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  #1  
Old 10-28-2009, 06:58 PM
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sidbartos sidbartos is offline
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Kaiser Radio

Hey guys, Im usually over on the audiokarma boards reading about vintage pioneer equipment but a new piece of equipment brings me over here. Last weekend I was going browsing through the craigslist electronics section while my girlfriend was here and came across an old Kaiser AM/FM/SW tabletop radio for $40. I decided not to act on it being a poor college student and all and forgot about it. Well sunday night by girlfriend comes over with a surprise in the trunk of her car..she went and picked up the radio for me knowing it was hard for me to pass up. It looks to be in amazing condition for its age and functions quite well...but I come with a few questions: First, I can't seem to find any model information on the unit at all..I've just been able to get the manufacturing date of 1961 off of the inside from the main speaker, and any wording on the unit is in german, but no model information. Secondly, it has 2 problems,
1.) the switches are quite finicky and I really have to play with them to get it to stay on a certain band so I was wondering how I could clean those.
2.) The radio has 3 speakers but only the front speaker works, not the 2 sides so Im not quite sure how to diagnose the problem.
The inside of the unit is absolutely caked in 50 years of dust so I definitely have to clean it up. I've done some technical stuff with my more "modern" pioneer receiver but I have no idea how to deal with tube equipment..it's a whole different ball game to me. Any advice would be great!
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  #2  
Old 10-30-2009, 03:06 PM
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Kingfisher Kingfisher is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sidbartos View Post
Hey guys, Im usually over on the audiokarma boards reading about vintage pioneer equipment but a new piece of equipment brings me over here. Last weekend I was going browsing through the craigslist electronics section while my girlfriend was here and came across an old Kaiser AM/FM/SW tabletop radio for $40. I decided not to act on it being a poor college student and all and forgot about it. Well sunday night by girlfriend comes over with a surprise in the trunk of her car..she went and picked up the radio for me knowing it was hard for me to pass up. It looks to be in amazing condition for its age and functions quite well...but I come with a few questions: First, I can't seem to find any model information on the unit at all..I've just been able to get the manufacturing date of 1961 off of the inside from the main speaker, and any wording on the unit is in german, but no model information. Secondly, it has 2 problems,
1.) the switches are quite finicky and I really have to play with them to get it to stay on a certain band so I was wondering how I could clean those.
2.) The radio has 3 speakers but only the front speaker works, not the 2 sides so Im not quite sure how to diagnose the problem.
The inside of the unit is absolutely caked in 50 years of dust so I definitely have to clean it up. I've done some technical stuff with my more "modern" pioneer receiver but I have no idea how to deal with tube equipment..it's a whole different ball game to me. Any advice would be great!
pics?

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  #3  
Old 11-03-2009, 11:16 AM
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/38242085@N02/4072679760/

I couldn't figure out how to get the image right in the thread so here is a link to the picture I took..
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Old 11-03-2009, 12:34 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Those older German radios were excellent. I never heard of or saw a "Kaiser" radio, however, until now. It looks like many of the early German sets such as Grundig, et al.; should be an excellent performer once you get it working. I had a Grundig 2168 AM/FM/SW four-band radio some 30 years ago that worked well (and sounded great), except for the fact that the side speakers were missing, until the FM tuner quit; never did figure out what happened to it. Got rid of it when I purchased my first stereo system in the early 1980s.

Zenith may have taken their cues from the Germans when the former designed their better table model radios (C/H/L845, C835, K731, MJ1035, et al), as these sets sound every bit as good as the German ones, especially since the Zenith radios I mentioned have two speakers, one for lows and midrange and a smaller one for the highs. Zenith also used a special type of audio output transformer in their better table sets; this transformer had a feedback winding (for want of a better phrase; I can't think of the right one offhand) which most garden-variety AA5s do not have. Moreover, Zenith radios of the '40s through the end of the sixties had "true" tone controls that actually varied the entire response curve of the audio stages, rather than simply cutting down the high frequencies as do most tone-control schemes; this contributed to the outstanding tone quality of these sets, compared to today's one-chip gutless-wonder plastic headphone stereos and portable radios.

