That must be why the weather's turning cold. The sunshine harvesters are all neglected and rusting away www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/sunshine-harvester-works
Greetings from Roleystone WA. I am re-capping my Nordmende Fidelio 58 ATM and using your Regoletto restoration as a guide. Thank you Don for your videos. Always pleasure to watch.
Hi Sergei and greetings from Midland WA. You're almost around the corner! Good luck with your Fidelio restoration & please let me know if I can be of any help. Cheers
Hi John. I've been tossing up between the Hacker and the Columbus but since @VintageRadioSteve has offered to send me a knob I think I'll do the Columbus first. The Hacker will be a close second then maybe the Pacemaker. Cheers
Wow !! So much space as I said in the last video. Over here no space, no where to park. No doctors , no asistance for the eldery, the wole place has fallen apart. Prices rising each week for the the food shop, should have come to Aus years ago!!! Thanks for the video. See you on the next resurection. Best wishes Lynton G4XCQ
Wonderful scenery! Nice job, Don! Looks like you and your wife had a very enjoyable trip. I just wish you would stop driving on the wrong side of the road. It really is very dangerous. 😺 Seriously, i liked that International Harvester truck that was built with right-hand drive.
Hi Superhet The reason we drive on the wrong side of the road is because we're upside down. It's very confusing because the further North we head, the hotter it gets. Yes there were a lot of International Harvester trucks here in the 1930's through to the 50's. They were produced in Australia from the late '40's I think. Anyway I like poking around old machinery, as you might have noticed. Glad you enjoyed the video
Being a Brit, and a Vintage Radio restorer, Hacker Sovereign radios are fairly common place LOL. Your Columbus (Radio Corporation of New Zealand), model 26P by the look of things would be a nice little restoration project. Phil, the chap from Sheffield.
Hi Don, makes you wonder how people thought they could make a living out in what was essentially desert. I used to come across many an abandoned town or house in the 70s and 80s, mostly gone now, subsumed into much larger properties. They were untouched since the 20s or 30s with the "food' still on the table. A bit like the abandoned pub. Definitely do the Columbus, I've suddenly managed to acquire 3 NZ Bell radios. Like trams you don't see one for years and then they all come at once!
Hi Andrew, Yes it does make you wonder. I was talking to a chap at Canna who blamed the demise of many small farms on mechanisation. A large property can now be run by a single person or family so no need for workers etc so the population declines. Properties are being amalgamated so still fewer people needed to run them. Yes, I've decided to tackle the Columbus first. Steve from VintageRadioSteve has offered to send me a knob for it so that was the decider. I restored a Bell Colt about 3 years ago - before I was doing UA-cam. It also had that fat figure 8 cord. I think it was a pretty standard NZ thing at the time. Mine was a slightly earlier model and had different knobs but otherwise looked the same. I believe the knobs can sometimes be a bastard to remove. I enjoyed the video anyway. Cheers
@@Donno308 I was later told Bell bought a huge load of the mains wire cheap so it was fitted on everything from the transistor version of the Colt through to their TVs. I'm sifting through all the stuff I recently bought ready for a trading table (junk sale basically) day we are having on 8th June. Problem is it all works to at least some degree! I've already sold two radios at the bazaar. So it's looking promising as a place to get far better money than at the club auctions. Have you seen Radiocruncher's video of their fair, not good prices in the UK either.
