Realtone, Viscount, and Drexel pocket radio repair. The AM/FM Drexel only needed it's bandswitch and volume control cleaned. The other two needed capacitors.
I'm 63 and I remember having a "14 transistor" radio. If I can find one somewhere I'm gonna open it up and tinker with it since now I'm into robotics. Great video.
Most interesting. I had no idea companies would add transistors like that. But now, as a[very] small time collector, I’ve got more questions than answers now 😐.
I must have received 14 or 15 transistor radios as gifts when I was growing up in the 60s.. I got five of them in one year. I won third place in a school raffle and the prize was a transistor radio. I used to turn them all on at the same time whenever I heard "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
Thanks for telling me about your brand of desoldering braid ,it does work better i bought a small one next time i will buy a bigger amount ,the stuff i learn from you is very helpful
it never surprises me when you get your hands on a problemed piece of electronics it ends up being perfectly functional great job .I look forward to seeing some newer videos in the future
Hi Micro arc: Indeed. The AF series of transistors ( Mullard) with a 4th shield leg, are globally famous for ' tin whisker' where strands of the germanium grow internally, and short out etc. Usual telltale: flick the transistors one at a time till the offender crackles ( or often starts working again....for an hour or two) The replacements, when available these days, are likely as bad in a few years. Back in 1969 ,(UK,) I was tought to remove it, short all 3 actual legs together, and dump a low voltage 100ufd electrolytic from shield to the twisted up other 3. After refitting, 99% of the time, that gave a cure that would last for years. Here we are, 2019, and still doing it! I'll call it micro arc from now on. Cheers, Dave
Funny that you do the same thing I do with the little units. I take a cap and bridge it as well to find the problem. Its the fastest way to do it. Congrats on finding three pocket radios. They are hard to come across where I live. Love the vids. One of these days I will get enough money together to get a camera and put on some video.
I worked on a Viscount 12 transistor radio from 1966 that had six functioning transistors and six just soldered on the board. I was made in Hong Kong but interestingly, it had the black dome transistors but I remember each had a little sticker that said "Made in USA."
Nowadays, these radios would not impress people. But I remember as a kid, my AM Transistor pocket radio was my companion. Living out in the country, enjoying nature and enjoying songs like Crackling Rosie, Dizzy, and Beautiful Sunday, etc.
I like the Realtone and the Drexel...very nice for what they are. Wonder how many people got suckered into buying a "14" transistor set when it really wasn't that at all. Shameful...thankfully they stopped that practice. Nice job as usual !!! :-)
dynamic881964 Shameful? -not when you know the whole story. But it is understandable that many people perceive things that way. But heck -did you get your moneys worth, considering they sold these dirt cheap? Yes. What Trans-Air -(Viscount) did was not really that different from what posr war Philco or Hellicrafters did -they engineered to a price and used surplus market pulls to get there sometimes.
I don't often find pocket radios with bad capacitors. I had an old RCA which had a Darlington output stage, and it actually was counted as one transistor because they were a Darlington pair.
Never a waste of time. I'm 72 and I dig in. It gives me a thing to do. Looking for them at goodwill(r), helping hands, and salvation army. Is rewarding. Not to mention the yard sales. Good hunting on!
I myself have a transistor radio with an embellished transistor count, it's a Hong Kong made "North American" "Long Distance" set with 18 transistors, from around 1966. However it is actually a decent radio, it has a tuned RF amplifier stage, I haven't looked inside it lately but I do recall that at least 3 of the 18 were connected as diodes probably for detector and AVC functions, but unlike that Viscount it did have an output transformer.
OlegKostoglatov RE output transformers, etc - Joe D'Airo addresses the whole aspect of design tactics Trans-Aire used with output in the links I alluded to in this thread.
My electronics teacher back in the 60s also said many times half of those transistors were not used but were installed as a sales gimmick. The more transistors the better the ad looked. I took apart one of those 8 transistor radios and drew the schematic. Sure enough, my teacher was right. A few floating transistors were found.
