Restoration Adventure, 1946 Baby Champ Radio Receiver!
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Full in-depth restoration of a Northern Electric Baby Champ radio receiver. For links, click the SHOW MORE tab below. Enjoy!
To learn electronics in a very different and effective way, and gain access to Mr Carlson's personal designs and inventions, visit the Mr Carlson's Lab Patreon page here: / mrcarlsonslab
#restoration #electronics #repair
To learn electronics in a very different and effective way, and gain access to Mr Carlson's personal designs and inventions, visit the Mr Carlson's Lab Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/MrCarlsonsLab
I noticed at 1:10:15 that you are trying to peak the sensitivity and you have to really concentrate during turning the tuning screws. It helps a lot with tuning or fine adjusting such screws when you temporalily mount a large diameter knob or "wheel" to the other end of the adjusting screwdriver. Thus you can control the angle of the tuned screw more precisely since you don't focus on the gripping of the tool. It will also reduce the shakiness of turning something. We are humans are good at gripping and putting torque, but for extended times it puts strain on our muscles and tendons. Thus the fine control ability is reduced over matter of seconds.
what a wonderful video and a classy little radio. nice to see the process covered in a single video.
VIM ???
Question Mr Carlson - I noticed that the Shortwave Antenna and Oscillator coils not only have different amounts of turns; but also seem to have different gauges of wire. Does the wire gauge also affect detecting and receiving the different bands?
Thank you for your many years of high quality, indepth instructional videos.
Б. Ж. . ж. Жб..жб з Жюль. Жб жб. Жб жб..
The harmonious relationship between manufacturers and customers back then was fantastic. Sad to see what it's devolved to today.
Wait, i know that nickname from a certain dark lord's social media platform...
@@matthiasmartin1975 ✝️
@@matthiasmartin1975 vox day
@@keltar4071 I prefer Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legions of Evil.
@@matthiasmartin1975 .I just noticed the bear in your.handle. that can only mean 1 thing owen b
For those who did not know, Northern Electric became Northern Telecom in the 70's and then Nortel in 1996. The company was based in Montréal back then. Very nice radio. Thanks!
I buddy of mine worked for a smaller telecom that got acquired by Nortel. He had so many stock options that he made a $1 million after the acquisition. He was smart nad invested in real estate. Talk about being at the right company at the right time!
I attended multiple Northern Training centers and worked on Nortel PBX's and Norstar systems for about 30 years. Their "No Forklift" upgrade was something of a joke as you sometimes replaced a card cage but not the entire PBX. It was great stuff and years ahead of much of the Bell System equipment. I retired in 2006 and Nortel was gone just 3 years later with it's assets sold to a number of companies..
That is kind of what I was thinking although I had no idea about the years. Is it still a Canadian based company? It is hard to tell anymore with so many companies buying out other companies.
@@brucewinningham4959 my understanding is that Nortel went bankrupt in 2013 (the largest bankruptcy in Canadian history at that time) after allegations of Chinese Military/ corporate espionage that benefited Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Good to know Bertrand! Thanks!
Your level of knowledge blows my mind! You jump right into stuff that most people would shy away from, (like fixing an audio transformer with wires not much bigger that a human hair!). When you opened up this box, I thought, "I wouldn't know where to start", but you made this radio a thing of beauty! Thanks for sharing!
I just completed watching this video, and while I don't always watch every video you do, I almost always tend to watch the restorations you do on antique/vintage radios etc..
Many many years ago, (back in the dark ages! Lol)) I worked in a TV repair shop. We of course also did radios and other electronics as well. I' really dating myself, but it was way back when things in the TV repair business were really changing quickly. Think early through mid 1980's especially. Long before internet and flat screen TV's, but things were changing very fast at that time. Most of the high quality name brands by that time, meant nothing because those names had been purchased by Chinese companies. So even though people thought they had bought a high end "beautiful Zenith" set, you'd find when you opened it up, it had the same, inexpensive Chinese "guts" in it as the no name brands. So, they had just started putting the high end name brands on inexpensive Chinese junk at that time. As for the electronics, Chips were just starting to get more and more common., as to where before that time we rarely saw any "chips" at all.
