This radio is the 'older brother' to GE's SuperRadio series. Built to be repaired; the tuning mechanism is a dream. But, GE seemed to cheapen out on the copper traces in this generation of radios. When loaded with 6 'D' batteries it's quite heavy; the '57 Buick of portable radios!
Great video and diagnosis, Shango! KTNN broadcasts on 660AM from Window Rock, AZ which is right on the Arizona and New Mexico border. It's Class B station and transmits at 50k watts (probably during the day). That's pretty impressive you're able to pick that up from LA. The radio sounds pretty sensitive.
I had one in the Sixties. It was awesome! I used the light a lot in bed at night and was amazed at what distant stations I could receive. Yes, I am old.
Love your “MOST - OFTEN - NEEDED” 1960 GE radio. LOL Laughed when I read that @ 25:35! Corrosion can be a killer for traces etc & specially battery terminals & salt air from living near a beach etc is a common thing too as my grandparents lived near the ocean & they were always getting their tv, radio etc repaired because of the salt air corrosion..........You have a good eye for finding these cool radios. :)xx
Corinna T Roberts76 "Most Often Needed" was the service information company (Beitman's in this case) telling the reader they picked this radio to document based on popularity.
Have restored and sold several of these at auction. One of my favorite AM portables. When aligned right, it's a hot DXer, almost as good as my GE Superadio but with much better audio. Love the almost tube-like sound and the 50s era chrome. The key to eliminating heterodyne and squealing is to dress the rod antenna leads carefully.
am skip is a wonderful thing!!! neat old radio! as a east coaster i receive wlw wcbs in Florida like thy are local!!! wlw gets out the best under all conditions. wold love to see it back on the air at 500,0000w as it was in the 1930s!!! take care good dx and off the key we gone.
That's a very good lesson when you're diagnosing something pay attention to the big picture that capacitors are always not the culprit of the problem that you have to take it apart and do some examination cosmology 101 that's what I learned from this video, I like the radio station from New Mexico
Reminded me of the days back in the 80s where russian radio was detected by just touching the inputs of an amplifier and played nicely on the speakers. He.. of a strong signal they had. Nice repair.
Great video! I had same problem on my Betamax VCR where the noise canceller board had the traces getting black. One evening, while watching a tape, the picture started to lose contrast and than faded to black. I had to add jumpers on the infected areas, because even after cleaning the copper, it could not be soldered, some traces even disappeared.
I had a new in the box radio from the 70's that didn't work because it had 4 green caps like that with crystals all over it. All of them were the same value, I replaced them and it worked great.
No doubt this party was over two years ago, still it's worth mentioning, this radio was not a P-780A. The ones with General Electric above grille are either 780E or F. This one is a '61/'62 E as it still had CD markings, F is same but lacks CD symbols. The 780A, B, D & G all have eight transistor above grille, with G version having whip antenna. P-780H states Long Distance & has a 9th transistor, excepting for H all have similar circuitry.
Great radio. I restore and resell alot of these on the 'bay. I've seen the gamut of circuitboard failures on these, I would have been questioning that same transistor too. Got one so bad that half of the traces had lifted off the PCB! They had alot of variations of this great radio, along with different PCB versions. Some of these have made me pull hairs getting going too - the outdoors stored ones as I call 'em. Usually a battery compartment scrub, main 500mfd capacitor gets them going each and everytime though. Great performer too. My favorite AM transistorio radio - 3 IF's , good sounding speaker and CHROME makes a winner in my book.
Reminds me of the fix I did for our Dolby sound system subwoofer. Did some tapping on the circuit board and the speaker came to life. Ended up finding solder points that had cracked. Reflowed and added a touch more solder fixed it. My father would tap circuit boards in TVs to find loose ground connections.
Very informative video as usual Shango. Thankyou for taking the time on another transistor which are my favorite and enlightening us all to the proper diagnosis techniques that you employ. Use your gut lol
Love the video. Great radio. Thanks, Shango!! Strange problem with the copper trace just dissolving. Also that B+K 970 is BOSS! If you ever want to sell it, I'm your guy. I'm weird liked that. I like the test equipment better than the equipment it's designed to test. I was a calibration tech (metrology lab) back in the day.
