2:19 My ARVIN little 4-Tube Radio was made of plastic, and was made in the late 1950's. No 'IF stage', and no special crkt arrangements to compensate for its omission from the radio receiver's design. Also, the backside, which was still present when I bought it from a swap meet, was made of Masonite
Thanks for the great troubleshooting video. I love fixing old electronics, but for a while I let my colorblindness keep me from doing what I love. Now my daughter helps me with resistors and those crappy mica bombs. I watched your video where you mentioned your own sight challenges and that made me figure out my problem and stop feeling sorry for myself.
Yup! You've "polished that turd enough" alright, LOL! Some of those really old radios just didn't have decent volume in my experience UNLESS (You are RIGHT) A good grounding and a long-wire antenna are installed, so you did the best that could be done with it!
Why not replace the current volume control with a maxed out resistor and move the volume control into the audio output and then modify the audio output with large bypass cap and maybe increase the value of the pot? Also, maybe rebiasing the output would help in this case? Just a thought. I appreciate the video. This was a fun one.
I love those old radios, and this was a very entertaining video. One service point I do want to mention, though; as long as the field coil is functional, I never try to replace it with resistors, increased capacitance, etc---instead, I use a chisel to separate the speaker basket from the field coil housing, and mount the coil either on the chassis or the cabinet. Yeah, it may not be pretty, but from an electronic standpoint, it is 100% functional and correct.
Or buy a replacement 4'' cone, and recone the speaker. Otherwise use an iron filter choke placed either on a new PM speaker or under the chassis somewhere.
I had a 30's Philco that had a big chassis with lots of room underneath---I was able to mount the original field coil assembly under the chassis. Looking at it from the top, you'd never know.
I did that with a 1941 Silvertone radio. I was able to zip tie the field coil next to the chassis and use a modern PM speaker in place of the original.
That reminds me, back years ago, I was working part time as a gunsmith. I had taken one of those correspondence courses you see in the magazines from Modern School of Gunsmithing, then worked with a couple of college trained Gunsmith who ran a Gun Barrel plant in the town. I had purchased a very nice set of wood chisels for working on stocks and such. One day my son who was 16 at the time decided to cut a bigger hole in his back deck on his car, so he digs i dad's tool box and takes the set of chisels in their nice case out to his car and proceeds to put large cuts in each one as he tried to use wood chisels to cut steel. That was costly.
Nice restore. No doubt when that radio's antenna terminal is connected to a nice 100 foot long outdoor long-wire setup, that set will be plenty loud enough.
That was how I learned how to do it.I was given an old hardback book,"Everbody's Radio Manual" from 1934(mine was a 1954 reprint)then picked up different books over the years.I got the book back in 1962.I did TV repair the same way.Some of the books I had on TV repair came from the local drug store or department store."The New TV Repairs You Can Do".It sold new for about $3.00 in the early seventies.
As always, I've enjoyed this video of yours very much!! As others gave said: GREAT JOB! & You my friend, (like myself), have got the "Patience of Job!!" 😊 One thing though, (as I'm sure you had to have noticed), it didn't so much look like the Dial Needle was bent; but it looked as though there was a gasket or something in there, that appeared distorted, and was hanging down in the way! 🙂
Great video! I must admit, you are incredibly patient. Had it been me. I think I would have EOL-ed it in the style of Shango066. That is; if was not a customer's!! LOL!!
Did you try a different output transformer in the end? Sure does sound like shorted turns to me. Could the original speaker have been an odd impedance?
for some of us this is in the top ten of all ytube channels ....the explanations and troubleshooting demonstrations have rubes like me attacking our junkpiles :)
Back when I was a boy and starting out in radio I quickly learned that the coupling caps in the audio stages as well as any screen or plate bypass caps in an old radio were likely to be leaky. It is highly recommended to change those inexpensive components FIRST before firing up the radio. Following that practice will save damaging the output tube as well as other components in the radio or amplifier. It is well worth changing them before proceeding with other checks on the radio. Resistance checks are also advised before powering up an old piece of equipment to look for open wirewound resistors, inoperative switches, open coils, chokes, transformers, etc. as well as checking for shorts from points with B+ on them to chassis ground or B minus.