As to your Kaiser set, the switches and controls can be cleaned with Deoxit or even standard contact cleaner as is (or was) availiable at Radio Shack. After 50 years, I'm not surprised those buttons are intermittent. For the dust on the chassis, it can be vacuumed and brushed out easily. I have a Zenith H511 table set, an eBay score some years ago, that was very dusty inside when I got it; obviously the radio's former owner must have tucked it away in a garage, basement, attic, etc. for decades and forgot about it until he or she put it up for auction. Sounds like that may have been the case with your Kaiser radio as well; whomever had it before you may have had it in storage and left it there for years.

If it hasn't been tested already, I would be extremely cautious about testing this radio. The standard practice, plugging it into a Variac (a variable-voltage autotransformer) and bringing up the voltage slowly, watching for sparks, smoke, etc. as the voltage is increased, should be used here. If a Variac is not available, a common 100-watt light bulb in series with the line cord will suffice. This bulb should light to normal brilliance if there are no major shorts in the power supply. However, if the bulb lights to full brilliance, then promptly burns out with a bright flash (akin to a camera flashbulb), there is a short somewhere in the radio that must be identified and cleared before the set can be used again.
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  #5  
Old 11-03-2009, 04:46 PM
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Another German radio. I have fixed a few of these recently and they all have a very similar look. A Tonfunk I did has nearly the same dial and buttons. You would be smart to replace the old caps. Were not many in the one I did, but it may vary.
The switches can be very finiky, and if they break, you're done. You need to clean all the dust out of it and spray switch cleaner into the switches inside. Are they poping back up on you? After cleaning and lube it should be better. As for the side speakers, I would look inside to see that they are connected. Some use electrostatic speakers. It could also be a cap for the crossover that has failed. If there is one you could short across it to see if you get sound. Then just replace it. That is a pretty radio! John
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  #6  
Old 11-04-2009, 10:11 AM
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The switches function well except for the "off" switch which seems to be free-moving and does nothing..the cord has a power switch which I use. Im not sure how to access the place where the switches need to be cleaned. They look to be linked to the underside of the chassis but are enclosed so I don't just want to shoot in deoxit and hope for the best..for obvious reasons. Maybe later I can post a pic of the underside of the chassis to help my underdetailed explanation.

I've had a lot of fun picking up shortwave different shortwave stations from around the world on this radio. Im still trying to learn about shortwave since I've never had any experience with it, but this radio seems to perform well in picking up stations even with its basic antenna.
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  #7  
Old 11-04-2009, 12:03 PM
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The way that a series light bulb actually works, when used to soft-start a radio, follows. Be sure to understand the electrical terms series vs. parallel.

The idea is that with a radio and a light bulb in series across the power line, both should share the voltage and thus neither one get full voltage, provided neither one is shorted. If the radio were to have a short, the bulb would take the line voltage and save the radio from burning up. It would never flash and go out.

Start with a 60 watt bulb. If the bulb lights to normal or near normal brilliance, unplug everything right away and check for shorts in the radio. If the radio has a short, or partial short, all or most of the line voltage will develop across the light bulb and light it brightly. If this happens, repost your findings and we can give you pointers on how to find the short.

If, as we would hope, the bulb lights very dimly or imperceptibly, you are probably OK as the line voltage is being shared between the radio and the bulb.

If all is OK with a 60, try a 75. If you are monitoring line voltage at the radio (good idea) it won't be at 117 volts yet but possibly around 80 or 90 volts. There may be a crackle or two from the speaker but this depends on whether the rectifier has enough voltage at this point to provide B+. If the set has a power transformer, monitor its temperature.

Finally try a 100 watt bulb. The radio will probably play at this point if it's OK, and the bulb will be dim. At this point you can connect the radio directly to the line. Of course, it is highly recommended that you replace electrolytic and paper capacitors before going any further.

Reece
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  #8  
Old 11-16-2009, 06:11 PM
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The speakers look to be connected fine so im not sure where to go from here..as for the switches i sprayed in some regular deoxit then faderlube and now the switches work great!
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