I bought mine "As Is" for $9.99 but I wanted it because of the sticker on the back that said "Zenith Quality built in America by highly skilled Well Paid American workers". When it came in the mail I put batteries in and it worked. It was made in the '50s. 👍 😆
I did the same thing with a portable radio back in the day,it took four AA batteries to run it so I rigged up a holder to put on of these lantern batteries to power it, I had a steady supply of these because on my dad's job on the railroad they were always replacing them in their battery lanterns, they would last a long time before needing replaced.
Zenith made two versions of the 500D, one with a conventional speaker (the earlier version), and the later more interesting version with the convex speaker that you have. It was Zenith's first attempt to improve audio quality in a pocket radio before the 500H, which had an oval speaker with an off-center magnet.
Zenith made so many variants on this radio. I have one which is an 8 transistor variant with the non-inverted speaker. Doesn't have the model number on the front, but it is a 500 series radio. One of the best early transistor radios made. Mine has the RF stage with untuned inter-stage coupling and separate mixer and oscillator stages. I think later units used the usual self oscillating converters. Some of the 500 series did have NPN germanium transistors in a few places. So after seeing you replace those three caps, I opened my radio up and saw that the same capacitors had already been replaced with Jap electrolytics.
The 500D, once cleaned up and polished, that would be a really sharp looking radio. I liked how it had a fine tuning dial where you can turn it slow and the dial moves slower for fine tuning, neat!
Thanks, another very enjoyable video! An uncle of mine had a maroon Zenith like that, bought it new. Only a year or two later, it was in its leather case, strapped to his belt, he was out on his boat, radio playing. Without thinking, he jumped overboard to retrieve a fishing pole, heard the radio audio go: "blub-blub-blub" as he went into the water! He tried drying it out, and then gave it to me! It never worked well at all, after going swimming! He said that thing new, was nearly a month's salary to purchase!
holy crap! that made it through the postal service huh? that looks super suspicious with the big cell strapped to it. I'm surprised the battery didn't drive through the back of the radio. I would have taken those off for sure
Amazing how many AM stations there still are. I mean with everything going "digital", odd there is still so many AM broadcast stations transmitting out their messages. Thumbs Up!
I have worked on several of these over the years. The high drain is a common thing with old capacitors. Normal draw is 15-30 mv depending on the volume setting. They (and all transistor radios) ate batteries like people eat peanuts. The louder you played it the faster the lead-acid batteries were drained. It would be several years before alkalines became common. Some resorted to mercury batteries to get longer life. "Tubeless" was a common marking back then as many portable radios used tubes or had hybrid circuits. The "tubeless" marking told buyers they were getting a "real" transistor radio.
Cool little set and still in decent shape.I always love getting some electrical gear with some nasty shipping charges and finding out it still has 2 plus pounds of corroded batteries in it! Save me some $$ and take those nasty things out before shipping!
yeah that can be a problem but the last time someone sent me a radio with battery still in it a vintage one I sold it for more than what I paid for the radio !
That's a rare find indeed! I once got one of those old grey metal Navy "Battle Lantern's" at an on-line auction. The Two 1.5V Dry Cells(Type 6 I think they are called) were still inside..I thought cool score until it was clear they had swollen themselves tightly into the case. Soak in baking soda solution to neutralize the acid and then dig them out..what a mess. But cool light to have around!
Great looking AM Radios! I can remember going into Radio Shack in the early 90's asking about tubes, and the sales person told me to check an auto parts store......YIKES!
Shango, I'm from ky myself, back in those days, people used what they had available at the time, to make stuff work. It might not be pretty but it worked. We dont have everything over here like it is out on your side of the country. No more electronic parts stores...
@ 5:44 when I heard loud crackle from the speaker, I was like, this damn thing might actually work!!!! Don't mean to go all JJCruse on you, but all my Zeniths were dead as a hammer when I got them. Those "Nashville" capacitors are the worst! I have a Royal 275 that is essentially the same as what you have there, and it was stone cold dead - dried up electrolytics. The radio did have an interesting disc ceramic cap failure later - the .01 mike that couples the local oscillator to the mixer turn into a 22 Kohm resistor and overbiased the mixer - symptom was distorted audio because of excessive RF gain.
