- 2024
- Apr
- 15
The 2024 Cuyahoga Falls Hamfest
This show has entered my regular rotation of attended events due to the good variety of items that show up. In the three years I’ve been attending, I’ve never left without some goodies at a good price, including a lot of the test equipment I currently have on my bench.
This year was no different. While certain things (boatanchors) are getting in shorter supply, there’s no shortage of 1960s and 1970s stuff right now - all of which can, for the most part, be easily repaired if need be.
Here’s what you’re waiting for, all of the pictures that I took at the show. The things I brought home will be featured in a future post. Enjoy!
- 2024
- Apr
- 13
This 1986 Ford Radio.
One of the things that caught my eye at the Cuyahoga Falls hamfest this past Saturday was a car radio sitting on the table by the door - the one that’s “Take what you want, pay what you want.” It’s nothing special, just an old Ford AM radio. I put some buxx in the bucket for it.
Why? I want a radio that I can put in a panel and mount in my rack, and a car radio is quite noise immune. I want to listen to a station for emergency alerts, and a car radio is a good choice, being designed for harsh service.
This one has some oddities about it, however:
It’s a radio! Yay! This one doesn’t say Philco on it. You’ll notice it doesn’t seem to have a lot of wear on the knobs and the buttons. In fact, there’s none, and even the face is nice and bright (save the dirt from storage.)
The mount doesn’t show any evidence of ever having been bolted up, either.
Even the lamp, which is in a shielded tube mounted away from the faceplate to prevent plastic burning - a well thought out thing - shows no tungsten burn off. The picture doesn’t really show it, but the brass body is just-out-of-the-box shiny.
I don’t think this was ever mounted in a vehicle. Even the socket pins look new, there’s no marks that I can see on them, and installing it even once would leave some sort of evidence. Inside is similarly clean, there’s not even any evidence of wear on the tuning assembly.
I wonder what it was for? Dealer stock from back when you could get a car without a radio if you wanted it, or perhaps a repair device that was never used?
The inside is a thing of beauty. 4 cans, 3 trimmers, and nothing other than discrete transistors.
Even the label is cool. Ford Aerospace.
So the next thing is to hook it up and try it…and I don’t have any 4 ohm speakers these days. That’s easy enough to get, I can probably pick up something at the next show, which is in a couple of weeks.
This radio seems to fit the bill for what I want to do with it, and the fact that it looks like it’s still new is quite the bonus. I’ll post results when I get it hooked up.
- 2024
- Apr
- 8
Imagine taking this 29-cent LED bulb back to 1955…
I bet there’d be a lot of questions, and who knows if you’d ever be seen again. Even if something like this had been possible at the time, how much would it have cost? Would the government blush at the amount of money necessary to buy it?
This is a cheap replacement for a not really but getting more expensive incandescent #44/#47 style bulb. Originally made for pinball machines and other amusement vending devices, these seem to work fine in other equipment. The ratio of metal to “glass” is a bit different, so the glass portion doesn’t really line up as well with the jewel in my application. However, it works well enough and hopefully takes just a bit of load off the old transformer. Maybe it will last a bit longer that way.
- 2024
- Apr
- 8
Just some minor equipment repairs - cord replacements
One of the things that I do not leave on a device, no matter the age or style, is an old line cord - curtain burners notwithstanding, those are a special case.
This is the cord for my small variac.
While it’s not totally crispy, it’s showing it’s age - and since it just goes in the hole it’s probably a replacement anyway.
It’s just soldered to the switch, so the new one goes in easily. The other connections? Eh…I’ll clean those up at some point, but I need the device working now.
A grommet, an underwriter’s knot, and a blurry photo of the actual business end of the unit and we’re ready to go back together. The cord has some slack, and the knot should keep it from pulling out - unlike the older cord which just laid there.
Back together, and we’re back in business!
- 2024
- Apr
- 7
Remember these things?
The Radio Shack crystal radio kit - a tuning capacitor, ferrite antenna bar, and a 1N34A diode on a little breadboard device that was reused for many different things - including an AM transmitter kit. These generally ran $10 for years, and this appears to be a later unit made in China.
I had one of these when I was a kid, but didn’t really appreciate it. Now I do, so I found one on an auction site and plan on building it. I’ll scan and post the manual as well, so stay tuned!
I would like to find out what the bar antenna is, and if they’re still available. They seem to have a million uses.
If you’d like a manual scan, you can download it here. It’s about 1MB, and is a 600DPI PDF: https://privateemail … 8376/1/8/NDY/NDYvMTY
- 2024
- Apr
- 7
Tip Plugs for older test equipment are still purchasable.
They seem to be available from just about any one of the major electronics dealers, and run between $1.50 and $2.00 or so, depending on color and type. These are what you’d find on old test equipment like signal tracers and other devices where you’re inputting audio or other low frequency signals.
A current data sheet usually available from the vendors if you need one.
I usually get parts from Mouser.com, just because I’ve had good experiences purchasing parts from them over the years, and you can get small quantities with no minimum order penalties.
Solderless
105-0301-001 White
105-0302-001 Red
105-0303-001 Black
105-0304-001 Green
105-0310-001 Blue
Solder
105-0771-001 White
105-0772-001 Red
105-0773-001 Black
105-0774-001 Green <— This one is hard to get.
105-0780-001 Blue
- 2024
- Apr
- 7
An Eico 145 Signal Tracer - Part 2
It’s not really important to operation, but having clean knobs and lenses on indicators is always nice. Since I have an ultrasonic bath, I’m going to use it.
The knobs on this guy are pretty cruddy, and the power indicator has a spritz of bronze paint across it.
While I’m removing the knobs from the volume and function selector, they get a shot of deoxit to clean and lube them.
Everything goes in the bath for 20 minutes.
In the end, they all come out nice and clean and ready to re-install!
Parts have been ordered, we’ll go through those next.
Next part of this series: https://wereboar.com … ignal-tracer-part-3/
Previous part of this series: https://wereboar.com … ignal-tracer-part-1/