Viscount was a house brand for Trans-Aire Electronics, a plucky little American company based in New York that was trying to compete with the cheap imports from Japan. They did all the electronic design, and in addition to their factory in Hong Kong they had factories in New Hyde Park, Jamaica and Mineola, NY. They had many house brands -Harlie, Saxony, Electra, Montvale, Mayfair tape recorders, Sinclair oil company radios and Bulova to name a few. They were trying to get competitive edge by huge volume and by ordering huge quantities of "fallout" or "seconds" off-spec transistors from all the US producers, brought them in and tested, re-labled and then sorted and reclassified them, based on this testing. They had some very clever circuit innovations that allowed them to "mix and match" various transistors and other components -they did not have that many basic circuit board designs! It was an "adaptive" design. And this is just the start of their story! Google "Transistor Museum Oral History Joe D'Airo Trans-Aire" That will take you to some pages and links on the amazing website semiconductormuseum dot com that has both written and audio histories by Joe that details Trans-Aire. That web site also has extensive similar material for most of the major radio and transistor manufactures, and even some stuff on Russian semiconductors. Joe and his father both worked at their New Hyde Park works, Joe's father was an RF engineer for Trans-Aire, and wrote the Gernsback Publication Servicing Transistor Radios along with many magazine articles back in the day.
cny02253 checking out what first led me into the love of Radio Electronics here, the pocket radio... I saw your comment, it was very interesting & greatly appreciated.
I understand your low opinion of those black encapsulated silicon transistors. I have a POS Hong Kong portable I saved from the trash too. It hissed like a snake, but spoke in a whisper. I changed out the first IF transistor for a 2N3904, which woke it up immediately. It was good and loud & the hiss was totally absent. I tried the trick of bridging the electrolytics without any difference in performance whatsoever. I ought to spray the volume potentiometer sometime.
I bought a 2 pound reel of 60/40 solder, which is the real thing & i'm not going to run out any time soon. Running out of solder is about as bad as running out of T.P. in that you can do stuff but not finish the job.
I see the dome top transistors on your Viscount radio, but my GE Show 'N Tell had two dome top transistors, and that's why I got it off of eBay last week. I turned it on, and nothing, because no sound coming from the speakers. That must be the problem due to bad transistors, but I checked the circuit board, and it was so small, but there was no capacitors,, just resistors and 2 micro ferrate capacitors are in the board. These two dome top transistors needs to be replaced at some point to put new transistors in to get it working and I hope the sound will be coming from the speaker, and it is going to be good to go.
Good video! But, you might give the volume pot a good cleaning first as it is the most numerous failure point in cheap transistor radios. The pot is the most exposed part to dust, dirt, wear, and moisture since it is never sealed. Also the resistance path is either plated or painted on so thin - it is failure prone at the start. Just my 2 cents after 40 years as a ham radio operator.
5: 09 Those pocket screechers seemed to be the last to get rid of the CONELRAD markers; I remember seeing them on one I bought in 1970, 7 years after the system went out of use.
@@Jeffrey314159 - The mention of " CONELRAD " in " The Omega Man " may have been a hold-over from the original novel " I Am Legend " which was written in the 1950s. The script writers may have missed it & didn't update it to the Emergency Broadcast System.
The radio manufacturer may have had a large inventory of the tuning knobs & frequency plates in 1963, so they used them up first before getting new knobs & plates without the CONELRAD arrows.
That's perfectly true- but it wasn't long before American manufacturers just plain gave trying to compete with the cheap labor in Japan. There are some things that foreigners can do a lot better than we can. I remember early 2 transistor radios called "Boy's Radios". These particular radios had surprisingly good performance. I suspect they were labeled "Boy's Radios" in an effort to dodge the import tax by trying to pass these radios off as toys instead of transistor radios because toys were not subject to the same import taxes as were transistor radios.
+Dale Burrell Exactly, the Japanese made these 2transistor Boy's Radios to avoid import duties. And no they werent' very good! The Reflex Circuit that drove them had poor selectivity.
Not trying to be disrespectful; The "s" in Viscount is silent. Repaired dozens of them for the International Discount Store in the 70's. Note the one you worked on has no driver or output transformer, hence the extra transistors.