Ive never seen mesh over the speaker like that before, cool idea. it sounds like almost as if a ground is missing. id give the pcb a good spraying with contact cleaner and and old toothbrush to reveal where the breaks in the traces are and it will greatly simplify things.
Cool DXing! Interesting troubleshooting of a strange problem. Not to mention the radio sounds EXCELLENT. I'm going to invoke the "they don't build 'em like they used to" cliche as I'm dis-fond of the throw-a-way culture.
I thought it was the oscillator too as soon as I heard the amp working, that could have become a real mess if you hadn't caught the grounding issue...great troubleshootin' there! Never seen a trace just evaporate like that, WTF!
When it comes to assessment/diagnosis or repairs, I somehow love these vintage radio topics shango066 does. I liked that 1948 Zenith console radio he repaired recently - it sounded great after a lot of fiddling and re-alignment of the IF. Solid state or tube, if it's a radio made in the 60s or 70s, shango will surely have it. This is no exception. GE made decent gear back then. I'd like to see another EOL of a cheap 90s Chinese plastic crap product one day, done 'shango style'.
I'd like a desert comparison of many of the commercially available radios from about 2000 to 2020 compared to the old faithful ones. Maybe even try a quieting or signal to noise test in the A-B comparisons. God Bless
Where I live many radios have that kind of heterodyning noise on 540 kHz from a radio station up on 1450 kHz from Port Huron, MI. In that part of L.A. it appears to happen on a few places on the dial. Car radios and the Sony Super Sensitive line of radios mostly dodge this kind of interference because they often do not use the typical 455 kHz I.F.
I don't own one of those, but I know they are well regarded for DX'ing. I have two Sears Silvertone model 6223 in tan, 6224,5 olive and black respectively service number 528.622301 that look very similar with the big cast speaker grill. They have wonderful full sound that reminds me of cars in the 1960's and 1970's with the one 6"x9" speaker booming in the dash or rear deck and have great sensitivity and selectivity. It is provisioned with a jack for D.C. power and another under the battery compartment cover for external antenna. 6 "D" cells for power. God Bless
that screen over the speaker and the tubing over the antenna wires are different for GE, the usually skimp on those kind of details...must've been an old American made design.
How odd, wouldn't of thought a copper trace could fail like that, it could have been anywhere, pure luck it was a ground and you noticed it, would have been a pig if it was out of reach or something, nice work....cheers.
21:30 Shango says, "This is our oldies station. No commercials." Before he finishes CZcams hits me with two commercials. One was visit San Diego and get some strange drinks. The other was for..... I think a movie? God Bless
(20:40) Image interference would cause heterodynes like that, with the offending station being 910 KHz above the one you want to listen to - but in your radio, it's really bad, especially for a radio with a TRF stage. You probably need more of those jumpers to provide a proper connection for the tuning caps. One or more transistors could be self-oscillating, or something may be allowing shortwave signals into the mix - where they could heterodyne with *harmonics* of the local oscillator.
HI shango066, can you explain what silver mica disease is? all i know its to do with the cracking noises heard through the speaker. and can it occur on newer technology, as i have heard that sounds on a amplifier i have?
Wish that oldies station would be on SW with enough power to get to the UK, even if its only at night!! Just a question, where could one get a MW broadcast crystal (or three) to build 0.25W to 5W transmitters to use in the car? AM is slowly being shutdown but i love to transmit my old shows to my tube car radio!
This radio is the 'older brother' to GE's SuperRadio series. Built to be repaired; the tuning mechanism is a dream. But, GE seemed to cheapen out on the copper traces in this generation of radios. When loaded with 6 'D' batteries it's quite heavy; the '57 Buick of portable radios!
Indeed it is! You could kill someone, hitting them with this radio. ha!
They are really great for d.x. ing. I consistently picked up Las Vegas, A Canadian station, and Des Moines Iowa.
sure is a nice radio. the designer Conrad Jutson said this was one of his favorite radios he was a part of while working for G.E.
Jutson indeed was the man, IMO.
