Transoceanic 3000-1 -- Only FM Band Works

[kal37]

Just picked up this 3000-1 TO. The FM band works great, volume and tuning are fine. No sound at all on any other bands, including AM.

[Sandy G]

Hmmmmm...Have you checked the internal antenna connections ?

[kal37]

Opening the back cover and looking at the terminal strip in the upper left corner, I can see the following. The wave rod lead has a spade lug on front and a soldered wire (I think it's green) on back. The antenna terminal marked "A" has an orange wire soldered to the back. The wave magnet connector is also firmly socketed.

To clarify my original comments, it is not just a lack of reception on all the other bands (except FM), there is NO SOUND whatsover, just a short bit of static when changing bands.

[matt_s78mn]

I have one that had the exact same issue. NO sound at all on anything but FM, except for the crackling when changing bands. I discovered that it was a transistor that had fallen out of its socket. I don't recall which transistor it was, as that was quite a wile ago, but that would be a good place for you to start anyway.

[mr_fixer]

my first guess is the local oscillator transistor, or the mixer transistor. If you look at the chassis on the left side , at the top are 7 test points. Just below them are 3 round silver transistors almost in a row, these xsistors are in sockets just like tubes try wiggling them while tuned to the am band. try the middle one then the right one. IF you have a trns tester that would be even better. the middle one is a 121-350 which cross refs to a ecg or nte 160, the right one is a 121-351 which is the same as the first one. Logan

[kal37]

Since I had another 3000-1 collecting dust because the battery box was well corroded, I decided to swap out the three upper left transistors, one at a time. The right and middle ones made no difference. The one in the upper left (121-44 R.F.) was the culprit. All bands are now working. Thanks for the great suggestions.

[mr_fixer]

well, I'll be monkey's uncle, when the rf trans goes out you should be able to pick up at least one local am station, because of capacitance pickup. so that is why i left it out of the diagnostic. Congrats on getting it working, they are nice radios. Logan

[bgadow]

I did something dumb with one of my T-O's, newer than this one. The RF gain control (which this model mght not have) was cranked down. I had paid no attention to it. Doesn't effect FM, so I went tearing the radio apart before someone on the forums clued me in!