What was nice about that time period was that it was before things really changed into the throw away world of today. People were still repairing things whenever possible, instead of just throwing out and replacing. But with the Chinese name brand scenario I mentioned above, prices of sets were coming down quickly and the throw away world was approaching quickly. But at that time, there was still a lot if the really high quality brands out there, being brought in for repair. (Of course we'd go to the house and repair there if a simple job, but most often sets were brought back to the shop... LOTS of carrying of heavy sets in those days!) But in the early 80's, we were still taking in for repair MANY sets made in the early to late 60's. We were still replacing picture tubes etc. So, it was a great time IMO. This was also before people had cable tv in their homes. So, tv tuners were still being used. Many sets were still manual, no remote control. Or, some had the original 'Clicker' sent in with them. Remember those! Lol ... Tuner cleaner was still the #1 spray we had on the bench. And the old Zenith rotary dial tuners, with gold contacts that we'd strip from the old sets to collect the gold from. Lol Those old rotary tuners would get so dirty, and of course cigarette smoke and nicotine was absolutely caked up inside coating all the sets electronics! (Since everyone still smoked in those days) But yea, those rotary Zenith tuners you could coat with Tuner cleaner, and then go to town just spinning them like crazy and most often that alone would clean them up. Vertical & horizontal output transistors, audio output etc etc. Lots came in with the common problems of those days.
Long story short, I enjoyed those years a lot. And am happy I was involved at the time I was. My life went a different direction some years later and my TV repair days were over, except for an occasional home project on an antique radio or something just for fun.
Your love of electronics shines through your videos and in the quality and details of your work! Obviously it's a labor of love for you, and it's that quality that makes people GREAT at what they do. Your work is excellent, and you address every detail in your restorations. And again, if you didn't love these old pieces you're working on, and didn't love the electronics inside of them the way you obviously do, that would change everything, because as I said, your love & enjoyment of what you're doing pours right out this end as we watch you!
Thanks for sharing your passion with us, and thanks for restoring all these beautiful old radios you work on. It's great to see them functioning as new again. Sadly, with these great old pieces of our history disappearing, its almost like losing part of Americana as we've always known it. And while I don't think we'll ever start manufacturing TV sets and radios in the US again like we used to, we have these ild sets to restore and to show the younger generations the kind of quality and items we used to manufacture right here in the USA. And that was back when if it said 'Japan' on the back, we knew it was no good and into the trash it went! Lol in exchange for an American made set. But how the world and our country has changed. But that's another topic not to discuss here.
Thanks again for all you do! 'JM'
Thanks for your kind comments, and taking the time to write "JM." That was a great read.
Popcorn.. check. Coffee.. check.
Popcorn and coffee?
I always love your restoration videos. For me this one was different because you included your cleaning process as well - really good to see that. It must be so satisfying to listen to these sets after you have restored them.
The white paint overspray might be the same reason as I see most of them with white dots around here: older radios usually are put into the rooms during renovation and people don't cover them up - "it's just the old radio and will be replaced soon" - and then it's all white wall paint spatter from some paint roller for them.
That does make sense.
Those Canadians sure knew how to build a radio. The workmanship on that 5 pack is beautiful. The workmanship of the restorer isn't too bad either.
Very impressive little set, and what a wonderful range of stations you have, where you are located.
I am located in north-west England and the reception of stations on the "Broadcast Band" ("Medium Wave" as it is known here in Europe) is pretty poor, with large chunks of the band being silent. Most of the national radio stations have been taken off the "Medium Wave" Band, in-favour of the V.H.F. band (87.5 MHz - 108 MHz) in F.M., and "D.A.B. Radio" in the U.H.F. Band.
Even the "Longwave Band" (153 kHz - 279 kHz) once used extensively in Europe, is gradually being abandoned, with just the British 'Droitwich' transmitter on 198 kHz, and Southern Ireland's "RTE radio 1" from the 'Clarkstown' transmitter on 252 kHz being receivable here now. Even Luxembourg that had been on Long Wave since the 1930's, has recently closed this LW service.
Even "Short Wave" is gradually being abandoned, with many European broadcasters switching over to internet radio for their broadcasts.
In my opinion, it is a very sad demise of a broadcasting medium and is gradually rendering vintage radio's to museum collections.
