again, the TV's are the most interesting, always looking forward to seeing another one of those.
Shango: There was another GE beige pocket (either 8 0r 10) transistor radio in the thumbnail; I tried to search your catalog for a video of this radio. Did you ever do anything with it? I had these when I was 7 back in the 60's...
Holy Christ, when I was a gullible kid, I remember saving paper ticket tokens from boardwalk amusements all summer long to get enough of points to get a radio that looks just like the one in the video here. That radio didn't last not even 6 months. I think one of my old girlfriends took it. Lololol.
I have a transistor pocket radio at work. People look at me funny when i break it out. I tell them it may look dorky, but i dont need to keep charging it every hour to listen to music through my phone.
Nice repair, never knew you could heat capacitors up like that to fault find - thanks for that tip, would like one of those radios, but can't seem to buy one in UK. Would be no probs battery wise, but mains voltage differences (230VAC 50Hz) would make them incompatible, and GE / US never sent us any?
I have one of those waiting for a restoration in excellent cosmetic condition. Those were super popular with older boomers as a good radio vs. the crappy drug store stuff.
How does heating a dried up Electrolytic Capacitor with a Soldering Iron make it useable again (if only for a short while) ? I would have thought that this would just make it even more dried up.
I won't see this, but I am curious whether 40-50 years from now around a $100 chinese DSP pocket radios will work at all? (That they are unrepairable by design we already know)
Hey man I just got a p977 radio it work fine for about a week then just cut off on me the speaker still cuts on but just makes a humming sound could you please help me figure out what it could be
Hi, I'm kind of new to this and working on a P975f. It has a corroded on/volume potentiometer. Tried to replace on ebay and got one that looked like it. On arrival it was too small. Any help with the right part# would be appreciated. Thanks!
These were decent radios, I remember checking them out. There was also a cheap no-name knockoff radio designed to look just like that GE model back when it was a popular seller. The knockoff version was a total POS and when it did actually pick up anything the audio was distorted and very unpleasant to listen to. Guess which one I got for my birthday.
@RebelDeuce Good point. I lived near Rochester International in NY and the ground shook sometimes several times a day. Some tradeoffs not that loud. Others demanded your Steve attention. God Bless
My father had one of these radios. Wasn't 2 way power just batteries. It went through a house fire in 1966. The case was badly burned and the front display was totally melted. The fire was in the kitchen and the radio was on top of the refrigerator. My father turned it on and got a hiss out of it and when he through it in the trash can it started playing. I took it out of the burned case and made a wooden box for it and was listening to ball games on it. Good radio! Took the licking and kept on ticking!
Heating up the cap to lower ESR is a cool trick that I haven’t seen done before. 👏🏻👍❤️📻
I'll have to remember that!
That's why I love UA-cam and your channel learn something new everyday
component freezer spray can also show up bad components.....
@@andygozzo72 yes freeze spray can be a useful tool as well. 👍
I like the soldering iron trick for bad electros. I'm going to remember that.
I found that trick out by ACCIDENT once.... It's great!
Thanks man! I know I speak for all of us that watch the videos we really appreciate the work you put in to these and as always great information.
C8 is part of what is called a bootstrap circuit. It is a type of positive feedback to the base of the output transistors to give an effect similar to a constant current source. If the cap went open, the output would still function but would lose a bit of power.
I, too, was gifted one as a Christmas present in 1974. I was very happy with it, and used it for many years. Los Angeles region comment: Likely by now you figured out 1260 changed from oldies to classical.
I remember as a youngster in 1968, transistor radios were *still* quite novel. You was "cool" if you had one, especially if you had your earphone plugged into the jack.
I bought one of there for my Mom when I was a kid so she could listen to the radio while she was fishing. She used it for years. I wish I knew what ever happened to it.
Who knew heating the end of an electrolytic capacitor could bring it back to life ? That was especially true for the second one!
Brilliant piece of detective work and solution there Shango! Mic drop solution!
Not only for capacitors, this trick works even for ICs sometimes. Especially for the epoxy blob ones.