Early 1930's radios usually had an IF of around 175 kHz (much higher than the 50-60 kHz used in the 1920's). The problem was that you needed 2 tuned RF circuits for image rejection (hence the 3 ganged tuning capacitor). One economy measure taken was to omit the RF tube and use a double tuned circuit instead. This receiver omitted the IF tube instead. In later radios, the more standard IF of 450-470 kHz was adopted which didn't need the extra tuned circuit in the RF stage so you only needed a 2 gang tuning capacitor making it possible to build more economic radios.
There were some RCA and G.E models, from the 1933 model year, that used a very similar circuit, no IF amplifier tube, yet it had a tuned RF amplifier stage, with the exception that those had a police band which ran down to the 1450 KC mark or so. If I were to take a guess Wells Gardner (or perhaps Belmont Radio) probably licensed the circuit for this set from RCA, it even uses the same tube lineup. With regard to the speaker I would see about reconing it since it seems to be functional other then that, speakers with tapped field coils are not exactly that common so it would be worth restoring the original.
I had.to watch this.video.again ,I no one thing that owner is getting his money out of all the hard work you put into it.and as far as oldie stations ,that all I leasten to .I figure we are around the same.age.love your videos.
Whenever I run across a tube that suddenly craps out I've found that re-soldering the grid cap often fixes the problem, that's a common failure point on tubes that have caps, especially glass tubes. Another weak point is the grid cap leads themselves, the wires can break internally as well as the solder join between the lead and the clip.
It is kind of tricky to resolder grid caps back on as too much heat from your soldering iron will cause the solder to boil up from the heated air trapped below it. Use as little heat as possible and it will work just fine. WB6FBF
What about that heavy duty power resistor from a old television would that work, They still make those field coil loudspeakers I.E. Atelier Rullit - LAB 16
I think the out put screen voltage should be much lower then the plate voltage. The screen voltage is sucking the plate voltage from the out put transformer operation..
radiotvphononut, I respect your skill at diagnosing and I'm wondering why you don't use a tube tester? Is it just "one more piece of equipment taking up space"?
Tube testers can tell you the tube is flat dead, like if it has shorts, extreme gas, or open filament. But beyond that, your best tester is the circuit that will use the tube. Testers test at one operating point, and that isn't necessarily (in fact, almost never is) the operating point in the real circuit. Gas that will show bad on a tester might not affect a tube much in a given circuit. A tube with low emission that the tester says is bad often will work just fine in a given circuit, but not necessarily in some other circuit. If you have no tools at all, and no way of testing and diagnosing a device, then using a tester before firing up the parts cannon and just shooting all new tubes into it is good, since it will keep you from replacing everything. But it probably won't get an old radio like this working, because the real problem is more often a resistor or cap or transformer than a tube. In this case a tester could have helped a bit. But a tube tester is less useful than a multimeter.
Have you replaced the plate capacitor on the output stage. It might be shorted. You also, could have shorted turns in the output transformer. Also why so much hum on your signal tracer.
I think that this should be expected from a receiver that was built during the depths of the Depression. At that time, businesses had to cut corners to remain profitable.
I like old radio radios speaking of in another video you had a thumb stone radio with a bad power supply Any plans to fix your other tumb that has a bad power supply
would it be possible to explain in more detail the polarity of that particular filter capacitor,compared to other more common systems? Thanks for the encouragement.
You mentioned some other sources of videos about repairing old vacuum tube radios, and I would like to add another one. The very best I have ever seen are on "Mr. Carlson's Lab" on UA-cam. He covers so much that most of us would probably never think about, and does it in a manner that is simple enough for the absolute novice, but not dumbed down too much for the more advanced. He also has videos of test gear that he has designed and built that you can also build that do incredible things and for a whole lot less than you would have to pay for commercial stuff. A good example of his videos would be this one: ua-cam.com/video/OWXbdCz-AiY/v-deo.html I think the most amazing things on your video...this one...was the weird box style multi-capacitors and the volume control actually being more of an RF control rather than audio.