That thing should be a good DXer. What a whopper of an antenna ❗️
🙂
Shango, he bring good G.E. radios back to life!
I had one of those. Great DX radio, worth aligning.
Great video and diagnosis, Shango! KTNN broadcasts on 660AM from Window Rock, AZ which is right on the Arizona and New Mexico border. It's Class B station and transmits at 50k watts (probably during the day). That's pretty impressive you're able to pick that up from LA. The radio sounds pretty sensitive.
I had one in the Sixties. It was awesome! I used the light a lot in bed at night and was amazed at what distant stations I could receive. Yes, I am old.
LOL
another magnificent repair. you could probably make a living doing this.lol all your videos are so teaching. keep going!!! thanks rd
I'm looking for a dead one of these to resurect. I could do without the spider. Your video should help. Thank you for sharing!
Hi merry christmas
ABDUL. IRAQ. BAGHDAD
Love your “MOST - OFTEN - NEEDED” 1960 GE radio. LOL
Laughed when I read that @ 25:35!
Corrosion can be a killer for traces etc & specially battery terminals & salt air from living near a beach etc is a common thing too as my grandparents lived near the ocean & they were always getting their tv, radio etc repaired because of the salt air corrosion..........You have a good eye for finding these cool radios. :)xx
Corinna T Roberts76 "Most Often Needed" was the service information company (Beitman's in this case) telling the reader they picked this radio to document based on popularity.
Walt's Channel - Oh ok, I thought it was like a promo thing that would be displayed in a magazine/catalogue advertisement. :)
Have restored and sold several of these at auction. One of my favorite AM portables. When aligned right, it's a hot DXer, almost as good as my GE Superadio but with much better audio. Love the almost tube-like sound and the 50s era chrome. The key to eliminating heterodyne and squealing is to dress the rod antenna leads carefully.
living in new england, we are no strangers to finding green death in wires, connectors, and traces... such is life :/
Looks very well built. Good sized speaker too.
am skip is a wonderful thing!!! neat old radio! as a east coaster i receive wlw wcbs in Florida like thy are local!!! wlw gets out the best under all conditions. wold love to see it back on the air at 500,0000w as it was in the 1930s!!! take care good dx and off the key we gone.
Your videos are great and informative, thank you.
I really enjoyed (and will try it myself) your aural analysis of the capacitors. Also, another great troubleshooting video. Thank you.
That's a very good lesson when you're diagnosing something pay attention to the big picture that capacitors are always not the culprit of the problem that you have to take it apart and do some examination cosmology 101 that's what I learned from this video, I like the radio station from New Mexico
Reminded me of the days back in the 80s where russian radio was detected by just touching the inputs of an amplifier and played nicely on the speakers. He.. of a strong signal they had.
Nice repair.
Used to have one of those, best radio for DXing I ever had.
Very good repair lesson. "Keep the big picture" is a very valuable hint. 👍
Great video! I had same problem on my Betamax VCR where the noise canceller board had the traces getting black. One evening, while watching a tape, the picture started to lose contrast and than faded to black. I had to add jumpers on the infected areas, because even after cleaning the copper, it could not be soldered, some traces even disappeared.
Nice troubleshooting. Glad you got it going. Thanks for sharing.
I have one just like it out in my shop.It worked the last time I used it.
I had a new in the box radio from the 70's that didn't work because it had 4 green caps like that with crystals all over it. All of them were the same value, I replaced them and it worked great.
Nice radio, good catch on that weird problem, that's some colorful corrosion there.
KTNN is in Window Rock, Arizona (right on the New Mexico border), which is about 540 miles away from L.A.
I have one of these in great condition. Works and sounds great.
No doubt this party was over two years ago, still it's worth mentioning, this radio was not a
P-780A. The ones with General Electric above grille are either 780E or F. This one is a '61/'62 E as it still had CD markings, F is same but lacks CD symbols. The 780A, B, D & G all have eight transistor above grille, with G version having whip antenna. P-780H states Long Distance & has a 9th transistor, excepting for H all have similar circuitry.