@@shango066 I concur with your idea of not nilly-willy replacing caps for the hell of it. I still have my grandads Sony TR-1814 from 1964 - never had a cap changed - has rubycon caps - still works - audio is a bit "thin" sounding - the electrolytics have dried a little, but still plays quite well.
nice gift :D shipping is terrible indeed! At least back in the day people who owned TVs could pop to their local TV repair shop to get it fixed when it broke (there was one on the corner of my street until about 2002)... if you lived in a populated enough area wiith enough people owning vintage tvs i wonder if you could make a go of a tv repair shop these days... guess youd have to do a lot of tft and other junk, half of which isnt really made with repairability in mind only cost savings :(
Volume control........? Needs something.... By the way is that lantern battery for sale and could free shipping be included? I need something new to throw in my microwave ....been really board latey.
Some earlier versions of this radio used NPN transistors for all or selected functions, like paired 2N35's for output. It varied. Need to consult the documentation like Sam's for the EXACT chassis - look very carefully at the number - especially before attempting to plug in a Russian. The early 500's varied chassis a lot in a short period of time.
Helpful! Here's a question: I have an RCA Victor 1-BT-29 "Transicharge" with a collapsed IF transformer. Any idea where to find a suitable replacement? Listening to the stations you receive, it seems we're in the same town...
Good radio for reception have one of these radios I live in Vacaville California. And these radios are good I have a Zenith Royal 275 radio too great radios
I've got one sort of like that but it's got tubes in it it looks like a transistor radio but it's got a and a b battery and when I had it going one time it sounded really good that's a nice radio it looks like a owl
FedEx Ground used to be relatively cheap shipping but that may have changed of late (haven’t done much shipping of packages over 2 lbs. the past few years).
I've got to Zenith hearing aids with very very small electron tube about the era of that radio they look new but I don't have a b battery or two A's and then there's a switch on top to where you can switch from one to the other
I'm bad at judging sizes from the video but it looks like they could have mailed that from Florence KY to Los Angeles in a large 12x12x5 inch flat-rate priority box for $19.95. Thanks for the video! I wonder what's in the other package.
Jac Goudsmit it was a usps box, but it was not flat rate shipping. The usps person said that priority shipping was only a couple bucks more expensive than standard, so I just went with the priority.
Interesting speaker, wonder what the development costs were on that gem? Back when them radios were popular, you could find "mercury transistor radio batteries" that were supposed to provide long life. I am unsure if that was the precursor to the alkaline battery or what?
@@JohnSmith-eo5sp Oh yeah, haven't seen them since the late 1960's . Any battery containing mercery was banned by 1996, had a Pentax camera that used one
@@craignehring Question: Is a Carbon-4 battery a general purpose battery, and why aren't Alkaline batteries the same "general purpose", if at all? This information I acquired at my local Franklin's Hardware store about the batteries I was using for an old three D-cell steel-cased flashlight I was trying to repair
@@JohnSmith-eo5sp Holy smokes, that's a darn good question and one I do not feel qualified to answer. But... LOL there is always a but... I think that the old school carbon zinc cells were commonly referred to as general purpose. Even the so called "flash light" has a reason for being called that, at least here in the states. Early cells could not sustain a high current draw for very long at all. The effect was the bulb would give a burst of light or "flash" prior to turning dim or going out. This is much like when one tries to use exhausted cells in a flashlight, we have all been there and done that. Give the lamp a rest even for a few seconds and your good for another flash of light. I believe the British had it correct in calling the flashlight a torch. One thing is for sure is carbon batteries are inexpensive and have limited current output. Alkaline cells can put out some serious current and can perform well in some tough situations. It's an interesting topic
@@craignehring Me thinks the Brits, our so-called allies from across The Pond, use the term lanterns to describe flashlights. They don't use Zinc, for Carbon-batteries much anymore, that's all devoted to our 'copper-pennies". They replaced that not-precious metal(Zinc) with Manganese in these dry- cells a long time ago
I have one like it recapping it also someone wanted a long play time, nylon case, I have not found 47UF tantalum electrolytic capacitors in my area or Ebay
I'm looking for a Zenith Royal 500D the one with the D symbol on the radio. Get back to me as soon as possible. Are these radios sensitive and selective on the radio. And is the sound of the speaker play loud on these radios.
