Vintage radios and television sets

...and repair shops

 

This one's waiting for juice:

 

One of these days (hopefully soon......), I'm going to buy some 70's / 80's vintage quality stereo equipment, and either find an old console stereo like that shown above, 'remodel' it and put my good stuff inside; or....build my own. I'm leaning toward the latter, but right now I'm not a good enough woodworker.....

 

I still have and still use a Marantz SR4000 receiver I bought new in the fall of 1979. Now 38+ years later, it's sitting on a shelf in my den all hooked up and playing through two speakers. This is not a photo of mine, but it's what it looks like.

The unit actually suffered an internal electronic failure about six months after I purchased it. (I forget exactly what was wrong.) It was still under warranty, I took it back to the store where I bought it, they took it in, shipped it out for fixing, and about two weeks later I had it back. It has not had a problem since.

 

In my living room, connected to a modern home theater receiver, is a pair of Advent Loudspeakers that I bought new in the fall of 1974 and have had ever since. But these speakers are not completely original. In the late '90s, the sound started to go bad on them, and it turned out that, after 25 years, the woofers had dried out to the point that they had cracked. I replaced them with new ones purchased at Radio Shack, back when there still was a Radio Shack and they still sold speakers, and they have worked well since now 20 more years later. The tweeters are original and are now 45 years old.

Again, these are not my speakers, but this is what they look like. This is when Advent speakers were cool, and Advent made only two models with very simple names, the "Advent Loudspeaker," and the "Smaller Advent Loudspeaker."

https://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/171advent/index.html

https://www.stereophile.com/historical/506advent/index.html

 

I have no idea when they came out or what brand, but we had similar speakers on a wall in or previous Illinois home. I remounted them in Florida on metal shelf "L" brackets and used them mostly for the radio. Like nearly everything else, we left them behind. Musta had and used those for well over 50 years.

 

You're continually leaving things behind, Sir. One of these days, you'll end up leaving the house with your trousers behind, shut the door and then realize that your keys were in there, as you enter your car.
Where I worked, last year, we would either get donations of all household goods which, for one reason or the other, became unwanted or would send a crew to empty entire households for people who either were moving into a smaller apartment from a larger one or from a house or after someone deceased. We would get all kinds of stuff, even dating back to the war. A few times, a Marantz would show up. Unfortunately, if a dial was weak, nobody would feel like replacing it. When I worked in the electrical department, I would put aside all kinds of vintage electronics, including cathode ray tubes and old speakers. Since I never learned electronics, not that I didn't want to (being colorblind, I couldn't identify resistors), I couldn't rescue those items and had to rely on someone doing it. We had one guy who probably could have. But, he was too busy selecting out computers and phonographs to repair, sneak out and sell them under the table. My boss knew it. But, he was partial to some and strict to others. This was one of those workplaces where one gets the urge to walk in with an assault rifle and selectively clean house post office style. I used to feel sorry for workfare types, until I witnessed how most of them behave

 

Yesterday evenng we watched a full length movie about Lincoln, the war, and freeing slaves. Lincoln and several others mentioned Abe's habit of going on and on about non-useful stories. Being from Illinois, where Lincoln settled and practiced law, I sometimes ramble on about nothing. Reminds me of a TV comedy show about nothing.
Follow along as I write a lot about nothing while attempting to stay on topic and answer Mr Ivy in his sand box.

I didn't exactly get caught without my trousers......But a month ago after we both had our physicals I had to stop at the drug store for some prescriptions. It was very cold, snowing hard, and icy. I even got a front row non-handycapped parking spot. My wife decided it wouldn't take long, she'd stay in the car. I'd already shut off the engine and removed the key.

Being the nice guy I am, I put the key back in the ignition and was ready to start the car so my wife could stay warm.
As women do, she changed her mind and went in with me. There was a very short line at the lab desk so it wasn't much of a wait. So far so good!

I was now in the habit of using the remote start to get the heater and defroster doing their jobs. Still at the back of the large drug store, I reached in a pocket for my car and house keys. I kept reaching until I'd checked all my pants and coat pockets. Then I realized the keys were in the ignition of a locked car.
No problem, I got the lab gal to call the local police to send someone to get into my car. As I thought, too many complaints about damage while getting into cars for other stupid forgetful people, they don't do it anymore.

I have a spare house and car key at home near the back door, inside the locked back door! Who ya gonna call? It was around noon, our daughter works at an insurance office a few miles away, and has a new oversized Jeep. Sure, it's snowing, but a Jeep with tractor tires can drive thru the snow on a main 4-lane highway.
Problem #2, we both forgot to carry our cell phone. I don't know my own kid's phone numbers. If I want to call her I click 'Sherrie'. Crap! But I didn't give up. I again asked one of the lab gals for help. Look up my daughter's account, get her phone number, please tell her that her mom left dad's keys in the car!

We had to wait until our daughter went to our house, 3 or 4 miles from where she works. Then wait until she brought my car keys another 3 miles to the druggie store.
We sat inside where it was warm waiting. I felt bad interupting our daughter's lunch, making her come out in sub zero weather, to deliver my extra car key. All three kids have a house key so that is covered.
Eventually, our daughter walked down the isle with a big smile on her face. She was happy to help. She reminded us that's why they forced us to move back home.
So, wearing my trousers, we walked out to my car with the doors locked and the keys in the ignition with the spare key.
And... it's my wife with short term dementia!

As for vintage radios and TV's, dad liked to tinker. He was a painter and home remodeler, not a TV repairman. He'd buy non-working old TV's console radios, and other electronic crap. While few people had TV back then, my grandparents on mom's side of the family had one of the first black and white TV's with a 50' tower with an antenna. They lived on the busy part of a busy 2-lane street. I'll swear, everytime a flathead Ford went by the station would go off! We now live just out of town off that same street.

So I was familiar with TV's. Some of dad's early projects was one with a round picture tube. Then one with a round picture tube but flat across the top and bottom. These were the first family TV's we had using a small aluminum bowtie or rabbit ear antenna.
He even had an old wooden console radio with a TV screen the size of a credit card. It worked! Dad had old Edison phongraphs and other old music boxes and early electric radio type things. When grocery stores and radio/TV repair shops had those large tube testers, dad got a used one cheap. We'd play around testing tubes just for fun.

 

They had those testers at the local drugstores. Our dad would sit us at the counter and order us milkshakes, while he tested tubes. Sooner or later, I wanted to test them, also. We would periodically go test tubes, as soon as the teevee would act up. Tube teevees suck. But tube- radios and guitar amplifiers rule, Sir

Have you ever considered moving to a nudist colony, in the Tampa area, Sir?

 

I had a tube type amplifier for my flat top Hawiian steel guitar. More things that vanished over many years.
I am very familar with Tampa and campgrounds of all types.
I remember removing 10" and 12" TV speakers, mounting them in boxes, and with extension cords for speaker wire, using them with my tube type '49 Dodge and '54 Ford A.M. radios while picnicing or fishing. Ohms, amps, resistance didn't matter as long as sound came out.

 

Your steel guitar would have sufficed getting hooked up to a transistorized amplifier. Tubes made the biggest difference, when hooked up to bass guitars. The sound of a restored tube radio is even at today's standards unsurpassed

 

Dad's best friend used an old car differential in the basement with a mast to his beam antenna outside.