Alameda Repair Shop That's interesting, I didn't think that anyone was trying that transformerless audio output stage idea back then, so they were ahead of their time by playing it cheap. It's very common to see push pull tube amps without an audio interstage or driver transformer from the late 1930s onward, but not so much in old transistor radios. It's too bad that they used the black domed top transistors though, those have a high failure rate especially in the front end, but since they are mostly silicon they are easier to replace.
+Alameda Repair Shop Interesting observation; the thing looked so old I wasn't even looking for something like that. And now that you mention it, the sound from that set was a couple of notches better than the other two. I've seen some transformerless sets from the 1950s with center-tapped speakers, but I don't see any sign of that on this one.
Drexel AM/FM unit is not bad, kinda like that one. I have an old Encore AM/FM/SW portable desk top radio from the 60's or 70's that the FM works well but nothing on AM or SW. Does anyone have any ideas?
+ZenithClarity1969 That's nowhere near enough information, but perhaps there's something wrong with AM reception. SW and MW (which is normally just called AM nowadays) both use AM modulation, the only difference being the reception bands. MW and SW usually share many (or almost all) components for reception. If the FM works, at least you don't have trouble on the audio amplifier stage.
marty james disc caps can and do fail under R.F. or high voltages as well. I have seen only a few bad disc caps in a circuit where the demand is minimal such as a pocket radio, or amplifier.
Brian my Uncle gave me a box of 45s yesterday. They look Country. I am guessing about 15 pounds of them. Would you like to have them free? Travis in KY
Does Anyone know Anyplace in N.J that Fixes pocket . I COLLECT THEM. BUT I have about 5 that don't work. These are vintage radios from the 60s and 70s. They look great. Just don't work.
Před 6 lety
Funny, back then they nearly always put x number of transistors on electronic equipment as if people were suppose to know what that means. I didn't have a clue and still don't.
I will never understand why USA chose to reserve the LongWave band for Military use only and leave only the MediumWave band for radio broadcasting for the population. The use of LW for radio broadcasting would've come in handy in the States, keeping in mind how big the territory is and how long distances the waves of the Longwave band can travel. But I guess that's the way it is. :( For this fact I am glad I am European.
True but misleading! We Americans like to use amplitude modulation for listening to music, long before FM became eidely available. LW is no good for this as it picks up so much interference as it travels along (or conducted by ) the surface of the Earth. Personally I am gald I am American for we have endowed our AM BCB with so much bandwidth and tuning range, unlike you tightly packed Euros
When I was a kid it use to be the more transistors you had the better the radio was ,I guess we all no better now.thanks for all your videos
I'm 63 and I remember having a "14 transistor" radio. If I can find one somewhere I'm gonna open it up and tinker with it since now I'm into robotics. Great video.
Great video, pocket radios and walkie talkies started my electronics career. I could never become bored with Radio Electronics.
Most interesting. I had no idea companies would add transistors like that. But now, as a[very] small time collector, I’ve got more questions than answers now 😐.
I must have received 14 or 15 transistor radios as gifts when I was growing up in the 60s.. I got five of them in one year. I won third place in a school raffle and the prize was a transistor radio. I used to turn them all on at the same time whenever I heard "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
Thanks for telling me about your brand of desoldering braid ,it does work better i bought a small one next time i will buy a bigger amount ,the stuff i learn from you is very helpful
it never surprises me when you get your hands on a problemed piece of electronics it ends up being perfectly functional great job .I look forward to seeing some newer videos in the future
Cool.
I like seeing these radios
“Recycled”.
📻😁
Hi
Micro arc:
Indeed. The AF series of transistors ( Mullard) with a 4th shield leg, are globally famous for ' tin whisker' where strands of the germanium grow internally, and short out etc. Usual telltale: flick the transistors one at a time till the offender crackles ( or often starts working again....for an hour or two)
The replacements, when available these days, are likely as bad in a few years. Back in 1969 ,(UK,) I was tought to remove it, short all 3 actual legs together, and dump a low voltage 100ufd electrolytic from shield to the twisted up other 3. After refitting, 99% of the time, that gave a cure that would last for years.
Here we are, 2019, and still doing it! I'll call it micro arc from now on.
Cheers, Dave
Funny that you do the same thing I do with the little units. I take a cap and bridge it as well to find the problem. Its the fastest way to do it. Congrats on finding three pocket radios. They are hard to come across where I live. Love the vids. One of these days I will get enough money together to get a camera and put on some video.