Antique Dust and Over spray. Authentic Dead Bugs. 😂😂 Leave no pot unturned! Thanks for the Content as always !
Mr. Carlson, It would be awesome to see you design and build your own custom vacuum tube radio using your extensive knowledge in radio electronics! I bet it would work amazingly well!
Love these "full length" restoration videos, complete with the Q-tip cleaning process. I imagined a little Curious Mark elevator music during this cleaning and disassembly section. Oh, and I'll tip one back later for the, "If you're following along at home..." disclaimer! (Hi Bob!) :D Thanks for another fine video, Paul.
Your radio restorations are so elegant and thoroughly done! Thanks for sharing this. Have a great day!
There was a subsequent AM only model that had a third knob. The middle knob was use as a high-low tone selector. I wonder if Northern Electric had a bunch on 3 hole cabinets they needed to unload. Cabinet was also used for an office intercom system that NE marketed.
NE also sold the AM/SW model in South Africa under the “Airtone” brand name.
That transformer repair was EPIC! Surgeon precision. I am so glad you showed that. That is a tough thing to do right. 😃
I have this EXACT radio. Paying *very* close attention to this one!
to the engineers who designed this: "you did an excellent job over 75 years ago!"
What's curious is these engineers employed both the KISS principle and a highly accurate design!
Great job as always! I especially liked the repair of the transformer. That radio is so cool, with the pointer that looks like a little propeller and the dial face that looks like an aeronautical instrument.
Have to admit... that transition of the Nixie ohm meter readout melting into the radio chassis made me laugh a lot harder than it should have. (Vacation time, I suppose. 😅) Never gets old seeing these things come back to life. I need to get off my own laurels and finish _my_ restoration project. Thanks for the inspiration, Mr. Carlson!
Glad you enjoyed it Ted!
@@MrCarlsonsLab are those in12 tubes?
Big cup of nescafé ready for the movie
I usually start my mornings with Haseeb electronics in the morning with coffee and or tea. Carlson gets my afternoon slot with iced coffee and lunch.
@@W1RMD the same with me i wake up and find notification from Haseeb electronics i also follow him
some times i find notification from Mr. carlsons lab at midnight and I'm always happy to see both of them
Mr Carlson, what I found impressive is the way you did the proper back and forth alignment to get the local oscillator to track to the dial. The correct way to get an AM or SW radio aligned.
Very nice video, I was given one just like yours but only with AM which I restored and have the same sensitivity results as you do. Thanks for sharing such an extensive restoration video.
Perry, Sherbrooke, Qc.
As a young teenager we had a 6volt battery unit that I was occasionally permitted to take to bed for DX listening. I had an exercise book that I would record station call signs in. I would turn into a broadcast and stay until a station I.D. was broadcast. Date and time recorded I would re-tune and start the whole process. I was later introduced to radio repair and repaired, re-built many older receivers. Thank you for letting me re-live those memories.
Hi Paul this is Dave Wallace/wally .With self tapes .When you reinsert them you turn them backwards so they click then you turn them forward so they cut in on the same cut✂️ as before this will stop stippling of the original . material . If you have this problem You use a bit of copper wire to space out and this will save you. Have done this many times and have had great results. Great show/channel 👍 .Best wishes 10/4 Good Buddy.
Another wonderful restoration. So lovely to see these old beauties brought back to life.
I beg to differ. Any idiot can take an already working radio and recap it
To get stuck knobs off, I use string wrapped a few times around the shaft behind the knob and gently pull. To clean bakeline, T-Cut metallic and a soft cotton cloth does wonders.
Radio used to be good but now it is all commercials and shouting about sports or politics... no music or stories or quality dialogue anymore just pre packaged manipulation...need more rogue stations! Nice radio. I love tube things.
Some classic music stations would be nice.
Timestamp ~36:00... thanks for showing us HOW to clean away grime on the metal chasis. And the minimal narration was appreciated (helped me concentrate on what you were doing).
Great video Paul, definitely my favorite format....from dusk till dawn. We get to see almost all of it in one go. It seems you can do these restorations with one hand....the amount and quality of knowledge you have is amazing. Can't wait for the next one. Cheers everyone and peace.
Thanks for your kind comment Nelson!
