Who Actually Repaired Sixties Pocket Radios?

[Old Sparky]

I believe R. Veronica became part of N.O.S. (The official Dutch Broadcasting service. When in the Netherlands back in 1988 I recall Hearing them on radio, and seeing Veronica TV.

[Terry]

Not quite the same, though ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Vero...gal_status

[Geordie McBoyne]

Here's a multi-band transistor radio I've asked to repair for a regular customer.  The set can receive the aircraft wavebands 108 to 165Mhz.
The loudspeaker has a open circuit speech coil.  Also needing replacement are the external 9volt and earphone jack sockets.

Geordie McBoyne.

[Crackle]

Whatever happened to No where man?
When I saw this thread I thought he had popped back.

I never had one of these radios, but I used to listen to the Clitheroe Kid and the cricket on my friends ones in the playground. We all used to sit around it closely listening to the puny sound, in between the playground "bundles"

Mike

[Terry]

Whatever happened to No where man?
When I saw this thread I thought he had popped back.

Last here in January this year, according to the forum stats.

We all used to sit around it closely listening to the puny sound, in between the playground "bundles"

There was a way of beefing up that 'puny' sound.

As I said in my first post in this thread, the differences between sets were mainly confined to the cabinet design. The sets we sold had the speaker grille set off from the cabinet front on a shallow circular projection and was the ideal candidate.

I don't know where the idea came from - I can't claim credit for it - and this would be a few years before the famous speaker-in-a-chimney-pot arrived on the scene, but the idea was similar.

If one of these sets or one with a similar cabinet design came into the workshop, after repairing it I would lay it on its back on the bench. Ideally, a sheet of thick paper and sellotape would have been better but usually I used a copy of a 'Trader' magazine and a strong elastic band. This was rolled into a tube with the aim of creating a snug fit with that circular plastic projection. It was then carefully lowered over the set and then I switched it on.

The difference was incredible! More volume and, most impressive of all, an improvement in frequency response you wouldn't believe these radios were capable of!

Some time after we learned this little trick I popped into our local Woollies one day and saw they were selling speakers for these little radios. The consisted of a tube perhaps 3" in diameter and just under a foot long with a speaker mounted in the centre, two ornamental grilles on the ends and a lead terminating in a 3.5mm jack to fit the earphone socket. Should have sounded good and longer lasting than my elementary attempts - that rolled up Trader was quite weighty and tricky to balance on top of the radio for long!

[Murphyv310]

My first transistor radio was on 1962 a Kendy 6 transistor pocket set.
At the time my folks had a big Ferguson RG with a very large elliptical speaker. I connected the phone output from the Kendy to the ext speaker socket on the Ferguson and the sound was as far as I remember brilliant. My older brother told me I'd blow up my transistor set which I didn't understand as the Ferguson was switched off, in fact the Kendy died when I dropped it 20 feet.

[dawson5]

Never heard of that loudspeaker trick. Must try it sometime.

[Refugee]

You can also cut a sheet from a card board box and make a hole in it that is a snug fit for the radio and it will also work in the same way.

[Terry]

Yes, an infinite baffle.

However, going back to my speaker-in-a-chimney-pot analogy - you can also use a concrete pipe - a suitably large concrete slab would be unmanageable, let alone the problem of cutting a hole in it, so you're not comparing like with like here.

[djrm]

I used to play my 6 tansistor radio through the earphone socket into my Dad's Louther PM6 acoista speaker, more than enough volume and fantastic sound. I've got the speaker now but sadly the drive has a couple of serious faults. I have a temporary repair using a modern driver so I can use it, the cabinet is looking a bit worse for wear too.