Ever see a whole bunch of emus walking around? It's called a mob of emus. Boy that skyview platform was a great overview of land so much looking like what southern Utah or northern Arizona may have looked like if there weren't so much erosion over the last several million years. Dang flies! Your visit around Australia would be so much nicer without the little pesty buggers! Plenty of abandoned stuff to explore in "the middle of nowhere" just like in the American southwest. Back at home you got a lot of restoration work ahead. Decisions decisions. The knobs seen on the Columbus were pretty common on 1940s radios here in the states. Nice holiday trip I'm sure you both enjoyed. Steve from Illinois, USA
Hi Steve. Emus are also known as bush chooks (chook = chicken). These were running around on a new residential development which had possibly displaced them from their normal habitat. The single one would have been the male, standing guard over his mob. As for the radios I'm inclined to make a start on the Columbus. I'll have a look at methods of moulding a new knob. Cheers
Hi Don, welcome home... I really enjoy these road trip videos... makes me want to road trip around Oz myself... although I might need to plan somewhere with fewer flies! I did a little snooping after you asked why the flags were at half-mast in Morowa... was that on the 6th of May? Apparently, a well-known and respected local, Marie Marks, had passed away on the 1st, and the town did that in honour of her. The Pacemaker transistor looks original - they were the first(?) transistor portable in the world to have an RF stage (so they say). Replace the electro's and it will probably fire up. Sorry, I remember you asked me about a Columbus knob, I assume for that set? I'll post you one, let me know the diameter. The worst part of restoring it will be the metal-can 0.1uF caps soldered into cups under the chassis. They leak and will probably be oily and sticky. They do go well when restored though. Cheers, Steve
Hi Steve. Yes the flies were a bloody nuisance this trip. I've been up that way a number of times before and never had a problem with them. People are blaming the Easterly winds, the lack of rain - there are various theories. Yes, it would have been the 6th May that we passed through Morowa. Thanks for the info. I'll google it. Thanks for the offer of the knob. I would really like to keep this one original so it's much appreciated. The knob is the larger of the 2 sizes on this radio and I measured it at 1 1/2 inches or 38.3mm diameter. It's about 5/8" or 16mm deep and has the sailing ship motif. If you drop me an email at donno1955@hotmail.com we can sort out the details. Apart from deterioration of the finish on the woodwork everything else looks to be in nice condition with no damage anywhere. Re the Pacemaker, I guess the original finish would have been clear lacquer over the timber case? Cheers and thanks again It also looks nice and original and I wouldn't be surprised if it still works.
Steve, the flies are so bad we wear fly nets over our heads during the day. The flies wake you up around sunrise and settle down around sunset. When the last of the flies have gone it’s absolute bliss and you can have a drink and prepare the evening meal. During the day every time you stop the car it fills up with flies. You can drive along with open windows hoping the venturi effect sucks them out but they hide down the back. My solution is to either use a 12V vacuum cleaner to suck them up, or fly spray. You see people with a dozen flies crawling in their eyes etc I don’t know how they can stand it. The flies also recognise when you don’t have a spare hand to swish them away.
I would be interested to see either of the early transistor radios restored. Either the Hacker or th Ozzy one. Always interested in any earlier valve radios. Cheers Don. So many abandoned towns on your trip. I presume a lot closed due to lack of water?
Don, I do like the road trip videos. Being from So Florida, it is interesting to see other parts of the world. I recently picked up and fixed up a Singer HE-2200 portable record player it is a 60's version of the AT Sound-Berger. So I wouldn't mind seeing the Toshiba Record Player gone through.
Hi Mark. Yes, the little record player should be an easy fix. My guess is that it'll probably work straight up and only needs a cleanup. But who knows? It'll make a good quick project in between bigger ones.
