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If you mean the audio coupling cap, I tested it for leakage at plate voltage from the detector tube and it was blocking DC at the voltage I got to, but in the end I simply replaced it due to age. A leaky cap there can damage the audio output transformer and output tube, so I usually replace them unless they are ceramic. If you mean the stabilizing cap, I simply replaced it due to age.

Yes it is a fine, quality radio. I looked for information on it in advertising literature to see how it was priced, etc. and have so far been unsuccessful. It is very sensitive and has a wonderful and powerful tone. The back panel was originally fitted with foam tape for the sealing the enclosure edges. I bought the tape but did not apply as I thought it was intended to subdue rattling, but I have not yet heard that. I really like it and glad I was able to save it, thanks to my brother seeing and salvaging it, for 50 cents.

I have gotten it from justradios dot com, at the bottom of the capacitor shopping cart. Anyone else wanting to make a store suggestion please add here; I don't have a deal to promote any of them.

@PracticallyFixed thank you very much.

Yes, if by "solid state" you mean transistor such as this radio, they can. It is the band pass filters for the Intermediate Frequency, the IF cans, which can get it if they are the kind that have an adjustable inductor core with fixed capacitors inside. The design of those fixed capacitors is the problem. The same issue can happen for either transistors or tubes. It is probably inevitable but the "younger" radios like this are not showing it as much yet as the older radios from the 50s are now. I would hope the lower voltages in the SS radios would give them a longer lifetime however. Thanks

Thanks. I always assumed that it had something to do with the higher voltage arcing the mica. Please keep up the videos. I learn something new from every one.

Thanks! Meant to go out there with my TinySA and see what that RF spectrum looked like! Must be like a roller rink out there if we could see in that range. Yeah my wife and I are both native Houstonians and we figure this was probably about the 12th time we have had snow that 'stuck' in our lifetime (not counting the 5 years we spent in SE Asia).

Yes, tape out, and ext speaker. Sounds nice with a nice enclosure.

Giving credit where due, I got this from Don at @RestoreOldRadios some time back. It is Aleene's Original Tacky Glue (I get at Hobby Lobby) with a bit of water. Watch his video below to see the mixing and how he also uses to apply patches when needed. Thanks for watching my video and don't forget to subscribe and like. th-cam.com/video/XsKWZ0Plbso/w-d-xo.html

Thank you​@@PracticallyFixed

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I do not have a Sencore SG165 how else can I do a FM alignment, I do have an RF generator thank you bob

@@robertdreitlein6613 Hi Bob. FM alignment is relatively difficult compared to the AM alignment. On the last page of the Sams it shows the procedure for doing the alignment using an AM signal generator and a VTVM. The adjustment of the discriminator will be the most difficult and I have heard some people draw a plot on graph paper to see if they are getting the even voltages on either side of "zero" and if the plot is essentially straight. You may be able to find a video of someone showing that method. Maybe try leaving it as is and see how it does! If it hasn't been touched since it left the factory and components in those sections are the same, it may not really need anything. Good luck.

Thanks Steve. Yes it was long but I believed the problems I dealt with at the end were worth covering and I didn't want to make a 4th part. People can always pause and come back later, I do it all the time out of necessity. Where to find this knob with set screw: I don't know, and yes they are still cr@ppy for that application, in the meantime I hope it works as well as it ever did. I think the shaft choice for that band switch was the core error. That type shaft should have been a round shaft with a flat or a D shape as an internal engineering application standard for band switches. We are left with how to deal with that design mistake. Dial cover: yep, I gave Mark's url for Dialcover dot com on screen at 54:47 and said how much I liked it. He provides a great service. [grump on] Am still grumpy about the YT copyright hassle. Wouldn't anyone want to be able to show the way the FM receives music, esp compared to talk which is about all we get on AM where I live? Who cares if Sade, or some CW person I have never heard of, could be heard for about 6 seconds? Worst hassle I ever experienced and it ate up even more time on editing and uploading, the least fun part of this. [grump now turned off] Thanks again.

@@PracticallyFixed There is a TH-cam music library that you can peruse which would allieviate those music copyright problems for the most part. A guy named Kevin MacLeod is one of those who I give high recommendations to put on a video but I'm not sure if you want to superimpose YT creator music over that which you are really listening to from a radio! LOL.

