An electroluminescent panel,,,,, really brought back memories. I have a Philco Ford alarm clock and it had that electroluminescence panel. It was a low hour unit and there were segments of that panel that were still dimly luminous. I wound up modifying a plug in LED nightlight and drilling a hole through the nightlight panel for the clock shaft.. It was quite the project but it worked out well,, gave a nice blue backlight..
It is possibly a mid-1960's model because it is solid state. You don't come too often on mid-1960's sets because you work on them from the early 1930's to about 1963 or 1964. Very nice one, Seth!
Hey, that thing's pretty sensitive on FM...you got a good signal from 95.3 KUIC, which is pretty weak but on a prominent ridge. I've never got it any further west than Vallejo before. Cool!
Always a good watch . Enjoy all your videos. Wonder who Greg is . He posts on all the rsdio related videos . Always the same weird comments. Very strange .
This radio is an example of early SS. They used a transistor to replace a tube-with this even down to using tube sockets for transistors. If there are any germanium transistors in this-forget it-germanium devices discontinued years,years ago. And they went bad from age.
Shango066 used some Russian germanium transistor replacements which you can get. The Zenith Transoceanic transistor sets used socketed transistor so it is easy to swap out substitutes until you find the right one.
@@davidhamm5626 I found a couple of General Electric GE-2 germanium transistors I found that were NOS still in the package on eBay for a reasonable price. I needed to replace the driver transistors in my 1965 Magnavox console which were noisy. Think I got lucky, as they are working very well.
No wonder why the US lost the consumer electronic battle to Japan. That thing is a mess inside. There is wires and crap all over the place. Zenith used to run ads that described their sets as being 'Hand wired by craftsman' while the Japanese were introducing solid state televisions to the US markets.
I think, by this point, US companies weren't interested in anything but shortest term financial gain and did not care about competing with higher quality imports. When a segment became unprofitable, they just closed it down.
That terminal where you connected the isolation transformer is not an input. It is the loudness tap, which compensates for low bass at low volume settings. It will usually have a capacitor connecting it to ground, and sometimes a switch to cut out the compensation. This was a common feature on nicer radios and Hi-Fi sets, tube based and solid state. Putting the transformer across the capacitor will mess up with said compensation.
I commented about the same loudness tap in an earlier post. I was curious why lifting the lead off of the loudness tap would kill the sound? Without seeing a schematic, I am puzzled about this.
Normally the input signal from the coupling cap comes into one side of the potentiometer, the other side goes to common ground, and the center wiper goes to the next AF stage.
You can also encounter problems if your auxiliary input, the transformer in this case, has a lower impedance than the circuit usually driving the audio amp. Usually the tone control will no longer function. Add a series resistor of a value that restores tone control function similar in frequency response as originally found.
Was that a choke next to the speaker, or did the radio have a power transformer after all? Or was it an output transformer? I'm trying to get my head around dropping mains voltage down to safe germanium transistor values without a transformer.
It was called a Motorola AM/FM "Visilite" clock radio. Visilite = junk lighting. The American built ones soldered transistors into tube sockets in them but the later Japanese made ones were done with a proper circuit board. Indeed a hot chassis set. I will pass on buying 1960's Motorola stuff like this. They were cutting corners in some bad places.
Hello Steven, you seem to have a vast knowledge of old radios and always have kind words to say. Have you given any thought to putting up some videos of your collection? Do you work on them as well? Cheers!
@@zulumax11. No cell phone ( yet) 2. Need a better computer. 3. Tend to start some projects and then put them by the wayside. Old habits never die. Never finished my old HO scale layout ,now dismantled.
Your radio is Motorola, my experience with Magnavox is that you look up the service manual/schematic by the chassis number, not listed by model number. That is true for the big floor standing consoles, not sure about table top radios. The fourth leg off the volume control is for bass boost at low volume, kind of a loudness contour, only there is no switch to disable it like on hifi gear.
An electroluminescent panel,,,,, really brought back memories.
I have a Philco Ford alarm clock and it had that electroluminescence panel.
It was a low hour unit and there were segments of that panel that were still dimly luminous.
I wound up modifying a plug in LED nightlight and drilling a hole through the nightlight panel for the clock shaft..
It was quite the project but it worked out well,, gave a nice blue backlight..
It is possibly a mid-1960's model because it is solid state. You don't come too often on mid-1960's sets because you work on them from the early 1930's to about 1963 or 1964. Very nice one, Seth!