Paul, I appreciate the added detail that you provided with this excellent video! Although it requires more time and attention to produce and edit, neophytes like me are greatly served. Question: I have heard you refer to (several other times) to "washing" the tarnish-removing chemical from rotary switch contacts, etc. What wash are you referring to? Soap and water, alcohol? Thanks for your great knowledge and teaching skills! Dave
Wow...A radio, the same age as my Wife ....unfortunately we both take a while to warm up..Leaky Caps, I reckon...but We still Kickin'....
In my memory, if we didn't do our own Ham build for a particular piece of equipment, you didn't have one....
That was the point...
You certainly didn't buy it !!!
Keith (G4TDA)
Beautiful video Mr. Carlson: history, aesthetics, explanations, and exuberance. That transformer repair was really cool. From coastal Maine, with Retekess V-115 & vintage Sony handhelds (low budget fun), I've picked up 800 CKLW Windsor ONT (800 mi.), 740 CFZM Toronto, 900, CHML Hamilton. What province are you in and how far is Baby Champ reaching? Where's the part about what antenna you hooked up to? I'm picturing a 15m run of wire? Thanks, Paul
The receiver is attached to the 369 antenna. I have video's here about that. Thanks for your kind comment.
@@MrCarlsonsLab Wow those are long wires on your 369 antenna. How far does the Baby Champ (or your best AM radio) reach? I get up to 160km with handhelds, that's it.
My grandfather, my father and many other relatives worked at Northern Electric since its inception in Montreal. My grandfather, at one time, was the only living retiree with an employee number under 100. My dad always said he regretted not buying a Baby Champ. When yardsaling with my wife one day I found one in a barn. It's a true "barn" radio that is designed for battery use. I am planning to make a power supply to run it but of course, need to be careful of the old components. I would like to restore this radio and others I have picked up. Your video is amazing at showing exactly what I need to do. Thank you.
p.s. Do you have a video on creating an in house AM transmitter? I'd like to broadcast some period music as there are no AM stations within many miles of me.
Great video. The only irritation is that those IF coil adjustments are very easy in comparison to a lot of vintage radios I see in the UK, which have wax or paint seals, are very fiddly and most suggest ought not to be touched, for fear of breakage. I wonder if you could cover those one day, in the context of having a life outside YT, of course!
Hello--- You know, with so many folks watching your videos, a few will attempt to make a restoration or two. Some just starting out have no idea where to shop for tubes and parts for these little beauties. I'm sure there is some frustration in finding parts houses or stores so we can make some kind of attempt at fixing their father's favorite A.M. radio. Can you list your favorite shops so we can make some kind of attempt at ordering SOMETHING to make a go of it? ...Thanks a lot! Elrae / Hatboro, Pa.
The heater resistor cant be removed by replacing with a 50 tube, because the current in the 12s would be incorrect.
I believe you are testing us to see if we are listening. Here in Australia the Neutral is fixed, but i have always been amazed by the U.S.
twin pin reversal risks.....all very historical though....
In the early seventies the Grundig Radio Recorder C4500 had its service manual included with it manual of use. Even described how to adjust the pressure of the rubber wheel which pressed the tape against the capstan by the use of a spring scale (like the ones used in physics lessons in school). Where have all the good times gone?
I always enjoy watching Mr Carlson work his magic and restore old radios. I wish they were time machines and could receive stations from their time. Of course if they did, I am not sure if I would be excited or freaked out. LOL
WOW!! I've known about the model 5002 for a while, but have never found one. I can only find the model 5000, which is AM radio only.
Bloody Good Elucidation! I'm inspired to hack my way through the jungle of tube radios propagating in my shack!
Sorry, could not listen to the end because I was drwn to my radio so I could listen to those DX signal also. Thanks for remembering me why I am a ham, 73!
I have been enamored of these art deco radios as long as i can remember. I currentl own a Sterwart Warner table set from 1947. It remains idle since it does not receive any stations. I absolutely do not doubt it was a solid performer. I turned it on once! What a beauty all lit up. It works at getting started, but alas state of AM broadcasts is non existent. Yet i could tell the sound was spectacular. Its a beauty. Keeping it! He's all mine, lol.....❤
I graduated from technical school in 1995 ( analog/ digital electronics PC's and peripherals and industrial electronics) and always wanted to do what your doing with the troubleshooting and repair. Your video had my undivided attention from the start. Awesome stuff.