I worked on a Viscount 12 transistor radio from 1966 that had six functioning transistors and six just soldered on the board. I was made in Hong Kong but interestingly, it had the black dome transistors but I remember each had a little sticker that said "Made in USA."
Jerry Carriera Yes, and the WERE made in the USA. They were bought at a big discount off-spec and relabeled after testing.
+cny02253 The 1960's, the Dawn of Throw-Away Technology and cheap electronic junk.
Nowadays, these radios would not impress people. But I remember as a kid, my AM Transistor pocket radio was my companion. Living out in the country, enjoying nature and enjoying songs like Crackling Rosie, Dizzy, and Beautiful Sunday, etc.
Thanks for the video. Seeing how you went about tracking down issues gives me a little direction with the audio on my older ham transceiver.
I like the Realtone and the Drexel...very nice for what they are. Wonder how many people got suckered into buying a "14" transistor set when it really wasn't that at all. Shameful...thankfully they stopped that practice. Nice job as usual !!! :-)
dynamic881964 Shameful? -not when you know the whole story. But it is understandable that many people perceive things that way. But heck -did you get your moneys worth, considering they sold these dirt cheap? Yes. What Trans-Air -(Viscount) did was not really that different from what posr war Philco or Hellicrafters did -they engineered to a price and used surplus market pulls to get there sometimes.
I don't often find pocket radios with bad capacitors.
I had an old RCA which had a Darlington output stage, and it actually was counted as one transistor because they were a Darlington pair.
Never a waste of time. I'm 72 and I dig in. It gives me a thing to do. Looking for them at goodwill(r), helping hands, and salvation army. Is rewarding. Not to mention the yard sales. Good hunting on!
I wish you would film the removal of part and how you install the new parts I think we all could learn a lot by watching you ,
I really enjoy watching your videos on repair jobs
Thank you so much for making this video! I have a 1960s transistor radio that doesn't work but now I know what to do, replace bad capacitors!
I really enjoy your videos! Keep 'em coming!
I myself have a transistor radio with an embellished transistor count, it's a Hong Kong made "North American" "Long Distance" set with 18 transistors, from around 1966. However it is actually a decent radio, it has a tuned RF amplifier stage, I haven't looked inside it lately but I do recall that at least 3 of the 18 were connected as diodes probably for detector and AVC functions, but unlike that Viscount it did have an output transformer.
OlegKostoglatov RE output transformers, etc - Joe D'Airo addresses the whole aspect of design tactics Trans-Aire used with output in the links I alluded to in this thread.
Could it be that one of these excess transistors was part of an Amplified Automatic Gain Control circuit?
That Kind've Reminds Me Of When
I Was Little. I Used To Cary One Of Those
Radios Around With Me To Have
Something To Do For Entertainment.
Neat seeing you work on 3 in one video! I enjoy your videos and look forward to your next episode! 14 transistors in one radio is a bit silly.
Thanks for a good explanation on the basics for troubleshooting.
My electronics teacher back in the 60s also said many times half of those transistors were not used but were installed as a sales gimmick. The more transistors the better the ad looked. I took apart one of those 8 transistor radios and drew the schematic. Sure enough, my teacher was right. A few floating transistors were found.
THAT'S just plain CHEATING, as far as I'M concerned....!
THAT'S just plain CHEATING, as far as I'M concerned....!
The Realtone sounds good.
Viscount was a house brand for Trans-Aire Electronics, a plucky little American company based in New York that was trying to compete with the cheap imports from Japan. They did all the electronic design, and in addition to their factory in Hong Kong they had factories in New Hyde Park, Jamaica and Mineola, NY.
They had many house brands -Harlie, Saxony, Electra, Montvale, Mayfair tape recorders, Sinclair oil company radios and Bulova to name a few. They were trying to get competitive edge by huge volume and by ordering huge quantities of "fallout" or "seconds" off-spec transistors from all the US producers, brought them in and tested, re-labled and then sorted and reclassified them, based on this testing. They had some very clever circuit innovations that allowed them to "mix and match" various transistors and other components -they did not have that many basic circuit board designs! It was an "adaptive" design. And this is just the start of their story!
