Panasonic RF-888

Perhaps the cheapest of all my hobbies, next to books, are portable radios. There are a wide range of neat looking and excellent sounding vintage radios. This one here is a Panasonic RF-888, unique in shape, sound and function. It was designed, I believe, for the professional on the move. It has a large, two-way 6-1/2" speaker with a tweeter in the middle of the woofer, which was novel as the time (circa late 1960s). It has a separate jack and signal control for a microphone making a small portable p.a. system. It also originally came with a locking, removable shoulder strap, now lost. The radio is three band (PSB, FM, AM.) with a tri-purpose needle meter which can measure tuning, VU, and battery levels. It also has light for the meter and tuning displays. And interestingly, the radio features a mechanical shut-off timer. 

I can attest to the sound quality of the RF-888. I ran an electric guitar through a direct box which brought the guitar signal up to line level, thus turning the radio into a guitar amplifier. It gave good, clean volume. I did this on D cell battery power. There is also an auxiliary input for digital music. I'll enjoy taking it on camping trips.

Conn Strobotuner ST4 with Electro-Voice 915 Crystal Microphone

I got this strobe tuner off a nice old guy from Craig's List. He said that, "He was getting out of the piano tuning business. It's a lost art." I wanted an excellent tuner for setting up guitars. I figured that I'd rather spend $50 on an old vacumm tube strobe tuner than a new digital one. I guess that makes me an old soul. But mind you that I'm not about to turn my garage into a horse stable. 

The Conn Strobotuner ST4 is as about as manual as it gets, which tech guys like myself love. You have to first warm it up on calibrate mode, then actually calibrate the unit using a knob that adjusts the pitch. The object is to balance a blurred black square in the center of the orange window. Then you switch to operate mode and select which note that you want to tune. You use a line in or supply crystal microphone via 1/4" phono jack and adjust its signal strength by a knob. The microphone is hinged 90 degrees so that the whole unit can be set atop a piano with the microphone parallel to strings.

The Conn Strobotuner ST4 is made in U.S.A. as well as the Electro-Voice model 915 crystal microphone, the latter of which is labeled "Buchannan, MI," Electro-Voice's city of origin.

The old guy said that the unit was recently serviced. It works flawlessly. I set up a Fender Telecaster with it and it sounded the best I''ve ever played it.

1967 Electro-Voice EV-1180 Stereo System

Every once in a while you'll stumble on a sentimental relic. I found this Electro-Voice EV-1180 stereo at an antique mall for $25. It came with its original two-way speakers, which was a bonus. I worked for a company years ago that sent me to an exclusive seminar at Electro-Voice in Minneapolis, MN,  and I've been a big fan ever since. So, when I saw the stereo at the antique mall, considering I've never seen an Electro-Voice stereo before, I was ecstatic. 

Antique malls usually over-price things, especially any thing retro or swank looking. The immediate fact that the stereo was only $25 led me to suspect that something was wrong with it. I tested the stereo in the store and despite some fuzz it was able receive FM stations. But when I got home I noticed that it wasn't typical tuner fuzz but a wicked 60 Hz buzz. Given how rare the stereo was and how much I like it I had to fix it. 

I cleaned the pots, RCAs, and exposed speaker fuse terminals, the latter which seemed to improve some static through the speakers. The 60 Hz buzz continued. 

I noticed that the buzz was present through all three channels (phono, tuner, aux). The FM tuner signal could also be hear loudly through all three channels. I figured that this condition would be unique enough to find a clear solution. So I started looking at forums. The forum that helped me out most was Audiokarma.org. There is a wealth of knowledge there. The first person to reply to my thread suggested that the selector switch was faulty. But a continuity test by a multimeter proved the selector switch functional. The next suggestion was replacing capacitors. This lead me to a thread explaining the problematic sounds of defective power-conditioning electrolytic capacitors, that is, an highly audible 60 Hz ground hum with distortion. This sounded more like my problem.

I removed the existing capacitors for testing. They were two large 25v 2500uf and one 15v 1000uf, all marked "Whale" (See picture). They had no continuity, would not dissipate a DC charge, and I found no resistance on the multimeter. Further, none of these latter findings affirmed that the capacitors were defective as much as the fact they were leaking oil. They were oil-filled electrolytic capacitors. Which I'm not sure if that is a vintage thing? It's the first that I've seen or heard of such a component. However, it explained why the received stunk five feet away and that the bottom of the wood cabinet was oil-soaked, which I had trouble removing.

I then replaced the capacitors with newer, smaller ones. Their values are: 25v 3300uf replaced the two 25v 2500uf and I was able to find a match for the 15v 1000uf. It is acceptable to increase the values when substituting capacitors so long as they are not drastic. Here I was very satisfied with matching voltage and increasing only the capacitance. 

Recapping the power-conditioning section of the receiver removed the 60 Hz buzz entirely and quieted---but not eliminating---the passing of the FM tuner signal, the latter of which can still be heard faintly on aux, tuner or phono modes. This I'm addressing as we speak.

But none-the-less I am greatly satisfied with being able to repair and reinstate life to the EV-1180. It is known for its output power (30 watts) for its size which I can attest to. Its accompanying speakers, EV 7B, which are two-ways so far as I can tell, sound very clear on the FM tuner. However, they sound a little muddy from the aux mode---this is probably another old faulty component in the receiver which I'll have to address also.

For modern convenience, I added an 1/8" jack to the faceplate just under the aux light and tapped it into the RCA jacks in the back. I can now easily plug in my phone or laptop. This really isn't necessary but I thought it fun to do. 

Panasonic TRH 513T Black & White Television

Nostalgia! My mom bought me one of these for good grades when I was 11-years-old. I was destined to work in engineering as I blew my brothers and friends away by figuring out how to hook up our NES to it and play games, what then seemed remotely, in our upstairs bedroom. I eventually lost or blew up the AC power supply adapter which led me to use the costly D battery option. This led to one of my first engineering observations as a kid. The TV side of the unit consumed much more power than the radio. A fresh set of D batteries would last maybe 15 hours on the TV side and shut down. However, I listened to the radio on those same set of batteries for months. Thus, the power consumption of radios is minuscule in the world of electronics.

I found the Panasonic portable TV pictured at a thrift store, in new condition. I had not seen nor really though of the TV in nearly 20 years. It instantly took me back.

I paid $10 for it.

Although I wondered how and if it would work with the new digital antenna system. The kid engineer in me went back to work. I hooked a digital converter box from one of our old TVs and, BAM!, channels! The digital converter box had a remote, so not only did I have digital TV on my portable TV from the 80s, but I also now could surf channels easily.