Mr Carlsons you are good at electronics and restoring vintage shortwave receivers and alignment of vintage shortwave receivers
ha ha first one here
Mr C. Best of both worlds, top side you have given homage to the original designers, yet Improved the under chassis layout. Best of both worlds.
Sweet looking set. I would not bother replacing caps or tubes. It has more value as a historic piece than it has for something to listen too.
Very helpful information and detail on this process...thanks, Paul! I imagine the listening demonstration was with the 3-6-9 antenna; works great. Thanks for sharing.
Great video sir. One type of radio I would like to see you work on is the old style TRF. Old hat now but once upon a time that's all there was. How things have changed !
Great, a good ol' quality restoration. I love that! And excelent video, as usual.
My lumarith phone boasted "western electric". Now this radio claims "northern electric".
Nice to see this restoration ,its realy interesting to follow the finetuning off this radio. Thanks 😃
Another great restoration plus the transformer repair. Can't wait for the AR88 restoration, I have one waiting here and will be following along
Maybe Louis Rossmann is watching? Thanks for great content from Sweden.
Majority most white Dots on radios are Spider Poop, not over spray. A lot of people Only spray with white paint?
I've been missing your full length videos. What a nice little radio! SO MUCH could be learned from this little receivers from which all other radio circuits can be more easily understood! I especially like the "exploded view" model AA5 that is in the "scopes for dopes" series that W2AEW has. It's built on a about a 2' x 2' piece of plywood and has all of the schematic symbols painted on the wood. Really cool to have a working model like this. Maybe it could be an easy project to build? Thanks a lot, and I enjoyed it as always!
Glad you enjoyed Ryan!
Now whilte changing stations and you hear, Pearl Harbor has been bombed, you got a proablem.
Love that front face design! 👍👍👍
Good tip about the open output transformer broken wire. I always thought if open it's toast!
That's a really nice little radio both in looks and performance. This would seem to be a the sort of radio that would make a good one for somebody getting into doing this sort of thing to work on. The wiring is pretty straight forward. Aside from the surgery on the transformer, there wasn't anything in this that was particularly tricky. I bet the tubes you pulled out tested fine as well. I have a theory on this one. Somebody got into it and totally messed up the adjustments and didn't have the gear needed to fix their mistake so the radio stopped being usable and they shelved it.
Very good possibility.
That was fun, thank you for sharing.
Damn, that was interesting and informative. If I had 4 hands it would be FOUR thumbs up.
Beautiful work with the audio transformer. Would love a radio like this for AM talk radio.
Thanks for sharing that alignment adventure.Slow and complete, it seems to stick.
You're welcome!
Ive learned loads just by watching this, this is brilliant paul.
Im English and your English language is superb considering you are Canadian
THANK YOU for not cutting out the tedious nature of aligning it. So many instructors would have done a few quick cuts and shown it all peaked up, leaving us wondering why it took so long to do on our test benches when the video showed it done in a jiffy. Also, major points for mentioning a Theremin!
Glad you enjoyed Justin!
Looks and sounds great, Paul! I really like the in-depth format as it really augments my limited knowledge of antique electronics and electronics in general. You've given me the confidence to tackle some of these projects on my own and I've so far been quite successful. I just wish I had your talent in acquiring the spectacular subjects you work on! Looking forward to the next full restoration!
Thanks for your kind feedback!
hearing this makes me miss the low amateur ham bands . i need to get another antenna up once the tree is free of leaves
WOW! That looks like you just bought it today. Beautiful condition.
I'm torn, I love that Mr Carlson saves these wonderful pieces of history, but couldn't you run +or- 20 new transistor radios with the same amount of electricity??? On the plus side, if you ran several of these radios at the same time, you wouldn't have to run your furnace in the winter ;-) Love your channel Mr Carlson!!! 🙂
Hi Brian. The radio only draws 30 Watts. So In comparison, about 2 LED lights for your house.
Great receiver Paul. Nice job on the restoration. BTW, was good to see it not working and had to do some troubleshooting.
