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Hello,
Well my cap and stuff order came in the mail today. I ordered caps for this radio, and some parts I thought I needed for a Stewart Warner television that I have been having a difficult time with....
At any rate, I decided to replace a burned resistor in the TV. I thought I resolved the problem that caused the burned resistor in the first place, but no dice.... still messed up. Oh well, that'll be for another rainy day.
So, I decided that since I was in the shop, I would replace the electrolytic caps in the RCA radio. I have never powered this set up, so I didn't know the condition of the tubes, transformer, or anything. I replaced the filter caps, and the power cord. I plugged the set in and....
Nothing...
Ahh crap, the tubes didn't light, no sound, nothing. Well, I was going to give it up for the night, but noticed that the switch on the power strip was off.. Dang. Never had power in the first place. Ok. take two. This time I turned the strip on, plugged it in, watched closely for any smoke, watched the tubes light up and.....
Nothing.....
I grabbed my volt meter and measured AC voltage between the chassis and ground to make sure that the chassis wasn't live and turned the volume pot. It was all the way down. Immediately the RCA roared to life and was playing a song in a language I didn't immediately recognize. The song ended just then and a man speaking German came over the speaker. I was in the shortwave band and picking up a station from....somewhere!
Man, how cool is that! I fiddled with it for a while and was picking up hundreds of stations all over the three different bands. Absolutely no hum, and after a quick cleaning of the pots, no static or crackle at all.
Tomorrow I'll finish the recap, and clean up the case a little bit. I'm going to leave the case alone until I have the time to practice patching some veneer on a different piece.
It sure was cool to hear that old radio sing.
I don't know what it is, but I have this reaction every time I hear an old radio play.
This is now the oldest radio in my collection.
Thanks for reading my ramble.
Matt K.
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