Sunday February 9, 2025

NARC Workshop Review

Around 40 people braved the cold winter weather on February 9th to attend the outdoor swap meet that precedes NARC's annual workshop each year. Some good bargains were to be had, including some decent radios that had been donated to the club and some from people who had heard about the swap and just came to get rid of radios they had but didn't want to throw away.

After a few hours out in the swap meet it was a relief to go inside for the workshop! The workshop started at noon in the hotel's main ballroom with around 40 members attending. Bill Fanum had his sound system set up and we also made good use of the club's digital projector. Phillip Drexler and Jim Thompson gave brief updates on the club and Radio Daze 2025 before introducing Gary Ball who organized an interesting assortment of topics for the workshop again this year.

rubber that had deteriorated from age. He was able to buy exact dimension replacement rubber strips from The Radiola Guy, a vintage radio parts company. Another typical problem was that two flexible wires that pass through a bushing and twist as the variometers turn, had broken, so he replaced those. Then, there are five capacitors connecting to the various antenna terminals that someone had replaced long ago with capacitors that looked wrong. Larry took end caps from some original style capacitors that had bad cardboard tubes and put them on some empty bottle rocket paper tubes with new capacitors inside, so now they look more original and work well. The battery cable was also bad so he replaced it with a new cable that he dyed brown with wood stain so it would look correct. Good WD-11 tubes are expensive, so Larry tried several alternatives in adapters but preferred solid-state WD-11 replacements that he had designed. To improve its appearance, Larry found a plating company in North branch to re-plate the corroded metal parts, and to improve the black bakelite face of the radio he polished it with black shoe polish and then filled the engraving with a white paint stick. It turned out looking great! Larry's Radiola III-A restoration notes are online here.

2. Jim Thompson brought some Japanese transistor radios and told us about them. Three years after the Regency TR-1 was introduced in America, the first Japanese export transistor radio, the Sony TR-63 shirt-pocket 6-transistor radio was sold here in 1957 and was available in four different colors. They had produced transistor radios prior to this but didn't export them. Most TR-63 radios no longer operate today due to a warped tuning condenser. In 1958, the Toshiba TR-193, also known as the Toshiba 'Lace' sets, available in red or blue, were imported from Japan. They were designed for women and had a feminine appearance with actual lace encased behind clear plastic. The early versions had a reflexed superheterodyne circuit using 4 transistors and later versions had 5 transistors.

3. John Drewitz described how he repairs cracked plastic radio cabinets by placing very fine stainless steel mesh over a crack plastic and then using a soldering iron with a large flat tip to slowly and carefully melt the plastic and smooth it over the screen to achieve a strong "weld". He also was able to very carefully smooth out scratches and other imperfections in plastic radio cabinets by using the flat tip soldering iron at very low heat, just warm enough to barely soften the plastic.

5. J.P. Houchins has restored several 1941 and 42 Philco Beam-of-Light radio/phonographs and gave a very interesting presentation that explained how the phonograph pick-up works and how to repair it. There is a mirror attached to the special sapphire needle that vibrates as the needle drags through a record groove reflecting light from a small 3.7 volt light bulb filament on the head of the tonearm onto a photocell that converts the light into an electrical signal. The light bulb is no longer available and must be a particular shape so the light focuses properly. There also are small rubber bushings that harden that he replaced with silicone so the mirror would vibrate properly. He has worked on five of these and found that the photocells usually still work, although some are weaker than others. To replace a bad photocell, he has modified one from a cheap Dollar Tree calculator to fit into the tonearm housing. Another aspect of restoration is cleaning the record changer itself. All parts must be cleaned and properly lubricated to they move smoothly, and rubber parts, especially the idler wheel, likely have hardened and need to be rejuvenated or replaced.

6. Randy Olson collects QSL cards. These are postcards that Ham operators have printed for themselves and then mail them to each other confirming a contact. They contain information about the operator who sent it, details of the contact such as the operator's call number, equipment used, time and radio frequency of the contact, etc., and often contain interesting graphics. Randy explained how QSL cards first became popular in the early 1920s and then proceeded to show us a large variety of cards he has collected, beginning with fairly plain cards in the 1920s to cards with more interesting graphics in the 1930s and up to the present time.

7. Kip Wallace explained how he repaints old metal advertising signs. Many of them had a crinkle type finish which is very difficult to reproduce today, but what he does is cleans off the old finish, spray on a de-rust type of primer, and then uses enamel rather than lacquer paint since enamel flows better and covers flaws better. Then he'll spray a clear matte finish over it.

Show & Tell

Matt showed a KLH set with acoustic suspension speakers.

Tom had an old six-tube Emerson "runner" radio that he bought at a NARC Radio Daze meet to use as his daily runner. It had been 90% rebuilt, but Tom had to repair the dial string, and the dial scale was bad. Later, on a trip to Rochester, NY, at his family home there, up in the garage attic he found a pile of radio stuff he had left there many years ago, and amazingly there was a radio with the exact dial that his "runner" needed!

Another collector was looking for tubes for his Radiola Balanced Amplifier and made some using a small military triode with a resistor to control the current draw to substitute for a WD-11. He put these in cut-down test tubes so they look like an actual tube.

Prizes were given to the participants.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this event!