Those were so common when I grew up, the one that came to me about 12 was also quiet, I wasn't advanced enough to figure it out at the time. I'd never heard of the heating capacitor trick, that's amazing.
That exact model was our household radio in the 1960s. Although I don't understand much of what you say about the schematic, I still enjoy your videos!
My Dear Grandfather had this radio , kept it next to his favorite chair. Next to his fishing lure Zippo & Camel cigs. Memories.
That's exactly how I would change the caps, I've done similar for surface mount as well. I've been slagged for it but at the end of the day the less you disturb the better.
I want to enjoy a nice, quiet Christmas. Quiet in the sense of a peaceful Christmas. I'll even say, "Merry Christmas," if people can put aside their opinions to come together in peace and harmony. Just leave your politics at the door, and let's have some yuletide fun. I know it's a tad early, but it's been a hell of a stressful year, and I need to relax. I'm sure you could use a little R and R yourself.
I like that you fix up all these radios and TVs and get them back up and running but what I miss the most in your recent videos is the commentary about what's going on in the world. I enjoyed that in your older videos.
I collect and recap old tube radios also have a few 60s and 70s transistor radios some do just what you showed. Thank you for this info video it really helps. Thank you for making it.
Nice classic radio s thanks Say hello from Romania
Sounds like a new one when u replaced the 2 bad capacitors in it. Very well made for a 50 year old Japanese am/fm transistorised radio,,,with a quick repair job.
Quality over quantity, as they say. I'll just appreciate it even more when you do post another video! The ebay prices on this model are irritatingly high, I'm just going to hope I find one at a rummage sale some day.
Well done Shango!
That's the first time I've seen a Transistor wired as a Superdiode used as a Bias Regulator like that.
My parents are in their 90's and still fully independent and fully functional mentally and physically. They may have lived through the depression as kids in the 1930's but I told them they hit the jackpot for living their lives during the best years in this country.
Great trick to low ESR. Easier than to parallel with a smaller one. Two days ago I paralled a 47uF with a bad 250uF output cap. The oldie came back to life.
I would do that heating up electrolytics all the time, especially in the older Mitsubishi widescreens, those sets would have literally dozens of bad caps...
It's a great trick and works well.
Good job Shango..!!
When you find one of these they are usually beat to hell because they were very popular on construction sites.
Pretty much the construction worker's official radio.
Great diagnosis and repair job, nothing at all sloppy or wrong with connecting the new capacitors as you have, I would have done the same thing. A lot of these little portables are difficult to remove the chassis, I have seen a couple of similar models where you even had to remove the dial pointer from the dial cord, to get the chassis out!
I truly enjoy watching your videos! Thank you so much for taking your valuable time making these videos. Have a great day!
Thanks for the tip checking the ESR of the cap by heating, I never knew that.
Looks similar to something grannysnail gave us back in the early-'80s. Ours had the ability to 'recharge' the 9 volt battery used for it. Remember trying (in vain) to light an Estes rocket motor starter. Dangerous toys and dumb li'l whelks - ah, the good old days...
The P977 series replaced the P975 series which were made in the USA. The P975 did not have the AC feature and had die-cast chrome front and side plates.
The switch to the P977 series were assembled in Hong Kong and had aluminized plastic plates. AC/DC operation was added.
Servicing either was a nightmare. Much worse than their previous worst the P-780 and its AM/FM twin.
Most of these work but sound quality is often less than great. Re-capping is a cure but few will tackle it.
Schroeder and his Piano playing . . . . Wait! What?! Biden - "Optimism"? . . . . Back to Schroeder.
The great reset is definitely upon us, it was nice while it lasted.
73...
Fight it. And know we can win if we resist it. God Bless
That is indeed the proper mindset, however, unfortunately, this has all been going this direction for quite a few decades now, nearly 60 years. we were moving in this direction and we cannot stop it at this point.
It's time to Simply form no go zones to keep all the useful idiots out.
@@billmyke746 Listening to the 6:00 a.m. news on the AM.... It's really heartbreaking listening to the incoming "President Elect" picking his new cabinet. Blinkin... Don't know yet if I spelled it right. They say he likes treaties and the U.N. They said internationally there's a sigh of relief... Very upsetting people don't understand what's happening to this country and all of we the people. And you are right. It's been going on decades and really hundreds of years. People aren't aware. They are misinformed or uninformed as Denzel Washington once said. God Bless the United States of America!