I had a radio like that as a kid ,my dad brought a huge dry cell battery and hook my radio to the battery was about 1ft by 4".It would have run my radio for years.
California, specifically the Los Angeles area has always had an enormous Hispanic population, hence the multiple Spanish stations. Sanctuary status has nothing to do with it.
its priority mail but there is no need for any hurry. and that is the MOST expensive way to ship anything. also no need to ship 6 volt lantern batteries.
Actually the wipers inside are oxidized from lack of use. There is some good stuff on the market called DeoxIT D5. Works good. DeoxIT DNS is a quick drying version and DeoxIT D100 is a non solvent version. All are safe on plastics. Got mine from Fry's Electronics.
oh my goodness, just think of what would happen, if it was rookie training day. and picking random packages. frame 5:42, its a good sign doctor shango066, we have indicators...
hi! thanks for the awesome channel. could i ask you to elaborate a bit on the capacitor test with the scope (at arount 10:00)? my intuition says that there would be NO ac signal across an "open" capacitor, and seeing a signal would indicate that the cap was good. i seem to have it backwards, so can you help me understand this part?
Just received Billboard 'Tarps' from California - Shipping almost as much as tarps. Tarps Priceless tho - They're working > No more water Pouring in! : } Now to find Woodworker as Good as Shango on Caps! cheers ~- *
I bought mine "As Is" for $9.99 but I wanted it because of the sticker on the back that said "Zenith Quality built in America by highly skilled Well Paid American workers". When it came in the mail I put batteries in and it worked. It was made in the '50s. 👍 😆
Man I depend on your videos. They help keep me sane thanks.
Ain't that the truth! Lol
Got the same radio color and everything ... still plays great , I like the reduction gear tuning controls these have
Interesting how the tuning ends at 14 instead of 16
I have one myself. Same color case, had to recap it as well. That set is a little powerhouse.
I did the same thing with a portable radio back in the day,it took four AA batteries to run it so I rigged up a holder to put on of these lantern batteries to power it, I had a steady supply of these because on my dad's job on the railroad they were always replacing them in their battery lanterns, they would last a long time before needing replaced.
Tubless with innertube radio, only on shango066
Who heard it come on and said to themselves "of course it works... Its a Zenith."
zipjay Only time one of my Zenith didn't work... One rather oddball tube, and a replacement Chinese power switch fail.
Zenith made two versions of the 500D, one with a conventional speaker (the earlier version), and the later more interesting version with the convex speaker that you have. It was Zenith's first attempt to improve audio quality in a pocket radio before the 500H, which had an oval speaker with an off-center magnet.
Zenith made so many variants on this radio. I have one which is an 8 transistor variant with the non-inverted speaker. Doesn't have the model number on the front, but it is a 500 series radio. One of the best early transistor radios made. Mine has the RF stage with untuned inter-stage coupling and separate mixer and oscillator stages. I think later units used the usual self oscillating converters. Some of the 500 series did have NPN germanium transistors in a few places.
So after seeing you replace those three caps, I opened my radio up and saw that the same capacitors had already been replaced with Jap electrolytics.
Got a couple of those. The 500D is the eight transistor version - an excellent radio.
I bet if that was x-rayed it would have scared the post office!!
What
Hell yeah, thats bomb 101.
Zenith made some decent TV's & Radios. Got it sounding pretty good there Shango.
Stay tuned radio fans for another installment of Radio Shango! Cool radio!!
Yeah, I heard Chicago on there. The UK and Canada don't have sanctuary cities, so no Spanish stations.
@ 16:25 - "white capacitors matter" - made by International Electronic Components, Nashville 4, Tennessee.
Ironic that their EIA code is 911! - We have a "capacitor emergency" - paging JJCruse!
The 500D, once cleaned up and polished, that would be a really sharp looking radio. I liked how it had a fine tuning dial where you can turn it slow and the dial moves slower for fine tuning, neat!
Subscribed! Cool vintage tech restored!
Thanks, another very enjoyable video! An uncle of mine had a maroon Zenith like that, bought it new. Only a year or two later, it was in its leather case, strapped to his belt, he was out on his boat, radio playing. Without thinking, he jumped overboard to retrieve a fishing pole, heard the radio audio go: "blub-blub-blub" as he went into the water! He tried drying it out, and then gave it to me! It never worked well at all, after going swimming! He said that thing new, was nearly a month's salary to purchase!
holy crap! that made it through the postal service huh?
that looks super suspicious with the big cell strapped to it.
