rw6ase.narod.ru

[tomt]

many Radios

Tube and solid state

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/0/rprl.html


other stuff too ...

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/

[Dude111]

Wow are those different years you can see stuff from????

Wow......... Thats amazing.... I clicked 1986 and choose an alarm clock,looked quite nice!! (Then I clicked 1931 and was amazed even more)

[Tubejunke]

I keep getting an Error 404: page does not exist and I desperately need to look for a Philco 51-532 AM radio. I just need the case really, but will take what I can get. See related post in this forum.

[Dude111]

Hmmm goto this page

www.rw6ase.narod.ru

Then select what year you wanna see stuff in (I just tried it again)

[RJMiranda]

Thank you VERY MUCH, tomt, for this interesting site. I like it very much. Altho I can´t understand Russian, the google robotic translator lets one know what they are talking about.
You can bet we here in Cuba had a very close relationship with some of the Russian gear. Mainly radios, phonographs and TV receivers. I don´t know why our stores never sold tape recorders. People used to bring them when traveling to Russia (studying or working there).
My first tape recorder was a Mayak-203, and I had never bothered to find what the name meant (it is "lighthouse" in Russian, in Spanish "faro"). It worked very well after I changed the diameter of the motor idler (it was made for 50 Hz). And added a photoelectric tape end sensor, because most of the Russian R2Rs lacked it. If you fall asleep, the spools keep turning and slapping around the tape all night long!
And the customary tank-like weight common to Russian appliances. We liked to say they used the shields of discarded T-34 tanks to make portable radios with!

[dieseljeep]

How much Russian built equipment is still operating in Cuba. I heard, their TV's weren't the greatest, regarding longevity. Poorly insulated HV transformers, ETC. The cause of fires in Russia and other areas, where sold.
It also would interesting to see the US products still operating there.

[RJMiranda]

Very few Russian sets remain operating in Cuba. For many years all TVs were B/W, mainly tube/hybrid models (and the transistorised Caribe assembled here with the circuit of the Elektron 216) As you say, components were not good. Apart of what you said, transistors were very unreliable and many capacitors (mica and electrolytics) failed miserably. Paper capacitors were not so bad, and on the other hand Russian paper-oil capacitors and oxide-film resistors will probably outlive the Pyramids.
In the 80´s started coming to our stores Russian color TVs. Elektron 280/288, Horizon and Krim (don´t remember the model Nos). All with faded-out color CRTs, with the same problems of the B/W sets but many other of their own. No wonder almost nobody has one working (but some people that can´t afford a new TV still have some Caribes or maybe Krims, I used to call them Kriminals.
Maybe some caught fire, but in our homes it was more likely to have a fire for other causes (bad electrical installation, or maybe kerosene kitchens left unattended).
Portable radios like the VEFs 205-206, Meridian 201, Orbita-4 (assembled here as Taino 74), Selena 215-216 and others were plenty in the 70s. In Cuba we assembled a Varadero radio-rassette-recorder that used to be called Spidola in the USSR. Apart for that and the Selena, no Russian radio had the FM band that we youngsters wanted to hear music broadcasts from the US.
Just a few of them survive, and most don´t work. My filmmaking colleagues have a bad time finding a Russian radio/TV to be used as a prop, even if it is not going to be turned on.
But all the same I think we all remember these old sets with some sympathy. We grew with them! (Because of the US embargo, it was that, or a crystal set, unless your father was a pilot/merchant mariner and could bring you a brand-new Sony Trinitron).

[dieseljeep]

I have a VEF radio, in my collection. A rather interesting set, seems to be well built.
I talked with a Gentleman that came from Cuba, in the early 60's. His family had an early Admiral TV. I also understand that there many old US made appliances, still in use there, Refridgerators, ETC. Of course, we know about the cars.
I used to listen to Radio, Havana, Cuba during the Russian missile crisis. I was scared sh*tless, as I thought that we were going to be involved in a Nuclear war.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Cool, it is interesting to have someone from Cuba here. I've seen Soviet TV's in homes of Cubans that were made for NTSC, IIRC. Can you tell us how and when Cuba will go digital, will they use DVB or ATSC? I hear a lot of Cuban AM stations at night, sometimes in the winter the signals are better and when I listened to "Coast to Coast AM" (a talkshow about paranormal topics) on 570, WKBN, out of Youngstown, OH when I lived near Pittsburgh, sometimes I heard "Radio Reloj" in the background. Many times Radio Reloj "walked over" (overpowered) WKBN at times. I live just north of Wheeling, WV, across the Ohio River in Ohio, now since I had to move because I lost my mother two years ago. Because of that, I still like to keep in touch with my Pittsburgh roots so I listen in KDKA from time to time on 1020. I'm far enough from Pittsburgh now, just an hour's drive, that I sometimes hear Radio Reloj under KDKA.

[Reece]

NWMan, WKBN is on 570, Radio Reloj is on 950, and you'd hear them underneath WKBN? And KDKA is on 1020, and you hear 950 Radio Reloj under them? How is any of this possible with these widely varying frequencies?

