Golborne Vintage Radio

Hi.
Well over the years I have been involved with not just normal Radio, TV & Hi-Fi repairs but in addition loads of in car stuff. Around 1977 in Clydesdale I started in Audio plus of course TV & Video. We recently got a contract from Lucas and the car stereos came in my crate load. Mostly from Vauxhall, some from Ford and then a mix of other manufacturers. Because both Lucas was big and we were one of the biggest in Scotland we got preferential treatment from the manufacturers. We got full service info and priority spare parts. Eventually here in Kilmarnock three engineers were in the audio dept and we also had one guy doing wholly organ repairs. Latterly I was the section leader in Audio and most of my time was spent on car stereos. When I left Clydesdale after they closed I worked with Serviscope for 6 months again doing Hi-Fi but very little ICE. My next 5 years with Sony UK (SES Glasgow) comprised all audio products with a lot of after-market ICE and of course VW who had Sony ICE as an option. We were always busy with these repairs and being the Minidisc expert I did all the headunits with MD players.
Latterly when I was self employed I did notice a drop in ICE work and only a few weeks ago I was speaking to a chap that has done ICE for around 45 years from old valve sets to basic transistor car radios and more elaborate units to say that he no longer does repairs due to modern cars with their built in sets and no market for after market sets and repairs. He also said that he would never touch one of the Chinese "specials" as they are so badly made. They seem to be popular in some BMW's and the Rover 75 for the big touchscreen etc but in reality they are a bag of worms.
It would seem that its another facet of our trade that has died.

You might even say they just melted away. 

Al

I worked as an ICE repair engineer for just under 23.5 years from Dec.1971 to April 1995, when the firm I worked for closed down. Since then I've worked as a self-employed service engineer, and for more than half the time continued to repair car radios and stereos of various makes & models from Valved Radios to the then current and recent offerings from Radiomobile, Blaupunkt, Clarion, and others, but apart from the occasional vintage radio, I have serviced few car radios for years, and, like you, Trevor, I don't touch, and wouldn't touch any modern ICE gear. One of my current projects is the repair of a 1970s Motorola 114 MW/LW car radio, a type with which I was very familiar, which had simple faults, a s/c Frako electrolytic caoacitor, and a faulty I.F. amp. transistor, plus a noisy Volume control. To complete the job I am adding an 'aux-in' lead at the pwner's request.

Yes, I can well believe that!

Since 1993 I've been lucky enough to have had new cars - and all have had built-in radios. Current car's ICE is massively integrated into everything else - parking bleepers through left or right speakers, according to which side is getting close; the sat nav; the controls on both the steering wheel and the central touch-screen; etc etc!

Until 1993 I was using a car at the other end of the spectrum - 1962 Morris Minor which was just before the era of the standard fascia slot. If you wanted a radio you fitted brackets below the dashboard. (I just left mine on the sub-dash parcel shelf - a hybrid Philips, positive earth like the car - and very good it was too).

At least there's no longer the incentive to put a brick through the window to rip out the radio.

Shops like Halfords no longer have displays of radios, cassette or CD players, and speakers, to fit the standard letterbox opening, because there just isn't one! And the market for such equipment for older cars without radios as standards has been saturated, such cars are largely heading for the scrapyard.

(04-01-2018, 10:52 PM)Kalee20 Wrote: [ -> ]If you wanted a radio you fitted brackets below the dashboard.

Many years ago I fitted a radio thus to my old car but I kept scratching my knuckles on it when changing gear so it now just lies around gathering dust in my play room.

Peter  

[attachment=17066]

Nice picture Peter.
I'll have to wipe the keyboard on the laptop due to excessive drooling

I guess thirty years ago most cars had radio cassette players and the tape section probably gave most of the problems, followed by amplifier sections damaged from poor DIY speaker wiring. With the advent of MP3 and bluetooth connections and very few people playing CDs in cars any more there are hardly any moving parts to worry about and the wiring for four or more speakers is already there.