Hi Paul, catching up on watching videos, a very nice job on a nice radio. In the past if the radio doesn't have paint spots I add my own so I can struggle to remove them later. You were lucky with the OP transformer, good job saving it. Thanks Paul.
Thanks for stopping by Dave, and your kind comment too!
Nothing like doing a little "knob-twirling" on a classic 1940's radio. Wonderful job as always Professor Carlson !!
This radio is 2 years older than me. I wish I looked that good! 😉
Egad man is that thing for sale? It's gorgeous. Well done.
@1:47 Mile long cord you surmised to be a replacement. But @15:45 the pic looks as if it has a mile long cord as well. If not the same, is very similar.
Just an observation, I concede to your expertise.
The original cord (not factory) was about 12Ft, the replacement is about 5Ft.
I've really been looking forward to another great restoration video and your awesome in-depth explanations and timely warnings of what not to do. Once again thank you so much for sharing your amazing and extensive knowledge with the You Tube community.
Thanks for your kind feedback!
Another excellent video. So nice to see these old radios come back to life.
I 💕 love these old radio restorations the older the better 😊🇨🇦
Great video again Paul!! You are a true master at what you do. I really do enjoy seeing these old tube style radios coming back to life. The engineer’s that designed and built these things back in the day really knew what they were doing. You mentioned one thing in the video that caught my ear, and you mentioned about a “Theremin”. Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys used a Theremin in the classic great song “Good Vibrations” in 1966 to make that unique sound in that song. Great correlation between your radio sound and Brian Wilson using that sound in his music. Great job Paul!!
What is the difference between a leaky cap passing DC (parallel resistance), compared to a cap having a bypass resistor to drain it?
Hi George. The difference is: two different applications. Bleeder resistors are there to drain capacitors off in power supplies, and the like. A parallel resistor across a capacitor in a coupling circuit will pass DC from the previous stage to the input of the next, which is bad.
Hi Paul can you do a video on how to align FM stereo multiplexer I looked all over the internet but I like the way you explain everything. If not its ok
Will do in a future video.
31:45 - Yes, they were on top of things, but the electricity providers hadn't even *thought* of polarized plugs until MUCH later! (?)
I love these videos!
I love this particular radio! I used to collect them, but only knew how to cosmetically restore them and do the most basic of repairs. At least now I know what MIGHT be wrong with them and have an understanding of what makes them work. I have had the two-knob version of that radio for decades, and won't be plugging it in anytime soon...
Why didn’t they make the wiring neat ?I know they didn’t have pcb’s but what a mess …(I’m a retired technician
It worked. It may not look pretty to us, but the electrons didn't care.
I'm always pleased that you reiterate the proper method of wiring the power cord. It's an important lesson in safety that bears repeating!
Not going to lie, I was a bit saddened when you discovered the audio xformer was bad. Considering how out-of-whack all the adjustable caps were, I think somebody started turning a screwdriver in the hopes they could get audio output, not knowing their efforts would be in vain. Totally impressed with your repair on it, and also impressed that you would consider repair when you probably have a Big Box o' Parts and could have swapped it out more easily than repairing the original. However, that defeats the "restoration" as it would then have a non-OEM part installed.
I'm guilty of using "unorthodox" antenna methods myself, although for FM reception. A home's cold water supply (well water) makes a rather effective antenna in a basement. 😆
Beautiful restoration, as usual. The night-and-day transformation at 28:36 was amazing, such a clean job!
Thanks for your kind comment Andy!
On your radio's SW band, it covers 3 Amateur radio bands, hence the Morse code heard. If you (crudely) coupled your signal generator to the back of the receiver at the I/F frequency (was it 455 kHz) you may be able to resolve some of the SSB and also hear the Morse code properly. I've done this a few times and even made a BFO using a 455 kHz ceramic resonator and a common diode used as a varicap diode to adjust the ceramic resonator frequency and you have a BFO for an AM radio with NO modification to the old radio itself, just an insulated wire running under the chassis to couple the 455 KHz BFO to the I/F.
If anyone is interested in such a BFO, I am happy to share the details.
Excellent restoration and what luck with the audio output transformer. All the radios I've restored that have had O/C primary audio output transformers, the winding has gone O/C within the core itself and have not been fixable and have had to be replaced.