I'm surprised the battery didn't drive through the back of the radio.
I would have taken those off for sure
It probably had a camera stuck in it somewhere
Amazing how many AM stations there still are. I mean with everything going "digital", odd there is still so many AM broadcast stations transmitting out their messages. Thumbs Up!
Sadly, here in Germany they shut all of them down a few years ago
I have worked on several of these over the years. The high drain is a common thing with old capacitors. Normal draw is 15-30 mv depending on the volume setting. They (and all transistor radios) ate batteries like people eat peanuts. The louder you played it the faster the lead-acid batteries were drained. It would be several years before alkalines became common. Some resorted to mercury batteries to get longer life.
"Tubeless" was a common marking back then as many portable radios used tubes or had hybrid circuits. The "tubeless" marking told buyers they were getting a "real" transistor radio.
Are you lost?
Cool little set and still in decent shape.I always love getting some electrical gear with some nasty shipping charges and finding out it still has 2 plus pounds of corroded batteries in it! Save me some $$ and take those nasty things out before shipping!
yeah that can be a problem but the last time someone sent me a radio with battery still in it a vintage one I sold it for more than what I paid for the radio !
That's a rare find indeed! I once got one of those old grey metal Navy "Battle Lantern's" at an on-line auction. The Two 1.5V Dry Cells(Type 6 I think they are called) were still inside..I thought cool score until it was clear they had swollen themselves tightly into the case. Soak in baking soda solution to neutralize the acid and then dig them out..what a mess. But cool light to have around!
Great looking AM Radios! I can remember going into Radio Shack in the early 90's asking about tubes, and the sales person told me to check an auto parts store......YIKES!
The RS I worked at still had a tester and a pretty fair assortment at that time. But not long after that.
The video begins with the noise of airplanes and mourning doves... must be shango066
What a nice looking radio.
It would be very interesting to see you working on fixing a amateur radio receiver valve or early transistor model's
I have a Kenwood TS-820 in need of (probably) a new finals section... The weight though...
My aunt had that Zenith model. I loved it as a child.
A complete re-cap taking only 4 capacitors. Try that with a Japanese transistor radio of that era.
Shango, I'm from ky myself, back in those days, people used what they had available at the time, to make stuff work. It might not be pretty but it worked. We dont have everything over here like it is out on your side of the country. No more electronic parts stores...
Oh, the ironies... love it!
Nice radio. I remember seeing one at my Uncles house like that when I was a kid.
The geared tuning knob is really neat. And that it works.
@ 5:44 when I heard loud crackle from the speaker, I was like, this damn thing might actually work!!!! Don't mean to go all JJCruse on you, but all my Zeniths were dead as a hammer when I got them. Those "Nashville" capacitors are the worst! I have a Royal 275 that is essentially the same as what you have there, and it was stone cold dead - dried up electrolytics. The radio did have an interesting disc ceramic cap failure later - the .01 mike that couples the local oscillator to the mixer turn into a 22 Kohm resistor and overbiased the mixer - symptom was distorted audio because of excessive RF gain.
Oh I love me some #JasonJJCruz
@@shango066 I concur with your idea of not nilly-willy replacing caps for the hell of it. I still have my grandads Sony TR-1814 from 1964 - never had a cap changed - has rubycon caps - still works - audio is a bit "thin" sounding - the electrolytics have dried a little, but still plays quite well.
4 ifts + osc coil ! in a portable. That is very rare and nice.
the thumbs down is from a guy with a RCA radio
Not this guy---the only portable I have is a '63 RCA, but I'd rather have a Zenith
nice gift :D shipping is terrible indeed! At least back in the day people who owned TVs could pop to their local TV repair shop to get it fixed when it broke (there was one on the corner of my street until about 2002)... if you lived in a populated enough area wiith enough people owning vintage tvs i wonder if you could make a go of a tv repair shop these days... guess youd have to do a lot of tft and other junk, half of which isnt really made with repairability in mind only cost savings :(
great scratch mix during the tune around
Your video's help me😃✌a well made radio no radio of today will be working like this zenith
Baby animal freaking 9 years probably get it from labor but I say give her ass purple best friend
@@shango066 Four caps changed in a Shango066 Zenith video... The JJCruisemeister is pleased!