Yes. That control does two things. It tends to short out the antenna as you turn the control CCW as well as increase the cathode bias on the RF stage. WB6FBF
Output transformer has to be shorted. Even a small transformer from a power brick - preferably 3 or volt power brick would work much better. 2A5 is like a 6F6 tube. 3 or more.watts output
A substitute output transformer would be worth a try. No data for the primary winding resistance was given on the schematic. 400 Ohms would be a good guess. Plate voltage on the 2A5 should run about 20 volts lower that the screen voltage (250V).
Cheap Va-China Crosley aren't the only crappy radios, they did make crap long ago too. Perhaps you could put a modern day Crosley inside the case under the chassis, and they'd be none the wizer, lol. Don
Well, there is a very simple solution to your problem. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you watch my videos. So, if you find them boring; then, by all means, don't watch them. I'm sure you'll find other content on UA-cam that better suits your liking.
2:19 My ARVIN little 4-Tube Radio was made of plastic, and was made in the late 1950's. No 'IF stage', and no special crkt arrangements to compensate for its omission from the radio receiver's design.
Also, the backside, which was still present when I bought it from a swap meet, was made of Masonite
Thanks for the great troubleshooting video. I love fixing old electronics, but for a while I let my colorblindness keep me from doing what I love. Now my daughter helps me with resistors and those crappy mica bombs. I watched your video where you mentioned your own sight challenges and that made me figure out my problem and stop feeling sorry for myself.
It's amazing how technology has changed but it's amazing the history and you bring it alive.
I think it sounds damn good for an almost 100 year-old radio! Very interesting video, thanks!
wonderful video--I especially like demo of testing plate and grid voltages etc...!
LOL - I’m from the South and you make me feel right at home! Great video! Thanks & give us more!
Enjoyed this immensely, would like to see more in depth videos as such! ~Jack, VEG
Yup! You've "polished that turd enough" alright, LOL! Some of those really old radios just didn't have decent volume in my experience UNLESS (You are RIGHT) A good grounding and a long-wire antenna are installed, so you did the best that could be done with it!
Why not replace the current volume control with a maxed out resistor and move the volume control into the audio output and then modify the audio output with large bypass cap and maybe increase the value of the pot? Also, maybe rebiasing the output would help in this case? Just a thought. I appreciate the video. This was a fun one.
I love those old radios, and this was a very entertaining video. One service point I do want to mention, though; as long as the field coil is functional, I never try to replace it with resistors, increased capacitance, etc---instead, I use a chisel to separate the speaker basket from the field coil housing, and mount the coil either on the chassis or the cabinet. Yeah, it may not be pretty, but from an electronic standpoint, it is 100% functional and correct.
Yeah, now that's a little too shady for me....
Or buy a replacement 4'' cone, and recone the speaker. Otherwise use an iron filter choke placed either on a new PM speaker or under the chassis somewhere.
I had a 30's Philco that had a big chassis with lots of room underneath---I was able to mount the original field coil assembly under the chassis. Looking at it from the top, you'd never know.
I did that with a 1941 Silvertone radio. I was able to zip tie the field coil next to the chassis and use a modern PM speaker in place of the original.
That reminds me, back years ago, I was working part time as a gunsmith. I had taken one of those correspondence courses you see in the magazines from Modern School of Gunsmithing, then worked with a couple of college trained Gunsmith who ran a Gun Barrel plant in the town. I had purchased a very nice set of wood chisels for working on stocks and such. One day my son who was 16 at the time decided to cut a bigger hole in his back deck on his car, so he digs i dad's tool box and takes the set of chisels in their nice case out to his car and proceeds to put large cuts in each one as he tried to use wood chisels to cut steel. That was costly.
Nice restore. No doubt when that radio's antenna terminal is connected to a nice 100 foot long outdoor long-wire setup, that set will be plenty loud enough.
That was how I learned how to do it.I was given an old hardback book,"Everbody's Radio Manual" from 1934(mine was a 1954 reprint)then picked up different books over the years.I got the book back in 1962.I did TV repair the same way.Some of the books I had on TV repair came from the local drug store or department store."The New TV Repairs You Can Do".It sold new for about $3.00 in the early seventies.
