Bargain in TV Parts

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by julianburke

Free? Free?? You mean like FREE??? But I saw them on evilbay for $60! (Old worn out cliche that I'm sick of hearing!)

When at any meet and find goodie parts, I always pick them up. Unfortunately, parts are not good sellers anymore for the simple reason young people are not involved and complete units are far cheaper than building anything and the majority of electronics people (newer generation-not us old fogies) don't know how to build/fix/engineer stuff anymore. Loopsticks are not made anymore because they contain copper coils like transformers and are not engineered because they are "engineered out" of todays' digital circuits. However you can still find a fairly good supply of most (and other parts) at any good hamfest and they are nowhere near evilbay prices! Many are giveaway to a good home.

I can remember the time that I ordered out of Allied, Olsen, Burstein Applebee and Lafayette catalogs for parts to build test equipment and small radio gear because I could not afford $20 for a similiar unit! I can't tell you how few lawns I mowed for $3 (they were also hard to find too) to buy these parts adn took care of what I had.

If I could get to a hamfest I'd look for a 1-megohm dual potentiometer to replace the defective one in my Zenith MJ-1035 radio; these parts can't be found anywhere else, I'm afraid. I haven't been to a hamfest in over ten years because I don't drive.

Julian, I was very surprised to read in your post that loopstick antenna coils are no longer manufactured. These coils were, at one time, very popular in transistor radios and even mounted on the back covers of expensive stereo hi-fi receivers. If new-in-box loopsticks cannot be found these days, what do today's AM radios use as antennas? I know many small FM receivers use the headphone cord as an antenna (I have an FM scanning radio that uses the headphone cable this way), but what about the AM sections of today's cheap plastic AM/FM radios? They have to be using something as an AM antenna; maybe they use the same headphone cord for that band as well as for FM.....?

Sixty bucks seems to me to be an awfully (even ridiculously, IMHO) high opening bid for a small collection of 50+-year-old loopsticks. I think this seller is either very new to eBay or else just wants to get as much money as he can from the sale, not unlike so many other eBay listings I've seen for radios in such bad shape they are useful only for parts. I've also seen eBay listings for radios that state the unit is "for parts only" (with a very unrealistic opening bid in some cases), when the item description clearly states that the only thing wrong with the set is a dry-rotted line cord, a bad tube, or some other easily-repaired problem.

My best guess is that many (or even most) of these listings are posted by people who know little or nothing about radio, TV or electronics, and think that just because a radio or TV is 50-odd years old and has a defective line cord, bad tubes, or other small problems, it is junk. This may well be the case with the seller of those loopstick coils. The person posting this listing may not know what he or she is looking at, but regardless wants to get top dollar for them. The condition of these loopsticks, moreover, is unknown. They are listed as "new old stock", but after having been sitting around who knows where for who knows how many years or decades, the windings may be defective or shorted, the cores are probably brittle as all get out....I wouldn't trust them in any circuit I was building, experimental or otherwise, or as a replacement for a loopstick in one of my vintage transistor radios, without testing the windings with my ohmmeter first. Again, in my opinion, they are not worth $60--the final bid may be, Heaven forbid, much higher (!), but they are certainly not worth anywhere near that, IMO (however high the final bid may be), either.

Good grief.