Google "Transistor Museum Oral History Joe D'Airo Trans-Aire" That will take you to some pages and links on the amazing website semiconductormuseum dot com that has both written and audio histories by Joe that details Trans-Aire. That web site also has extensive similar material for most of the major radio and transistor manufactures, and even some stuff on Russian semiconductors.
Joe and his father both worked at their New Hyde Park works, Joe's father was an RF engineer for Trans-Aire, and wrote the Gernsback Publication Servicing Transistor Radios along with many magazine articles back in the day.
cny02253 checking out what first led me into the love of Radio Electronics here, the pocket radio... I saw your comment, it was very interesting & greatly appreciated.
I understand your low opinion of those black encapsulated silicon transistors.
I have a POS Hong Kong portable I saved from the trash too.
It hissed like a snake, but spoke in a whisper. I changed out the first IF transistor for a 2N3904, which woke it up immediately. It was good and loud & the hiss was totally absent.
I tried the trick of bridging the electrolytics without any difference in performance whatsoever. I ought to spray the volume potentiometer sometime.
I bought a 2 pound reel of 60/40 solder, which is the real thing & i'm not going to run out any time soon. Running out of solder is about as bad as running out of T.P. in that you can do stuff but not finish the job.
Great stuff! Always enjoy your videos! I didn't know about the FTC''s ruling on the way the transistors are used! Neat!
For a while, even watch manufacturers were stuffing extra jewels into watches for the same reason.
Always enjoy your videos,
Thanks
I see the dome top transistors on your Viscount radio, but my GE Show 'N Tell had two dome top transistors, and that's why I got it off of eBay last week. I turned it on, and nothing, because no sound coming from the speakers. That must be the problem due to bad transistors, but I checked the circuit board, and it was so small, but there was no capacitors,, just resistors and 2 micro ferrate capacitors are in the board. These two dome top transistors needs to be replaced at some point to put new transistors in to get it working and I hope the sound will be coming from the speaker, and it is going to be good to go.
Good video! But, you might give the volume pot a good cleaning first as it is the most numerous failure point in cheap transistor radios. The pot is the most exposed part to dust, dirt, wear, and moisture since it is never sealed. Also the resistance path is either plated or painted on so thin - it is failure prone at the start. Just my 2 cents after 40 years as a ham radio operator.
great job
can you post a video on how to align one of these?
AMO RÁDIOS!!!!
Job well done.
Mid-Sixties Sanyo was my 1st.
That Viscount may have a bogus transistor count but does have an extra I.F. stage. Maybe it should be called MIScount.
I like the drexel pocket radio..
Aw always
Nicely done, thanks for sharing.
Yay a new radiotvphononut video!!! Been subbed forever. Great vids thanks!!!!!! Steven
Cool testing method..cool chnl
great deal of info! Thanks!
5: 09 Those pocket screechers seemed to be the last to get rid of the CONELRAD markers; I remember seeing them on one I bought in 1970, 7 years after the system went out of use.
Are you certain about this? In that early 70's movie Omega Man, the characters were tuning into CONELRAD
@@Jeffrey314159 - The mention of " CONELRAD " in " The Omega Man " may have been a hold-over from the original novel " I Am Legend " which was written in the 1950s. The script writers may have missed it & didn't update it to the Emergency Broadcast System.
The radio manufacturer may have had a large inventory of the tuning knobs & frequency plates in 1963, so they used them up first before getting new knobs & plates without the CONELRAD arrows.
In the 1950's and early 60's we had import duties on foreign made transistorized products.
That's perfectly true- but it wasn't long before American manufacturers just plain gave trying to compete with the cheap labor in Japan. There are some things that foreigners can do a lot better than we can. I remember early 2 transistor radios called "Boy's Radios". These particular radios had surprisingly good performance. I suspect they were labeled "Boy's Radios" in an effort to dodge the import tax by trying to pass these radios off as toys instead of transistor radios because toys were not subject to the same import taxes as were transistor radios.
+Dale Burrell Exactly, the Japanese made these 2transistor Boy's Radios to avoid import duties. And no they werent' very good! The Reflex Circuit that drove them had poor selectivity.