[RJMiranda]

Hi, NWMan and you guys! I was off the air for a while. Radio Reloj, and some other Cuban stations, are broadcast nationwide. So there must be several transmitters (in different frequencies) to cover all the territory. As you know, Cuba is a narrow island with a East-West orientation. It is possible, under certain atmospheric conditions, for several of these transmissions to reach US territory. I just tuned Radio Reloj to check, and by luck it was 3 p.m sharp, so they were reading the station´s ID, and they no longer give you the frequency. It must be because it is not the same in all the provinces.
Regarding digital TV, the Chinese system is being implemented. At this moment, in Havana and several other cities, simultaneous broadcast are being made in NTSC and digital. Of course, the programming is still SD (NTSC). And there is an additional HD channel for tests. Only a few programmes are broadcast in it, as maybe 95% of our studio equipment is SD. I have been told that on weekends it keeps broadcasting in HD (mostly foreign football and some Cuban baseball), but my home decoder can´t receive HD. I plan on buying a new one soon, that will receive HD and also have HDMI outputs (my current set-top box is the very first model distributed in Cuba, and only has RCA outputs).
Of course, as we are using the Chinese system, US, Japanese and Korean sets can´t pick the transmissions off air. So, when you get digital TV in Cuba, you are using set-top boxes. There are a few sets specially made for Cuba, (flat-screens and CRTs also) that have the digital decoder built-in.
But for the most of our country, it is still good old NTSC. Havana is pretty well covered with digital transmissions, but as nothing has been said about turning off analog broadcasting yet, a lot of people haven´t bought the set-top decoders.

[RJMiranda]

We started having digital TV maybe one year ago. At first, several hundreds set-top boxes were given for free in Havana, in order to check the propagation. I got one of these. It has only RCA outputs, so very soon will be hard to find a TV set with the appropriate inputs.
After several months of trials, and one change of codecs (one had to put the decoder in the self-programming mode so it could find again the channel/codec combination), the sale of the set-top boxes started. There are several models, all Chinese-made. Some can record from the air in a USB device, a pair of them have added HDMI output, and at least one is HDTV-ready. It is the most expensive, of course.
I plan on buying one of these soon, to be able to watch the (few) HDTV tests in HD. It will not be a new program, but some HD material that is simulcast in SD on one of the other eight channels.
Currently, five TV channels are being broadcast in Cuba. They are the "traditional" Cubavisión (general programming) and Tele Rebelde (mainly sports). Around 2001 started another two (educational programming, but one of them is part-time for the children, nd in the afternoons relays Venezuelan TeleSur). And maybe in 2009 we got Multivisión, with canned programming, mainly foreign.
Every provincial capital has its own TV center, but most broadcast only about 1-2 hours daily, using the Tele-Rebelde frequency. Canal Habana is the most active, followed by Santiago de Cuba´s TV center. Of course, they are seen only within the province´s limits.
With the digital decoders, we have three extra programmes: one full-time Telesur, Cubavisión Internacional (programming for the Cuban satellite channel, formerly not locally available) and a full-time musical channel. And the "HD Test" channel.
But with the exception of the HD tests, all the programming is SD (NTSC). Many Cubans have at home modern HDTV-ready TV sets, bot there is still a majority with only older CRT sets, even a few surviving Soviet-made ones.
And I wouldn´t be surprised to know some die-hard has still a working American pre-1960 set. But in technical terms he would be a national hero, because here you can´t go into a store and buy a NOS tube or flyback.

[Electronic M]

Assuming you can get replacement resistors and capacitors in Cuba....There is a chance American sets are still usable there. Monochrome sets tended to be easy on their flybacks and other Transformers/inductors, and some models were easier on their tubes. I've seen some functional low use 60's sets that only were on occasionally with all the tubes that they had when they left the factory still installed....50's sets were similar, but the capacitors were usually not as long lived.

If you could/can get soviet, euro and or Japanese types then odds further improve since many of those were US types with foreign number schemes.....Granted soviet copes of US tubes usually have the pin out jumbled so socket rewiring, or adapters fashioned from dud tube bases and sockets, would be needed. Having a good US and a good foreign tube data book (or today access to the internet) would be a must for that.

[Telecolor 3007]

I know that site for years. In Romania we imported a lot of electronics from U.S.S.R. Some of theyr stuff was better then Romanian stuff. We where banned to manufcature reel to reel tape recorders, but we assambled cassette recorders (in 3 different locations).
Generally speaking, Soviet, Czech, Polish and East-German electronics where better built then the Romanian ones...
Here is an intresting Soviet radio made in one the Baltic countries: http://rw6ase.narod.ru/00/rp_l/leningrad57.html
http://rw6ase.narod.ru/00/rp_l/festiwal.html
Seen one working. I will not going to buy it... price to high for me.

Most of the Soviet tube sets had one big good thing: a transformes, so no live chassies.