@@johnnytacokleinschmidt515 Well said sir.
We're in for a rough ride now.
Here we are a couple of months later. It looks worse everyday. Unless there is a magic trick or tremendous grace from God.
Tuning cord (rubber band like thing) broke. Where do I get replacement?
Absolutely brilliant trick heating up the caps!
I've never seen electrolytic capacitors with those values. That is an old school transistor radio. Interesting heat sinks over the transistors. I heard what appears to be a Mexican radio station, over the airplane. Thanks for sharing this. Cheers!
California has become a colony of Mexico.
I had one in the 80s in the uk! Very similar to this but was badged as a eurosonic.
Nice job.
I have a radio just like this I got from my grandpa at a yard sale because it didn't sell. I pulled this out of a box 2 days ago and was thinking about fixing it. Suddenly I see this video on my suggestion feed. How weird is that?
Christmas music being played outside of December is infuriating.
I second that.
Christmas music being played at any time is infuriating.. lol ... no but seriously, I was in a shopping centre the other day and they were playing Christmas music.. by the other day I mean halfway through November? That's ridiculous
Won’t matter after next week, K-Surf is going classical. Will be known as K-Mozart as of 12/01/20☹️
Yes
That 30uF cap in the final audio stage is called the "bootstrapping" cap and makes R52 (470ohm) work as a constant current generator by maintaining constant voltage across it. It is needed because the output transistors need significant driving power (i.e. hfe goes down) when delivering high currents into a low-impedance load (speaker).
Without that cap feeding back power, the driving power to one direction (through only the resistors) would be inadequate. The driving power in the other direction is ensured by the driver transistor (Q9). The bootstrapping capacitor feeds some power back in order to help driving the output stage.
The 30 mfd C8 is a "bootstrap" capacitor. It provides a little positive feedback from the output of the emitter follower output back to the increase the input impedance. It helps provide a larger output swing, especially on positive half cycles. It is stable and won't cause feedback since an emitter follower has a gain less than 1.
The heating the capacitor trick: can you explain electronically what is happening inside that cap when you do this procedure? Great vid
I have a later upright plastic cabinet version of this GE, two-way power AM-FM radio. It's my "shed radio" up at our summer place, and it works great, very sensitive radio.
Carry on...
Nice trouble shooting
I learned a new trick, heating the cap thingy... Kewl Beanz
That's a neat trick to lower the ESR of an electrolytic by heating it with a soldering iron. If you want to listen to it, just put the whole radio on a hotplate.
I was watching a documentary about the unabomber. Whenever they are reading from Ted's journal entries the narrator's voice sounds alot like Shango066. Especially the excerpt which Ted was disappointed that one of his destructive devices didn't work as it was designed.
A solid performing radio.
73 from LA5IRA in Norway 🙂
I was really hoping you would have over heated the capacitor....💥. But neat trick I never seen before.
Have one of these I think must of gotten it when I was in high school. Really good sounding radio. I just noticed mine is missing the AA holder, and someone put a 9 volt terminal on mine.
Nice technique! I'll add that to my bag of tricks. Thanks Shango.
If I need to listen to the presidential election news, I just tune into your channel!
Excellent again also. Drh 4683 has come out with new video couple days ago. I believe you told us about this guy thank you.
Lazy? Sloppy? No, I would call you creative. You can't argue with results.
i was a wonderin" where You went too as didn't see any video last weekend, was wiondering what the heck happened over there, well hopefully things work out and then you can get back to the video thing again, the TV's are the most interesting, always looking forward to seeing another one of those.
10:27 "Vice President Joe Biden"? Is this repair at least 4 years old then?
Come on Shango, blow something up again...
Shango: There was another GE beige pocket (either 8 0r 10) transistor radio in the thumbnail; I tried to search your catalog for a video of this radio.