Many thanks for your travel videos Don, really enjoyed them all. Western Australia is so big, even the part nearer to where you live would be interesting to see. 🙂
Hi Brian. Glad you enjoyed the video. Yes, it's a big state. This video only covered maybe a quarter of the way up the West coast. I've been thinking of starting a separate channel for my travel stuff. I have so much that I've never published but they are "off topic" for my radio channel and actually lose me subscribers! Just wondering where you're located? Cheers
@@Donno308 Hi Don, I'm in Adelaide. Old and can't travel, never set foot in WA so it always appeals to me to see parts of this huge country I'll never see in person. Another channel sounds great if it's easy for you to do. Please don't endanger your radio channel to entertain a handful of oddballs like me. I love the radios you work on. Seems like you go out of your way to pick difficult, challenging sets at times! 😏
@@brianh2269 Hi Brian. What a pity you can't travel. I suppose that'll be me one day. I'm not sure about the second channel - One channel I follow - Techo Baz- has a separate channel for his travel videos and caravan stuff. I'm not to sure how to do it but it can't be that hard. Anyway I do get lots of positive comments about the travel stuff and if a couple of people unsubscribe, well, they can get stuffed. Yes I do tend to take on radios that are a bit unusual or that no one else will touch. I get bored doing the easy ones. I do the videos as I go and I never know if I'm going to succeed in fixing them or not. So far I've done ok or just been lucky. It may seem that I sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to get them going but that's because I don't want to chuck out all the video I've done! 😜
Hi Erik Yes I think I'll have a go at the Columbus. If I can't source a knob (maybe from New Zealand) I'll see if I can cast one in resin or something.
Yep. I’ve only once encountered flies like this, and that was just North of Coober Pedy a few years ago. The locals were blaming the unusual Easterly wind, the lack of rain … there were various theories.
9:32 And what does a *Sunshine Harvester* do? You guessed it..... It *harvests sunshine,* of course! LOL😁
That must be why the weather's turning cold. The sunshine harvesters are all neglected and rusting away
www.nma.gov.au/explore/features/sunshine-harvester-works
@@Donno308 LOL Yeah!
Greetings from Roleystone WA. I am re-capping my Nordmende Fidelio 58 ATM and using your Regoletto restoration as a guide. Thank you Don for your videos. Always pleasure to watch.
Hi Sergei and greetings from Midland WA. You're almost around the corner!
Good luck with your Fidelio restoration & please let me know if I can be of any help.
Cheers
Thanks Don. Much appreciated!
Thanks Don. I keep dreaming of heading bush again, then you remind me how bad the flies can be!
Thumbs up for the travel vids. Australia is such a beautiful country, I love seeing it. Columbus is my vote. Cheers, Don
Don, Glad to see you back home! The hacker would be nice!
Hi John. I've been tossing up between the Hacker and the Columbus but since @VintageRadioSteve has offered to send me a knob I think I'll do the Columbus first. The Hacker will be a close second then maybe the Pacemaker.
Cheers
Don, Fine with me. Glad to see you enjoyed your holiday and that you're back. Sincerely, John
Wow !! So much space as I said in the last video. Over here no space, no where to park. No doctors , no asistance for the eldery, the wole place has fallen apart. Prices rising each week for the the food shop, should have come to Aus years ago!!!
Thanks for the video. See you on the next resurection.
Best wishes
Lynton G4XCQ
Imagine seeing that view for the first time. Wow
Thanks for sharing this Don. Those old abandoned places/towns are fascinating!
Wonderful scenery! Nice job, Don! Looks like you and your wife had a very enjoyable trip.
I just wish you would stop driving on the wrong side of the road. It really is very dangerous. 😺
Seriously, i liked that International Harvester truck that was built with right-hand drive.
Hi Superhet
The reason we drive on the wrong side of the road is because we're upside down. It's very confusing because the further North we head, the hotter it gets.
Yes there were a lot of International Harvester trucks here in the 1930's through to the 50's. They were produced in Australia from the late '40's I think. Anyway I like poking around old machinery, as you might have noticed.
Glad you enjoyed the video
Being a Brit, and a Vintage Radio restorer, Hacker Sovereign radios are fairly common place LOL. Your Columbus (Radio Corporation of New Zealand), model 26P by the look of things would be a nice little restoration project.
Phil, the chap from Sheffield.
Hi Don, makes you wonder how people thought they could make a living out in what was essentially desert. I used to come across many an abandoned town or house in the 70s and 80s, mostly gone now, subsumed into much larger properties. They were untouched since the 20s or 30s with the "food' still on the table. A bit like the abandoned pub.
