Australian Transistor Radio
 

My indigenous "Kriesler" trannie works well, and typically of the time is quite big! It has a leather case and a cast metal front so it's not really the type that can be slipped into the shirt pocket.

Apart from wiring in a plug for a transformer, I've not touched a thing and I've really only had experience with valve tuners before

The only problem is that it won't tune into any stations below about 800khz. It will tune all above this, but any lower results in a crackle, then silence. I've looked at the tuning apparatus, and all seems to be well - nothing bent, or touching where it shouldn't be,

Any advice as to what I should look at/for? I'd like to get the leather handle fixed, and polish the whole thing up as it would look a treat.

Cheers from summery Australia!

Cool radio. I like how the old stuff is put together. If you know what you're doing you CAN clean your tuning capacitor with deoxit. But you NEED to use the pure non aerosol type and apply only to the grounding springs and absolutely none of it on the plates.

Thanks for that - will give it a go if I can find something similar.

Cheers.

Hi Alan, nice radio. Looks like a hefty speaker for such a mid size radio. Nice that the dial has separate listings for your different Australian states. If you have some sort of lubricant/solvent like WD-40 that we have here, or electronic cleaner (if no electronics store, try an auto parts store) you can apply a couple of drops of it using a toothpick to the spring contact and bearings on the tuning capacitor, and then tune back and forth to work it in.

Also, the capacitor could be touching but you can't see it. If you have an ohmeter, turn it to the lowest ohm range, connect one lead to the capacitor frame, and the other to one of the stationary (stator) terminals and tune through the entire range with the set turned off. Your meter reading should not change throughout the range. The ohms number doesn't matter; just that it should not change. Try each of the other stator connections in turn. If any of them change around 800 and down, then there are plates touching. With the meter still connected try pushing a piece of card down each side of each plate on the offending section to see if you can find the short. The rotating (rotor) plate could then be bent back carefully.

It might be something else but this is where to start. Good luck!

Reece

Thanks for the advice, Reece. Other things have got in the way of completing this resto, but your very detailed advice is appreciated.

Cheers.

Just thought of something else: the coils connected across the stators and rotor of the capacitor may have such low resistance that you won't see any change on the ohmmeter. In that case, you would have to unsolder the wires to the stators to check the capacitor with nothing connected to it. Could just do them one at a time and then put them back.
Reece