I saw an ant in frame.
I have GE portable 7 transistor and I would like to get rid of it dose work
Not trying to be disrespectful; The "s" in Viscount is silent. Repaired dozens of them for the International Discount Store in the 70's. Note the one you worked on has no driver or output transformer, hence the extra transistors.
Alameda Repair Shop That's interesting, I didn't think that anyone was trying that transformerless audio output stage idea back then, so they were ahead of their time by playing it cheap. It's very common to see push pull tube amps without an audio interstage or driver transformer from the late 1930s onward, but not so much in old transistor radios. It's too bad that they used the black domed top transistors though, those have a high failure rate especially in the front end, but since they are mostly silicon they are easier to replace.
OlegKostoglatov Its wild to think they bought all those black domed parts as off spec "fallout" to begin with!
Alameda Repair Shop That's right.. it's pronounced Vy-count.
+Alameda Repair Shop Interesting observation; the thing looked so old I wasn't even looking for something like that. And now that you mention it, the sound from that set was a couple of notches better than the other two. I've seen some transformerless sets from the 1950s with center-tapped speakers, but I don't see any sign of that on this one.
Carl Rudd yes just like the viscount airplane.
Drexel AM/FM unit is not bad, kinda like that one.
I have an old Encore AM/FM/SW portable desk top radio from the 60's or 70's that the FM works well but nothing on AM or SW. Does anyone have any ideas?
+ZenithClarity1969 It's an NR-1600 from 1968.
+ZenithClarity1969 That's nowhere near enough information, but perhaps there's something wrong with AM reception. SW and MW (which is normally just called AM nowadays) both use AM modulation, the only difference being the reception bands. MW and SW usually share many (or almost all) components for reception. If the FM works, at least you don't have trouble on the audio amplifier stage.
what kind of cap do you use to jump the old ones
I Keep A 9 Volt Rechargeable
Battery On hand For Testing Electronics
Wonder which ones were actually manufactured in Japan? They kinda look like they were from either Taiwan or ROK (S. Korea).
At least crappy black transistors do not drag down the better ones.
Have a question got a used grundig yb-400 off ebay, the display comes on but thats it, it will not turn on, any ideas on where to look or what to do ?
when you 'jump' the capacitors, i assume you mean the electrolytic caps, yes? do the disc ceramic caps ever fail?
disk capacitors should only be replaced if it's blown up or burned in some way
marty james disc caps can and do fail under R.F. or high voltages as well. I have seen only a few bad disc caps in a circuit where the demand is minimal such as a pocket radio, or amplifier.
what value of capacitor did use to check other capcitors
You sure sounded like someone from "King of the Hill" Cartoon. You know one of Hank Hill's buddies.
You're sure it's not Hank Hill himself? 😆
@@luisreyes1963 Almost alike, you could be right.
Great accent!
Brian my Uncle gave me a box of 45s yesterday. They look Country. I am guessing about 15 pounds of them. Would you like to have them free?
Travis in KY
Does Anyone know Anyplace in N.J that Fixes pocket . I COLLECT THEM. BUT I have about 5 that don't work. These are vintage radios from the 60s and 70s. They look great. Just don't work.
Funny, back then they nearly always put x number of transistors on electronic equipment as if people were suppose to know what that means. I didn't have a clue and still don't.
I Get My Burnsomatic Solder At Home depot
(0:58) *_Viscount_* is an aristocratic title and is pronounced *_VIE-COUNT_*
>
Thanks for sharing. 🙄
I will never understand why USA chose to reserve the LongWave band for Military use only and leave only the MediumWave band for radio broadcasting for the population. The use of LW for radio broadcasting would've come in handy in the States, keeping in mind how big the territory is and how long distances the waves of the Longwave band can travel. But I guess that's the way it is. :( For this fact I am glad I am European.
True but misleading! We Americans like to use amplitude modulation for listening to music, long before FM became eidely available. LW is no good for this as it picks up so much interference as it travels along (or conducted by ) the surface of the Earth. Personally I am gald I am American for we have endowed our AM BCB with so much bandwidth and tuning range, unlike you tightly packed Euros
I wish you would actually show what you are doing when you repair something.