Very cool radio. Looks like the solder joint between the board and the tuning capacitor was cracked. Not sure if that would affect its performance.
A few weeks ago there was an earthquake near Bakersfield. Felt it all the way in Madera. I imaged you felt it too.
I have this exact radio but in black and gold somewhere.. Don't know if it works, but it is heavy little owl eyed beast!
Penlight. I haven't heard that term for years. Interesting video!
BTW, that speaker looks prolapsed.
The label shows how to install mercury batteries. Haven't heard of them for a while.
Volume control........? Needs something.... By the way is that lantern battery for sale and could free shipping be included? I need something new to throw in my microwave ....been really board latey.
1/4 shipping for lantern battery!!! thanks shango :)
Some earlier versions of this radio used NPN transistors for all or selected functions, like paired 2N35's for output. It varied. Need to consult the documentation like Sam's for the EXACT chassis - look very carefully at the number - especially before attempting to plug in a Russian. The early 500's varied chassis a lot in a short period of time.
Helpful!
Here's a question: I have an RCA Victor 1-BT-29 "Transicharge" with a collapsed IF transformer.
Any idea where to find a suitable replacement?
Listening to the stations you receive, it seems we're in the same town...
Cool radios
Good radio for reception have one of these radios I live in Vacaville California. And these radios are good I have a Zenith Royal 275 radio too great radios
That 's an interesting Loudspeaker design.I wonder if it sounds better,worse or the same as what you usually get?
I've got one sort of like that but it's got tubes in it it looks like a transistor radio but it's got a and a b battery and when I had it going one time it sounded really good that's a nice radio it looks like a owl
FedEx Ground used to be relatively cheap shipping but that may have changed of late (haven’t done much shipping of packages over 2 lbs. the past few years).
At 10:17 Installing Kemet tantalum capacitor on your radio minimise the risk for heart disease by more then 20 %!
Uh oh! We're recapping... LOL you just made every Cap trolls day.
"Innie & outie" to describe that speaker... reminds me of an expression from the distant past, in New Zealand to describe girls: "Front bum". 😉
This radio reminds me of the high dollar boutique cell phones they have now.
I've got to Zenith hearing aids with very very small electron tube about the era of that radio they look new but I don't have a b battery or two A's and then there's a switch on top to where you can switch from one to the other
I'm bad at judging sizes from the video but it looks like they could have mailed that from Florence KY to Los Angeles in a large 12x12x5 inch flat-rate priority box for $19.95.
Thanks for the video! I wonder what's in the other package.
Jac Goudsmit it was a usps box, but it was not flat rate shipping. The usps person said that priority shipping was only a couple bucks more expensive than standard, so I just went with the priority.
Trabajos exelente losque hace,vende algunas de sus recuperaciones.
Interesting speaker, wonder what the development costs were on that gem? Back when them radios were popular, you could find "mercury transistor radio batteries" that were supposed to provide long life. I am unsure if that was the precursor to the alkaline battery or what?
Mercury batteries were discontinued a long time ago
@@JohnSmith-eo5sp Oh yeah, haven't seen them since the late 1960's .
Any battery containing mercery was banned by 1996, had a Pentax camera that used one
@@craignehring Question: Is a Carbon-4 battery a general purpose battery, and why aren't Alkaline batteries the same "general purpose", if at all?
This information I acquired at my local Franklin's Hardware store about the batteries I was using for an old three D-cell steel-cased flashlight I was trying to repair
@@JohnSmith-eo5sp Holy smokes, that's a darn good question and one I do not feel qualified to answer. But... LOL there is always a but... I think that the old school carbon zinc cells were commonly referred to as general purpose. Even the so called "flash light" has a reason for being called that, at least here in the states. Early cells could not sustain a high current draw for very long at all. The effect was the bulb would give a burst of light or "flash" prior to turning dim or going out. This is much like when one tries to use exhausted cells in a flashlight, we have all been there and done that. Give the lamp a rest even for a few seconds and your good for another flash of light. I believe the British had it correct in calling the flashlight a torch. One thing is for sure is carbon batteries are inexpensive and have limited current output. Alkaline cells can put out some serious current and can perform well in some tough situations.