Good stuff. I grew up on the Navajo rez. My dad still listens to KTNN.
Great radio. I restore and resell alot of these on the 'bay. I've seen the gamut of circuitboard failures on these, I would have been questioning that same transistor too. Got one so bad that half of the traces had lifted off the PCB! They had alot of variations of this great radio, along with different PCB versions. Some of these have made me pull hairs getting going too - the outdoors stored ones as I call 'em. Usually a battery compartment scrub, main 500mfd capacitor gets them going each and everytime though. Great performer too. My favorite AM transistorio radio - 3 IF's , good sounding speaker and CHROME makes a winner in my book.
Spider in the dial is a classic. Now you can say that you've got a vintage radio receiver.
Descent looking chrome plated.pot metal of the era . Must have been a jewel when it was new .
Cost about a weeks wages
Awesome I have one of these. Was my grandfather's radio. Still works but no AM stations in my area anymore. Only DX at night.
That radio has great sound and sensitive too.
Reminds me of the fix I did for our Dolby sound system subwoofer. Did some tapping on the circuit board and the speaker came to life. Ended up finding solder points that had cracked. Reflowed and added a touch more solder fixed it. My father would tap circuit boards in TVs to find loose ground connections.
So happy ur back fixing stuff
Yo compre uno igual se oye bien bonito saludos desde Tepic nayarit México
Very informative video as usual Shango. Thankyou for taking the time on another transistor which are my favorite and enlightening us all to the proper diagnosis techniques that you employ. Use your gut lol
Love the video. Great radio. Thanks, Shango!! Strange problem with the copper trace just dissolving. Also that B+K 970 is BOSS! If you ever want to sell it, I'm your guy. I'm weird liked that. I like the test equipment better than the equipment it's designed to test. I was a calibration tech (metrology lab) back in the day.
Ive never seen mesh over the speaker like that before, cool idea. it sounds like almost as if a ground is missing. id give the pcb a good spraying with contact cleaner and and old toothbrush to reveal where the breaks in the traces are and it will greatly simplify things.
I have one, also the AM/FM which I am restoring. We also have a commercial free AM oldies station, sounds great on this radio.
wow, amazing diagnoses
Cool DXing! Interesting troubleshooting of a strange problem. Not to mention the radio sounds EXCELLENT. I'm going to invoke the "they don't build 'em like they used to" cliche as I'm dis-fond of the throw-a-way culture.
They really don't build'em like that anymore...good old American chrome and steel
I❤everything abut radio.
Wow, KTNN from Window Rock, AZ, that's some AM DX for you.
That radio is a keeper. If he pulled in KTNN from the drift of nearby KFI, that’s a good,sensitive set.
Loved this video. Keep it up
Yay a new shango066 video!
Those are excellent radios.
I thought it was the oscillator too as soon as I heard the amp working, that could have become a real mess if you hadn't caught the grounding issue...great troubleshootin' there! Never seen a trace just evaporate like that, WTF!
Wow. Circuit board failure and it looked perfectly alright. Good one.
Very nice radio, built like a tank!
TEAC Fan except for the corrosion
Great content as always!
When it comes to assessment/diagnosis or repairs, I somehow love these vintage radio topics shango066 does. I liked that 1948 Zenith console radio he repaired recently - it sounded great after a lot of fiddling and re-alignment of the IF.
Solid state or tube, if it's a radio made in the 60s or 70s, shango will surely have it. This is no exception. GE made decent gear back then.
I'd like to see another EOL of a cheap 90s Chinese plastic crap product one day, done 'shango style'.
Blow up a Crosley Cruiser with an M-80 firecracker
I'd like a desert comparison of many of the commercially available radios from about 2000 to 2020 compared to the old faithful ones. Maybe even try a quieting or signal to noise test in the A-B comparisons. God Bless
Very nice...very American with the chrome
Thank you...from Philippines
Thanks for the great vid even let the ad play :)
Amazing radio
Great video
Lovely!! thank you. interesting problem
I like that BK 970 cool test jig.
Decent little radio.