As always, I've enjoyed this video of yours very much!! As others gave said: GREAT JOB! & You my friend, (like myself), have got the "Patience of Job!!" 😊
One thing though, (as I'm sure you had to have noticed), it didn't so much look like the Dial Needle was bent; but it looked as though there was a gasket or something in there, that appeared distorted, and was hanging down in the way! 🙂
Great video! I must admit, you are incredibly patient. Had it been me. I think I would have EOL-ed it in the style of Shango066. That is; if was not a customer's!! LOL!!
Polished this turd... Ha Ha, agree. you were very patient with this radio! Really thoughtful job!!
I have the same radio. Thank you sir ,keep them coming.
Did you try a different output transformer in the end? Sure does sound like shorted turns to me. Could the original speaker have been an odd impedance?
for some of us this is in the top ten of all ytube channels ....the explanations and troubleshooting demonstrations have rubes like me attacking our junkpiles :)
Radiotvphononut 2:18
I have an ARVIN 4-tuber, from the late 1950's, with a ferrite-rod loopstick and other xisistor-era miniaturized components
Back when I was a boy and starting out in radio I quickly learned that the coupling caps in the audio stages as well as any screen or plate bypass caps in an old radio were likely to be leaky. It is highly recommended to change those inexpensive components FIRST before firing up the radio. Following that practice will save damaging the output tube as well as other components in the radio or amplifier. It is well worth changing them before proceeding with other checks on the radio. Resistance checks are also advised before powering up an old piece of equipment to look for open wirewound resistors, inoperative switches, open coils, chokes, transformers, etc. as well as checking for shorts from points with B+ on them to chassis ground or B minus.
Beautiful radio
Early 1930's radios usually had an IF of around 175 kHz (much higher than the 50-60 kHz used in the 1920's). The problem was that you needed 2 tuned RF circuits for image rejection (hence the 3 ganged tuning capacitor). One economy measure taken was to omit the RF tube and use a double tuned circuit instead. This receiver omitted the IF tube instead. In later radios, the more standard IF of 450-470 kHz was adopted which didn't need the extra tuned circuit in the RF stage so you only needed a 2 gang tuning capacitor making it possible to build more economic radios.
There were some RCA and G.E models, from the 1933 model year, that used a very similar circuit, no IF amplifier tube, yet it had a tuned RF amplifier stage, with the exception that those had a police band which ran down to the 1450 KC mark or so. If I were to take a guess Wells Gardner (or perhaps Belmont Radio) probably licensed the circuit for this set from RCA, it even uses the same tube lineup.
With regard to the speaker I would see about reconing it since it seems to be functional other then that, speakers with tapped field coils are not exactly that common so it would be worth restoring the original.
I had.to watch this.video.again ,I no one thing that owner is getting his money out of all the hard work you put into it.and as far as oldie stations ,that all I leasten to .I figure we are around the same.age.love your videos.
With a 175Khz IF frequency it NEEDS an RF stage to keep images at bay.
Whenever I run across a tube that suddenly craps out I've found that re-soldering the grid cap often fixes the problem, that's a common failure point on tubes that have caps, especially glass tubes. Another weak point is the grid cap leads themselves, the wires can break internally as well as the solder join between the lead and the clip.
It is kind of tricky to resolder grid caps back on as too much heat from your soldering iron will cause the solder to boil up from the heated air trapped below it. Use as little heat as possible and it will work just fine. WB6FBF
Is their a modern volume knob replacement ,possible ,for that old of a radio.
I have an RCA 120 that has a similar schematic as yours and also runs on a 175 khz IF
What about that heavy duty power resistor from a old television would that work, They still make those field coil loudspeakers I.E. Atelier Rullit - LAB 16
the output tube went into nuclear meltdown
I think the out put screen voltage should be much lower then the plate voltage. The screen voltage is sucking the plate voltage from the out put transformer operation..
radiotvphononut, I respect your skill at diagnosing and I'm wondering why you don't use a tube tester? Is it just "one more piece of equipment taking up space"?