K.
Great video, Mr Carlson! I have one of these from my "collecting days" when I first moved Canada. It is my favourite receiver and sounds (for it size) absolutely amazing! It fills up the entire bottom floor of my house with wonderful sounding AM signals. And yes, the shortwave capability is amazing. Thanks for sharing this!
You're welcome Thomas!
The performance on the SW band reminds me of listening to NHK Tokyo and Radio Moscow in the mid 1960's from a high elevation in Oregon. They came in 5 x 5 with little static. There is so much static from electronics and modern lighting these days!
Mr. Carlson, I want to commend you for an excellently presented, on what I consider a mysterious subject! Although I’ve always thought that electrical devices, radios, receivers, speaker etc. to be fascinating I never thought I could understand the deep intricacy of the parts, tubes, coils, transistors, capacitors, resisters etc. and design of the radio despite having always been a very analytical person. You obviously have that very deep knowledge and understanding of those electrical devices. That coupled with your excellent communication skills makes your segments content easy to follow without getting bored even after a video of over an hour and a half long. Thank you for such an enjoyable channel to watch and listen to.
0:49 - Guitar amps also acquire droplets of white paint. Just ask Uncle Doug! :)
Watching Mr Carlsons lab is getting expensive. Bought an oscilloscope, digital dvm, analog dvm, and a signal generator. Now I am looking at tube radios on evil bay 😅
You may have answered this in the past, but I have a question about filament wiring.
These tube filaments are wired in series. In the old incandescent Christmas lights, if you put a 12 volt lamp in a series string with every other lamp being 2.5 volts, the 12 volt lamp will immediately draw heavy current and burn out.
Why is this *not* the case with tube filaments? In both cases, you are putting incandescent filaments of different voltages together. Yet in the vacuum tubes, they are able to co-exist without issue, and in the Christmas lights the higher voltage lamps either burn very brightly, or just bite the dust.
Hi Blake. It's the current of the bulbs that needs to be matched. Every tube filament needs to draw the same **Current** and the combined voltage of all the tube filaments needs to add up to the applied AC. Christmas light bulbs are the same, the difference is, the 12V bulbs have a different current rating than the 2.5V bulbs.
@@MrCarlsonsLab Oh that makes much more sense. I thought maybe it had to do with the bulb shunts in the Christmas lights.
It would be nice to show sometime the failure modes of vacuum tubes. I've seen that some glow and get damaged by the overcurrent but what is actually breaking inside them?
When they get overloaded and the plate glows, there’s so much heat that the glass envelope gets damaged. The envelope can collapse where it got soft, or perhaps crack. Either way, the internal elements will get shifted somewhat or the vacuum will be lost and that’s that. With enough persistence, the envelope can look like someone took a torch to it and melted it. The other failure mode is internal shorts of mechanical nature. Out of those, worth pointing out the cathode to heater short in indirectly heated tubes. Another one of course is loss of vacuum with visually intact envelope - gassy tube. Next one is heater filament burnout - just like in a light bulb. Then finally the indirectly heated cathode’s emissive coating gets less effective over time, so you get a “weak” tube. I’m sure there are more details to some of the failure modes, and perhaps I missed one or two.
Sir I KNOW this is off topic but it must be done. I send you a BIG heart felt THANK YOU for your hard work on this channel. I collect vintage 1970's era HIFI audio equipment. Receivers, tape decks, equalizers, expanders and more. Thanks to you I know a LOT more about whats happening under the hood in vintage electronic gear. I know what capacitors, resistors and relays are and how they look when distressed or broken. I can't detect all bad by looks alone BUT I've learned how to spot bad repair work and so much more. I've learned to spot easily fixed expensive but broken gear offered cheap. I've literally saved 1000's using what you teach here.
What a cool restoration! Thank you for all the info. I learned a ton and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Should i replace only out of tolerance carbon composition resistors with new carbon composition or should i use metal film or carbon film. I read lots of conflicting information on this
In a receiver like this, metal film resistors would be just fine. Just make sure the Wattage matches or exceeds the original resistors.
@@MrCarlsonsLab thanks. Is this also the case for the am fm tube radios as well?