Mister Radio I love the Motorola clock radio, it has a nice cabinet and the sound is good also 👍
I have a feeling that radio was a tube radio at first and someone turned the tube sockets into transistors!
Hey, that thing's pretty sensitive on FM...you got a good signal from 95.3 KUIC, which is pretty weak but on a prominent ridge. I've never got it any further west than Vallejo before. Cool!
I have someelectroluminescent nite lithos that still work half century later! They do get dim with age,though.
Always a good watch . Enjoy all your videos.
Wonder who Greg is . He posts on all the rsdio related videos . Always the same weird comments. Very strange .
I was thinking it is a robot AI
I think it's a special person. He's harmless. Maybe someone would respond to him?
This radio is an example of early SS. They used a transistor to replace a tube-with this even down to using tube sockets for transistors. If there are any germanium transistors in this-forget it-germanium devices discontinued years,years ago. And they went bad from age.
These are not driven very hard, and there are some around, hopefully they are not high-dollar...
Shango066 used some Russian germanium transistor replacements which you can get. The Zenith Transoceanic transistor sets used socketed transistor so it is easy to swap out substitutes until you find the right one.
@@zulumax1I did see that, it is a lot of work, but it is one means to an end.
@@davidhamm5626 I found a couple of General Electric GE-2 germanium transistors I found that were NOS still in the package on eBay for a reasonable price. I needed to replace the driver transistors in my 1965 Magnavox console which were noisy. Think I got lucky, as they are working very well.
Many germanium transistors are still working fine.
No wonder why the US lost the consumer electronic battle to Japan. That thing is a mess inside. There is wires and crap all over the place. Zenith used to run ads that described their sets as being 'Hand wired by craftsman' while the Japanese were introducing solid state televisions to the US markets.
I think, by this point, US companies weren't interested in anything but shortest term financial gain and did not care about competing with higher quality imports. When a segment became unprofitable, they just closed it down.
You can still find EL panels in cheap night lights - a pair of them would replace this. In ordinary service, they last for decades...
Did I see a tube socket on the underside of radio? It sure looked like one. Are the transistors plugged into them?
Yeah he mentions it @5:37
That terminal where you connected the isolation transformer is not an input. It is the loudness tap, which compensates for low bass at low volume settings. It will usually have a capacitor connecting it to ground, and sometimes a switch to cut out the compensation. This was a common feature on nicer radios and Hi-Fi sets, tube based and solid state. Putting the transformer across the capacitor will mess up with said compensation.
I commented about the same loudness tap in an earlier post. I was curious why lifting the lead off of the loudness tap would kill the sound? Without seeing a schematic, I am puzzled about this.
Normally the input signal from the coupling cap comes into one side of the potentiometer, the other side goes to common ground, and the center wiper goes to the next AF stage.
You can also encounter problems if your auxiliary input, the transformer in this case, has a lower impedance than the circuit usually driving the audio amp. Usually the tone control will no longer function. Add a series resistor of a value that restores tone control function similar in frequency response as originally found.
Was that a choke next to the speaker, or did the radio have a power transformer after all? Or was it an output transformer? I'm trying to get my head around dropping mains voltage down to safe germanium transistor values without a transformer.
It was called a Motorola AM/FM "Visilite" clock radio. Visilite = junk lighting. The American built ones soldered transistors
into tube sockets in them but the later Japanese made ones were done with a proper circuit board. Indeed a hot chassis
set. I will pass on buying 1960's Motorola stuff like this. They were cutting corners in some bad places.
Hello Steven, you seem to have a vast knowledge of old radios and always have kind words to say. Have you given any thought to putting up some videos of your collection? Do you work on them as well? Cheers!
@@zulumax11. No cell phone ( yet) 2. Need a better computer. 3. Tend to start some projects and then put them
by the wayside. Old habits never die. Never finished my old HO scale layout ,now dismantled.
Your radio is Motorola, my experience with Magnavox is that you look up the service manual/schematic by the chassis number, not listed by model number. That is true for the big floor standing consoles, not sure about table top radios. The fourth leg off the volume control is for bass boost at low volume, kind of a loudness contour, only there is no switch to disable it like on hifi gear.
This is a motorola....
@@davidhamm5626 That it is, don’t know why my brain saw Magnavox!
@@zulumax1 Been there myself.....
You don't know the name of the tune at the start of your video's do you?