Hi. Please check my response to your question on Part 1 of this series. Thanks

You can find the Photofact on samswebsite dot com for pdf download. For the 7H921, it was set 73 folder 16. The dial cover: dialcover dot com Thanks for the comment and good luck with your's. Check out the other two in this series for some issues which your's may also have.

Hey man, thanks! Yes it was a lot of work. Concerning the sweep, I have a TinySA my son gave me for Christmas, but I don't think it can do it without some work which I saw a guy do using a mixer and figuring out a signal to feed from a signal generator. The problem is the TinySA can sweep and can give you a bode response plot, but it doesn't do both and doesn't have a trigger so it can't do it itself apparently. Hopefully that will be remedied very soon with a tracking generator function add-on. Have a couple of ideas in the meantime.. 1) your Fluke and DSO *might* be able to do it. I have an HP signal synthesizer above my bench which does sweeps. It also will put out a (single) marker which goes into the Z-drive of a scope, if it has one. I don't know if your Fluke does that, or if your DSO has a Z-drive. The way the HP would do it is it draws the sweep on the screen via X-Y on the scope, and at the marker frequency on the X axis, the intensity of the trace changes from bright to dim, or visa versa. I haven't tried it as I use the SG165 instead. BUT... 2) perhaps a better idea is: if you can find a relatively inexpensive vintage FM-TV sweep generator and use a separate signal generator, you can sweep with the TV sweep generator around 10.7MHz and use your other signal generator to place a distinct blip on the marker frequency of your choice. I have a HeathKit one (TS-4) and may try it. One of my favorite YT guys showed this recently on a nice Fisher mono FM receiver which has a bit more complicated and different alignment procedure order than Sams gave me. (It has the IF can adjusted while looking at the S curve from the ratio-detector) He usually uses a Sencore SG-80 or SG165, or a ST1000) he then uses a TH distortion meter. He even shows how to fight the sample rate on the DSO. @xraytonyb great channel. th-cam.com/video/MryYk4Sr4lc/w-d-xo.html Thanks again!

Thanks Paul!

Hi and thanks for watching and for the comment. I wish I could have left the music in because when you can hear it, it sounds really nice. Yes of course you can use the AM generator method as shown in Sams as well as Riders, RCA Service, etc. instead of the so-called visual method. (I also would want to use piece of dedicated equipment for multiplexed stereo FM in ~1965+ high end gear.) I believe the visual method "should" give the best result in theory, as I understand it, but sweep generators can be hard to come by and are expensive, or like mine, a little buggy. I am just working with what I have. The part of the visual I am trying to achieve is the available FM bandwidth, or FM deviation. The 'ideal' shape would give a relatively wide and even band pass for the IF to allow the FM to go through without being cut off too fast on either side of 10.7MHz IF. What I do not know is if, in 1949, the broadcasters' signals used more compression and thus less deviation (deviation from 10.7 contains dynamic range - difference between soft and loud passages of music) and so the radios would not need to have such a flat response curve out of the IF band pass filters. That sounds possible to me. Looking at an alignment procedure of a contemporary RCA set (e.g. Model A78, 1950 RCA Service Data), it does not reference a visual method at all. I do not know if that is because it doesn't matter, or if they did not assume a repair shop would have that gear etc. Maybe Sams is just making more trouble for us by putting it in there? lol On other, newer, FM receivers I have worked on, a previous repairman had those IF coils peaked and to my ears did not sound as nice as after I de-tuned the peak and went for the flatter or at least, more rounded shape. The discriminator/radio-detector adjustment with a sweep is easier in my view to know the shape is correct with the straightest line. I consider the shapes to be the "ideal" and I work to get as close to them as I can, but I don't expect perfection. Other, later sets seem to achieve it a bit better. See, for example, the Star-Lite radio I did a couple of years ago, from 1964. Go to the 28 minute mark to see the "hump" better, and a bit later the "S" curve from its ratio detector. th-cam.com/video/-MYxMiJMqxY/w-d-xo.html Perhaps the next vintage FM (e.g. pre-1960) I do I will use the AM gen method and compare. My goal is just to show me working on these things best I can, struggles, mistakes and all, and with viewers riding along, which is the type of videos I enjoy watching the most. Thanks again.

@@PracticallyFixed Thank you for your feedback.

Thank you! Yes, Jim will be missed. He did amazing restorations. So glad his family said they intend to leave his channel up. I didn't learn of his passing until after all the recording for this series was completed. Thanks again.