It's an interesting topic
@@craignehring Me thinks the Brits, our so-called allies from across The Pond, use the term lanterns to describe flashlights. They don't use Zinc, for Carbon-batteries much anymore, that's all devoted to our 'copper-pennies".
They replaced that not-precious metal(Zinc) with Manganese in these dry- cells a long time ago
I have one like it recapping it also someone wanted a long play time, nylon case, I have not found 47UF tantalum electrolytic capacitors in my area or Ebay
I'm looking for a Zenith Royal 500D the one with the D symbol on the radio. Get back to me as soon as possible. Are these radios sensitive and selective on the radio. And is the sound of the speaker play loud on these radios.
Nice work ;-) I never use flame emitting capacitors though. Tantalums are evil.
The Post Office is a fortune. Fed Ex Ground is much cheaper.
I had a radio like that as a kid ,my dad brought a huge dry cell battery and hook my radio to the battery was about 1ft by 4".It would have run my radio for years.
California, specifically the Los Angeles area has always had an enormous Hispanic population, hence the multiple Spanish stations. Sanctuary status has nothing to do with it.
lol
It is just another example of people who live in a bubble.
7:40 nice Audi!
This video was a hoot.
And outta speaker . Cool first one I have ever seen
Oh its a 'Big Jim' battery . . we used those in hunting & netting like it was going out of fashion . . in out back NT Oz
Looks like a homemade bomb with that lantern battery. Ka Boom!!!!!!
i bet someone would think that it is a Bomb!
its priority mail but there is no need for any hurry. and that is the MOST expensive way to ship anything. also no need to ship 6 volt lantern batteries.
Sanctuary state! Love it
fantástico o radinho
If you needed to replace the tuning capacitor, on a vintage radio, from the 1960s, how would you do it? Great video. Cheers!
Actually the wipers inside are oxidized from lack of use. There is some good stuff on the market called DeoxIT D5. Works good. DeoxIT DNS is a quick drying version and
DeoxIT D100 is a non solvent version. All are safe on plastics. Got mine from Fry's Electronics.
@@hestheMaster Okay. Thanks!
oh my goodness, just think of what would happen, if it was rookie training day. and picking random packages.
frame 5:42, its a good sign doctor shango066, we have indicators...
Nice to know that Japan back then didn't had a monopoly on transistor radios.
I like video as I have this model ...
Those shipping prices and they went ahead and sent the dead lantern battery along LOL
The CONELRAD stations don't appear to be broadcasting.
i've never seen a speaker like that before
New Shango066 video = hit like, watch video, go play with oscilloscope some more.
hi! thanks for the awesome channel.
could i ask you to elaborate a bit on the capacitor test with the scope (at arount 10:00)? my intuition says that there would be NO ac signal across an "open" capacitor, and seeing a signal would indicate that the cap was good. i seem to have it backwards, so can you help me understand this part?
Good capacitor should act like an AC short
@@shango066 thank you
It looked like an IED with that battery strapped to it.
The internal speaker might have a harder cone, less bass.
is the crackling my end or yours?
"Dilly snergle" ... we certainly don't want to be doing that.
Zenith quality, it's no wonder that it still works after all these years
It's funny how the transistor sockets on the back of the pcb look like smt 3 lead transistors of today.
Hello Shango066,
Wondering if you would be interested in repairing a ford mustang AM radio and making a video on the repair? Regards, AJ.
Morning
Great video, would be cool if you made one that shows you soldering.
Yay, battery voltage :)
🥰😉😘
Had to be a high dollar radio in it's time.
They were ridiculously expensive but well worth it.
battery looks vintage but for the barcode on the bottom of it !
Depends on your definition of "vintage". Bar-codes have been commonplace since the mid-70s.
@@rockabillycat1954 good point but it seems the barcode is a lot older than I thought
Y E N I T H
Right now there's two black ones on ebay with a leather case
The dilly snerglerrr
13:34 DJ! spin that shit
$1.99 for the lantern battery! Would cost $10 today.
Just received Billboard 'Tarps' from California - Shipping almost as much as tarps.
Tarps Priceless tho - They're working > No more water Pouring in! : }
Now to find Woodworker as Good as Shango on Caps! cheers ~- *
Wonder if he should've used a Flat-Rate box!