Definitely do the Columbus, I've suddenly managed to acquire 3 NZ Bell radios. Like trams you don't see one for years and then they all come at once!
Hi Andrew,
Yes it does make you wonder. I was talking to a chap at Canna who blamed the demise of many small farms on mechanisation. A large property can now be run by a single person or family so no need for workers etc so the population declines. Properties are being amalgamated so still fewer people needed to run them.
Yes, I've decided to tackle the Columbus first. Steve from VintageRadioSteve has offered to send me a knob for it so that was the decider.
I restored a Bell Colt about 3 years ago - before I was doing UA-cam. It also had that fat figure 8 cord. I think it was a pretty standard NZ thing at the time. Mine was a slightly earlier model and had different knobs but otherwise looked the same. I believe the knobs can sometimes be a bastard to remove. I enjoyed the video anyway.
Cheers
@@Donno308 I was later told Bell bought a huge load of the mains wire cheap so it was fitted on everything from the transistor version of the Colt through to their TVs.
I'm sifting through all the stuff I recently bought ready for a trading table (junk sale basically) day we are having on 8th June. Problem is it all works to at least some degree!
I've already sold two radios at the bazaar. So it's looking promising as a place to get far better money than at the club auctions. Have you seen Radiocruncher's video of their fair, not good prices in the UK either.
@@electrosoundaust Hi. No I noticed the Radiocruncher video but haven't had time to watch it yet. I'll have a look tonight.
Cheers
Ever see a whole bunch of emus walking around? It's called a mob of emus. Boy that skyview platform was a great
overview of land so much looking like what southern Utah or northern Arizona may have looked like if there weren't so
much erosion over the last several million years. Dang flies! Your visit around Australia would be so much nicer without
the little pesty buggers! Plenty of abandoned stuff to explore in "the middle of nowhere" just like in the American southwest. Back at home you got a lot of restoration work ahead. Decisions decisions. The knobs seen on the Columbus were pretty common on 1940s radios here in the states. Nice holiday trip I'm sure you both enjoyed. Steve from Illinois, USA
Hi Steve. Emus are also known as bush chooks (chook = chicken). These were running around on a new residential development which had possibly displaced them from their normal habitat. The single one would have been the male, standing guard over his mob.
As for the radios I'm inclined to make a start on the Columbus. I'll have a look at methods of moulding a new knob.
Cheers
Bush chooks.. and so much spaceeeee
I love your country!
thanks
The Columbus looks good.. Carl.
Hi Don, welcome home... I really enjoy these road trip videos... makes me want to road trip around Oz myself... although I might need to plan somewhere with fewer flies! I did a little snooping after you asked why the flags were at half-mast in Morowa... was that on the 6th of May? Apparently, a well-known and respected local, Marie Marks, had passed away on the 1st, and the town did that in honour of her. The Pacemaker transistor looks original - they were the first(?) transistor portable in the world to have an RF stage (so they say). Replace the electro's and it will probably fire up. Sorry, I remember you asked me about a Columbus knob, I assume for that set? I'll post you one, let me know the diameter. The worst part of restoring it will be the metal-can 0.1uF caps soldered into cups under the chassis. They leak and will probably be oily and sticky. They do go well when restored though. Cheers, Steve
Hi Steve. Yes the flies were a bloody nuisance this trip. I've been up that way a number of times before and never had a problem with them. People are blaming the Easterly winds, the lack of rain - there are various theories.
Yes, it would have been the 6th May that we passed through Morowa. Thanks for the info. I'll google it.
Thanks for the offer of the knob. I would really like to keep this one original so it's much appreciated.
The knob is the larger of the 2 sizes on this radio and I measured it at 1 1/2 inches or 38.3mm diameter. It's about 5/8" or 16mm deep and has the sailing ship motif.
If you drop me an email at donno1955@hotmail.com we can sort out the details.
Apart from deterioration of the finish on the woodwork everything else looks to be in nice condition with no damage anywhere.