Where I live many radios have that kind of heterodyning noise on 540 kHz from a radio station up on 1450 kHz from Port Huron, MI. In that part of L.A. it appears to happen on a few places on the dial. Car radios and the Sony Super Sensitive line of radios mostly dodge this kind of interference because they often do not use the typical 455 kHz I.F.
I don't own one of those, but I know they are well regarded for DX'ing. I have two Sears Silvertone model 6223 in tan, 6224,5 olive and black respectively service number 528.622301 that look very similar with the big cast speaker grill. They have wonderful full sound that reminds me of cars in the 1960's and 1970's with the one 6"x9" speaker booming in the dash or rear deck and have great sensitivity and selectivity. It is provisioned with a jack for D.C. power and another under the battery compartment cover for external antenna. 6 "D" cells for power. God Bless
Must have been in the window by the ocean.
I think that this radio was at least on the sea shore quite a bit OR out on a boat a lot !!!!! The radio sounds great though after the fix !
that screen over the speaker and the tubing over the antenna wires are different for GE, the usually skimp on those kind of details...must've been an old American made design.
How odd, wouldn't of thought a copper trace could fail like that, it could have been anywhere, pure luck it was a ground and you noticed it, would have been a pig if it was out of reach or something, nice work....cheers.
oh nice combo there old 60's radio and some beatles track playing just pass the lsd and weed/pot and we'll enjoy the 60's once again
Nice Radio
Thanks for shareing
Wow that thing must have come from the jungle or a saltwater boat somewhere. That's a first for me,even in the humid southeast
Shango IS the best
Craig Nehring - I know.
21:30 Shango says, "This is our oldies station. No commercials." Before he finishes CZcams hits me with two commercials. One was visit San Diego and get some strange drinks. The other was for..... I think a movie? God Bless
Didn't you push that "Lite" button?
Good video. Have you got other similar radios that pick up that station in New Mexico?
Long live K-surf, 1260
With the RF stage this should really be a good DX radio.
Sounds good.
Love your old shaggy coat-lol!!!!
(20:40) Image interference would cause heterodynes like that, with the offending station being 910 KHz above the one you want to listen to - but in your radio, it's really bad, especially for a radio with a TRF stage. You probably need more of those jumpers to provide a proper connection for the tuning caps. One or more transistors could be self-oscillating, or something may be allowing shortwave signals into the mix - where they could heterodyne with *harmonics* of the local oscillator.
What about a BC212L PNP transistor are low noise for the low power stages and 2x AD162s for the output push pull stage.
That bug 🕷 in the radio 📻
Philips used to cover speakers like that aswell
Very strange indeed. This is a first for me to. I guess i needed to see it to believe it.
HI shango066, can you explain what silver mica disease is? all i know its to do with the cracking noises heard through the speaker. and can it occur on newer technology, as i have heard that sounds on a amplifier i have?
search my channel, lots of very detailed videos on it
Esa si es maquina
Might have been in a humid environment, also look at the chrome on it.
@ 15:37, “You Broke Up With Me” by Walker Hayes.
Good day what is number of transistor with b+ wire red and coil #3? Help please
How much a working one goes for? I have one
Another fix by the Dr. Shango066
👍👍
Hey Shango066 :)))
Cool
Hey Shango...What'r you wearing...a friggin' towel? Another great vid from the socal radio guy btw.
wacoflyer what are you talking about? The carpet on the table?
These old eyes must be playing tricks. My apologies.
Ooooh Shango in a towel!....I would love to see that. 😍......Oh wait, it’s just carpet on the table! LOL 😂
Corinna T Roberts76 forbid the creepy hue hef in a bath robe look
+wacoflyer
if you mean his sleeve, that looks like some kind of fluffy jumper/sweater he has on - not a towel. I've seen it before.
I get the feeling you can pick up KNX on your fillings in your part of the world.
Wish that oldies station would be on SW with enough power to get to the UK, even if its only at night!! Just a question, where could one get a MW broadcast crystal (or three) to build 0.25W to 5W transmitters to use in the car? AM is slowly being shutdown but i love to transmit my old shows to my tube car radio!
I Have That Song On My Rock n Roll
Love songs CD.
Gooooooollllllll