Did you ever do anything with it? I had these when I was 7 back in the 60's...
we used too have that radio I loved the smell of Vonage smell
Just connect up a couple capacitaters between the transisteraters and you are good to go for another 40 years.
Job wel done !
Also, I learned a cool trick about ESR and Electrolytics 😀👍
Take care dude. Thanks
Holy Christ, when I was a gullible kid, I remember saving paper ticket tokens from boardwalk amusements all summer long to get enough of points to get a radio that looks just like the one in the video here. That radio didn't last not even 6 months. I think one of my old girlfriends took it. Lololol.
I have a transistor pocket radio at work. People look at me funny when i break it out. I tell them it may look dorky, but i dont need to keep charging it every hour to listen to music through my phone.
Nice repair, never knew you could heat capacitors up like that to fault find - thanks for that tip, would like one of those radios, but can't seem to buy one in UK. Would be no probs battery wise, but mains voltage differences (230VAC 50Hz) would make them incompatible, and GE / US never sent us any?
Well done job I’m yet to get mine fixed there so common I’m sure getting a new switch should be easy
I have a radio exactly like this one, it belonged to my dad and was his favorite fishing pastime
I have one of those waiting for a restoration in excellent cosmetic condition. Those were super popular with older boomers as a good radio vs. the crappy drug store stuff.
Clever repair strategy
My ad for this video. "I want a new thing new thing new thing"
How does heating a dried up Electrolytic Capacitor with a Soldering Iron make it useable again (if only for a short while) ?
I would have thought that this would just make it even more dried up.
I was raised up on this exact radio.
I have one of those radios! I should test it to see if it still works.
I won't see this, but I am curious whether 40-50 years from now around a $100 chinese DSP pocket radios will work at all? (That they are unrepairable by design we already know)
Wow, I had several of these over the years, ya mean they aren't made any more???
I have one of those in my shop, it too is a real sensitive radio.
Hey man I just got a p977 radio it work fine for about a week then just cut off on me the speaker still cuts on but just makes a humming sound could you please help me figure out what it could be
Very cool. Radio whisperer. TV whisperer. Mine whisperer.
Great tips love this stuff.
Good presentation.
I have one from the 70's uses an integrated circuit IC. I think it has only 2_transistors. Its easy to get apart.
Hi, I'm kind of new to this and working on a P975f. It has a corroded on/volume potentiometer. Tried to replace on ebay and got one that looked like it. On arrival it was too small. Any help with the right part# would be appreciated. Thanks!
I believe it is a 50k variable resistor, but I'd like to find a correct part#.
What happened to your intro/update section in the beginning of this?
These were decent radios, I remember checking them out. There was also a cheap no-name knockoff radio designed to look just like that GE model back when it was a popular seller. The knockoff version was a total POS and when it did actually pick up anything the audio was distorted and very unpleasant to listen to. Guess which one I got for my birthday.
At 9:00 you got me laughing so hard I was choking.
I have 2 radios from the 70's and works fine, but passed the minutes, the sounds start to fade. ¿Maybe a caps problems?
Politics sucks. But radio repair is great!
I have one of these radios, but the antenna is snapped. If anyone knows where I can still find a replacement antenna, please reply.
sorry for the receiver (((. is it okay to repair it poorly?
it was made in hong kong, u can see the bottom
Very good work,very interesting transistor...I see that on your region where you living very good work AM diapason...where are you from
"ooooh i want one of those" lmao....
Toilet Korg mobile toilet?
@@shango066 lol. no. i was having a chuckle at your reaction to what was being said on the radio about chest pains etc
11:34 (where the needle is just slightly to the right of 70) Can anyone name that tune for me?
Cheap Trick “Surrender”
@@mjg263 Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Every time i hear the planes above.....do you live on an airport?...thx for the video!
LAX I suspect....
@RebelDeuce Good point. I lived near Rochester International in NY and the ground shook sometimes several times a day. Some tradeoffs not that loud. Others demanded your Steve attention. God Bless
10:52 Korean broadcast :)
yey !
😉👍👍
I have the same radio.8/2/2021
Take care of You
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Lol, yeah they'll charge you for 10 lbs shipping just to be safe.
Dad had one