Thanks! Yes, FM, especially on the earlier ones, is tricky and it doesn't have AFC. AM: yes someone had attempted to align both the AM and FM so were both out. By the way, I mentioned your comment about the knobs in Part 3. Finally got the editing for that Part finished and began the upload last night. It's a long one. Got up this morning to see how the upload went and it's been blocked in several countries. Ugh. Short bits of music while tuning in the station correctly isn't tolerated by some music companies. Perhaps the more correct way to put it is it is not tolerated by YT, that is probably trying to be diligent and avoid lawsuits by copyright holders. I know it is not the artist, they sold control of the recording rights usually. I am not going to go through the appeal process on this either. So now I have to redo Part 3 and have to cut out the music and perhaps re-record some of the content. Maybe I will just mute the sections. Problem is, once the algorithm tags a section of the video to a particular song, even if I cut it down to, like 5 seconds, it still hits it. Had that problem with a Glen Miller album on a JCPenny all-in-one I did several years ago. It is like the alignment isn't the trickiest part, it's the video editing and uploading. It will be choppy. Thanks again.

RIP Jim Burns. th-cam.com/video/Kd8ACKJ_Ztg/w-d-xo.html He will be missed.

So sad to learn of his passing. He taught me quite a few cool things where it came to radio restorations that i didn't know.

Thanks for that information. There was a Chevrolet car radio I repaired (video on my channel) which had it as well. 1953. I believe it was attractive in that application because it had a thin form factor which was desirable for installation in the dash. Perhaps the same could be said for the Royal 2000 you mention for the sake of portability vs air capacitors of the time which perhaps were bulkier. I don't know. Thanks again.

Thanks. On FM alignment, it is time consuming and has compromises.

Thanks! High praise indeed! (By the way, you and your radio are mentioned near the end of Part 3, recorded on Jan 1. Still editing.) (Pinned)

Man I am just so glad I didn't rip into the IF transformers taking out the mica caps only to find the noise still there afterwards! Thanks

Thanks. Hope this brought back some fond memories. Happy new year.

@@PracticallyFixed it sure did! Brought me back to the evening I had just replaced the head , had a little 420 and listened to my dion and the Belmonts tape. Early 80s. Thanks for showing me the output tubes. I was thinking 6BM8s but Sony wasn't being cheap and actually put another 12AX7 ahead of the 6AQ5. I built an awesome 6AQ5 pp stereo amp using grundig output transformers.

Happy new year Doug, and glad you had a great family Christmas get together. We missed our son and his new bride this Christmas but hope to go see them in San Jose sometime this spring. Yeah this radio just don't want to stay down for the count. I really like this model. More to come on this one, it has its challenges. Thanks for the comment and take care.

Yes, many of the Zeniths had problems with rubber insulation which have become hard and brittle and are coming off. I was lucky on this set as I had just a few that were made with that wire, but some radios need a lot of wires replaced. Good luck. Thanks for the kind comment and happy new year.

Hello and firstly, thank you for the expression of confidence in my work; that is probably the nicest compliment I can receive, so I am grateful. That is a beautiful radio you have there and so glad you recognize its value - both FM bands - that only existed for a very short time; that's really great. Take good care of her. Unfortunately I am just covered up with backlog and can't take on anything else right now. Maybe someday, but for now I can't take it on. Thanks for watching and the kind note and hope you have a happy new year.

Yeah, let's see if we can fix that. Happy new year.

Thanks. You are right about the knobs.

Yes, I made it! Thanks. Been really tied up with things. Those with the FM only on the face, in spite of having both bands, are really interesting. Do your's have the crown or eagle emblems?

@ All have the crown. Funny I was working on a C705 Chassis G730 when I saw this vid drop. That permeability tuning design really stuck around! This radio is a 1960 and the tuning mechanism is unchanged.

Glad you enjoyed it. This Texan has actually been to Sydney several times. Beautiful city and really nice people. Happy new year.

Check out Radio Museum: go to schematics tab www.radiomuseum.org/r/general_el_all_transistor_p_807j.html#pic-tabs-1 You can also buy from Sams Publications: This looks like it might be the right one www.samswebsite.com/en/photofact/details/index/id/59580

You're very welcome!

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him; we have the technology." The speeding up I did in the edit looked like it came from that show. Thanks!