Re the Pacemaker, I guess the original finish would have been clear lacquer over the timber case?
Cheers and thanks again
It also looks nice and original and I wouldn't be surprised if it still works.
@@Donno308 check your email 🙃
Steve, the flies are so bad we wear fly nets over our heads during the day. The flies wake you up around sunrise and settle down around sunset. When the last of the flies have gone it’s absolute bliss and you can have a drink and prepare the evening meal. During the day every time you stop the car it fills up with flies. You can drive along with open windows hoping the venturi effect sucks them out but they hide down the back. My solution is to either use a 12V vacuum cleaner to suck them up, or fly spray. You see people with a dozen flies crawling in their eyes etc I don’t know how they can stand it. The flies also recognise when you don’t have a spare hand to swish them away.
@@roberto9666 And here I was thinking the spiders and snakes were the worst thing that could happen to you in Australia! 😲
I would be interested to see either of the early transistor radios restored. Either the Hacker or th Ozzy one. Always interested in any earlier valve radios. Cheers Don. So many abandoned towns on your trip. I presume a lot closed due to lack of water?
Welcome home, Don!
Don, I do like the road trip videos. Being from So Florida, it is interesting to see other parts of the world. I recently picked up and fixed up a Singer HE-2200 portable record player it is a 60's version of the AT Sound-Berger. So I wouldn't mind seeing the Toshiba Record Player gone through.
Hi Mark. Yes, the little record player should be an easy fix. My guess is that it'll probably work straight up and only needs a cleanup. But who knows? It'll make a good quick project in between bigger ones.
Many thanks for your travel videos Don, really enjoyed them all. Western Australia is so big, even the part nearer to where you live would be interesting to see. 🙂
Hi Brian. Glad you enjoyed the video. Yes, it's a big state. This video only covered maybe a quarter of the way up the West coast.
I've been thinking of starting a separate channel for my travel stuff. I have so much that I've never published but they are "off topic" for my radio channel and actually lose me subscribers!
Just wondering where you're located?
Cheers
@@Donno308 Hi Don, I'm in Adelaide. Old and can't travel, never set foot in WA so it always appeals to me to see parts of this huge country I'll never see in person.
Another channel sounds great if it's easy for you to do.
Please don't endanger your radio channel to entertain a handful of oddballs like me. I love the radios you work on. Seems like you go out of your way to pick difficult, challenging sets at times! 😏
@@brianh2269 Hi Brian. What a pity you can't travel. I suppose that'll be me one day. I'm not sure about the second channel - One channel I follow - Techo Baz- has a separate channel for his travel videos and caravan stuff. I'm not to sure how to do it but it can't be that hard. Anyway I do get lots of positive comments about the travel stuff and if a couple of people unsubscribe, well, they can get stuffed.
Yes I do tend to take on radios that are a bit unusual or that no one else will touch. I get bored doing the easy ones.
I do the videos as I go and I never know if I'm going to succeed in fixing them or not. So far I've done ok or just been lucky. It may seem that I sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to get them going but that's because I don't want to chuck out all the video I've done! 😜
Hi Don, mixed feelings about 'rusty land' down there, but for the better looks I liked that Columbus, it has some umpf in it. Sadly one knob missing.
Hi Erik
Yes I think I'll have a go at the Columbus. If I can't source a knob (maybe from New Zealand) I'll see if I can cast one in resin or something.
2:29 Here's the great grandson of the *Old Man Emu* that John Williamson "interviewed" for his song! LOL😁
Almost certainly a descendant of the venerable old bush chook
@@Donno308 Yeah, but you had to block your ears against all the *fowl* language! LOL😃
@@neilforbes416 Careful or you will end up with egg on your face lol
The FLYS!!!
Yep. I’ve only once encountered flies like this, and that was just North of Coober Pedy a few years ago. The locals were blaming the unusual Easterly wind, the lack of rain … there were various theories.