Tube testers can tell you the tube is flat dead, like if it has shorts, extreme gas, or open filament. But beyond that, your best tester is the circuit that will use the tube. Testers test at one operating point, and that isn't necessarily (in fact, almost never is) the operating point in the real circuit. Gas that will show bad on a tester might not affect a tube much in a given circuit. A tube with low emission that the tester says is bad often will work just fine in a given circuit, but not necessarily in some other circuit.
If you have no tools at all, and no way of testing and diagnosing a device, then using a tester before firing up the parts cannon and just shooting all new tubes into it is good, since it will keep you from replacing everything. But it probably won't get an old radio like this working, because the real problem is more often a resistor or cap or transformer than a tube.
In this case a tester could have helped a bit. But a tube tester is less useful than a multimeter.
I Don't Work On That Old Stuff
Cause Parts Are Too Hard To Find.
Is that Micro fiche ? cool I remember using those
Have you replaced the plate capacitor on the output stage. It might be shorted. You also, could have shorted turns in the output transformer.
Also why so much hum on your signal tracer.
Do you have any taking book or school records for sale?
I think that this should be expected from a receiver that was built during the depths of the Depression. At that time, businesses had to cut corners to remain profitable.
nice, pretty old!
24:05...why couldn't you have detached the field coil from the old speaker, and left the field coil connected in the circuit?
I like old radio radios speaking of in another video you had a thumb stone radio with a bad power supply Any plans to fix your other tumb that has a bad power supply
Jason JJ Cruz THE WORD IS SPELLED "TOMB"!! YOU MISSPELLED IT TWICE!!!!
muito bom
잘 보고 갑니다...
i've got a 8ft long 1961 motorola console that missing several tubes. how does one repair that?
Matches and charcoal lighter? lol
No...
Get the schematic. Pull the chassis. Check components with a DMM.
Rosie O'Kelly has one which is fully working why don't you contact her and see what you and her and see if she can help out out.
Get it serviced by someone qualified.
would it be possible to explain in more detail the polarity of that particular filter capacitor,compared to other more common systems? Thanks for the encouragement.
Someone had to be the one that rolled the view counter to 6.666 ... I Guess I had to be the lucky one LOL!...
Maybe the speaker is different impedance than the original speaker?
Yes. That can make a big difference in volume especially if it is a modern, low efficiency speaker.
You mentioned some other sources of videos about repairing old vacuum tube radios, and I would like to add another one. The very best I have ever seen are on "Mr. Carlson's Lab" on UA-cam. He covers so much that most of us would probably never think about, and does it in a manner that is simple enough for the absolute novice, but not dumbed down too much for the more advanced. He also has videos of test gear that he has designed and built that you can also build that do incredible things and for a whole lot less than you would have to pay for commercial stuff.
A good example of his videos would be this one:
ua-cam.com/video/OWXbdCz-AiY/v-deo.html
I think the most amazing things on your video...this one...was the weird box style multi-capacitors and the volume control actually being more of an RF control rather than audio.
Yes. That control does two things. It tends to short out the antenna as you turn the control CCW as well as increase the cathode bias on the RF stage. WB6FBF
Output transformer has to be shorted. Even a small transformer from a power brick - preferably 3 or volt power brick would work much better. 2A5 is like a 6F6 tube. 3 or more.watts output
A substitute output transformer would be worth a try. No data for the primary winding resistance was given on the schematic. 400 Ohms would be a good guess. Plate voltage on the 2A5 should run about 20 volts lower that the screen voltage (250V).
Cheap Va-China Crosley aren't the only crappy radios, they did make crap long ago too. Perhaps you could put a modern day Crosley inside the case under the chassis, and they'd be none the wizer, lol. Don
Va-China, ha-ha! ~Jack, VEG
I Love your Videos, but you talk so fast, it makes them hard to follow...
this is a bore to watch
don't watch it then!!
jeff national then don't watch it. You are very disrespectful.
jeff national Don't watch it then! I think that it's entertaining and I enjoyed it, so some people like electronics and things like this.
Well, there is a very simple solution to your problem. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you watch my videos. So, if you find them boring; then, by all means, don't watch them. I'm sure you'll find other content on UA-cam that better suits your liking.
jeff national ...you really got your ass handed to you, Buckoo!!!