Nitemare Nobility 12 Transistor AM Pocket Radio Repair Fake Ass Novelty Radio

radio repair madness
/ shango066

[@shango066]

Here we go again with the spam replies. Im actually on t me but I don't solicit anyone to hit me up

[@volvo09]

What? I already sent .01 Bitcoin to your WhatsApp to get my prize... a beat up 12 transistor AM radio.

[@oscarflores1980]

Have some spam ham buddy 😁

[@jeffreyyoung4104]

I ignore those replies to my comments, but I have checked them out, and they usually have a blank account only a few days old.

[@joeycronan2652]

I figured it was spam..... You tube should do something about it but what

[@KongKingman]

Luckily you haven’t gotten any from “Greg” what I can see

[@volvo09]

"solder wick is expensive, exceeds value of radio" That's the level of quality products I come here for.

[@lucasstiles8012]

After the video was done I'm just thinking "Where has this technician been all my life?"

[@godfreypoon5148]

Damn right it's expensive.

[@AiOinc1]

And then he put a military germanium into it lol

[@jrs0007]

the nastier the repair, the better. I'll try the "air removal" trick for dosoldering.

[@lucasstiles8012]

@@AiOinc1 lmao

[@LakeNipissing]

"nycroin dropelopelfloschur" has to be one of the best responses yet, with 'popcorn' playing in the background.

[@joeycronan2652]

Another great and entertaining video Mr Shango sir. I don't know if anyone else has ever noticed but unlike every other channel Shango never begs for likes or does he ever ask anyone to subscribe to his channel. Shango is a blessing to all electronic hobbiest!

[@joeycronan2652]

​​@shango006 joined this channel not sure what it is....I don't have Instagram not much for social sites they cause nothing but trouble. God bless sir

[@Kinann]

and he doesn't say 'Let's get right to it' at the beginning of every vid.

[@heath7766]

Shango dancing to popcorn while messing with phone scammers is something I didn't know I needed

[@BrainDamageBBQ]

One phone scammer called me and I got him to pray with me. We were praying very seriously, or so he thought. He told me all about his son, and we prayed for a while. 15 minutes on the phone with the guy. "And, Dear Lord, we pray that his son may contract inoperable colorectal cancer, for this we pray, Dear Lord." The scammer started to cry on the phone. Well, fsck you, you were trying to scam me. I don't really hope the guy's kid gets sick. But I do hope I traumatized him enough that he won't try his scams anymore.

[@MrPocketfullOfSteel]

@@BrainDamageBBQ *Lie.*

[@SIXSTRING63]

I love it when he speaks jibberish to the spam scammers. Most times they get frustrated and hang up! That’s pretty amazing when you can annoy them enough to hang up. I come here for the humor as much as the great tech tips.

[@jimdayton8837]

Lmao same.

[@nyki7fykxtjxyi]

It's a great feature of the shango show.

[@joeycronan2652]

Thanks! Shango for all you do. This isn't much but it's something. Maybe you could buy a nice shiny new transistor made in China.

[@thedogbarked123]

Funding the madness. Nice thorough repair video. Still better than cable TV

[@KennethScharf]

That audio stage is a complementary symmetry amplifier, the transistors connected as diodes in series are used to establish a bias voltage between the bases of the output amplifier to eliminate cross over distortion. It acts as a push pull amplifier, but is actually a totem pole series circuit, with the upper and lower transistors driving on alternate half cycles of the signal.

[@BrainDamageBBQ]

Yeah, I'm gonna pull Sedra and Smith off my bookcase and pause on the schematic shango066 showed us, I think you're right. But WHY do you need a convoluted push-pull circuit to run that tiny little speaker? Oh yeah, so it can say 12 transistors on the front of the radio.

[@KennethScharf]

@@BrainDamageBBQ Also doesn't need any audio transformers.

[@andygozzo72]

yep, ferguson(thorn) used that idea in some items 😉, in particular their TX90 chassis TVs ,, looks weird at first..

[@tarstarkusz]

@@KennethScharf If all you want to do is drive up the transistor count, why not just make a much better receiver if all the transistors to do it are in the circuit anyway? I can't imagine the extra transformers cost all that much in comparison to transistors. They could have made it a decent DXer.

[@KennethScharf]

@@tarstarkusz Second guessing Chinese engineers .... who cares!

[@Desert-edDave]

An hour of transistor radio repair is a welcome sight! - the content is always appreciated, keep up the good work.

[@jamesplotkin4674]

I would never have guessed this piece would receive so well. Great job, Shango.

[@markmarkofkane8167]

I read in some old popular mechanics books (do it yourself) that multiple transistors was a gimmick. It said, the more transistors it has doesn't make it better. Quality transistors do. Great video. Love the Saturday Shango special. 😊

[@JerryEricsson]

I have to thank you once more. I have been buying up cheap transistor radios and fixing them up. Most have been sort of disappointing as a cleaning of the switch on the ear bud plug fixed several, a couple more needed 9 volt plugs, most needed a few caps replaced but at long. last I got one that I needed to trouble shoot. It was branded O M G S, never heard of the brand but it is US Built, the genuine cow hide leather case is stamped JAPAN on it. At any rate it came to me listed as dead but it did have a pop on the speaker when I switched it on. I did a lot of checking with my home built signal tracer and nothing. Then I remembered one radio you had where the detector diode was bad. I checked that and sure as hell that was the problem. I have a bag of geranium diodes they are much smaller then the one in the set but when I replaced it, and, of course replaced 2 resistors that were broken in the middle for some strange reason, she began to get the signal. All her caps were dead as hell and when replaced the radio came back to life and works great now. Thanks for the education, I love getting these old sets working once more I now have a collection of 9 that I have fixed in the past two months. They all work most very well a few still need a cap or two replaced to get the volume back up but they are in a difficult position on the board so I haven't done them yet.

[@turle8645]

Nice to see another transistor radio video! I actually just did my first transistor radio that I got from a thrift store. A $5 GE from the late 50s with 5 transistors and a diode. Wasn’t working initially but after cleaning the battery contacts and letting the electrolytics reform it’s working well now!

[@gratitudeistheanswer]

I too love transistor radio videos while listening to my favorite country song, I saw it on the radio!

[@tarstarkusz]

I can't believe they got these working with only 12 transistors. Cutting edge circuit design!!!

[@confusedofhinckley5294]

Love the "USA" markings! I take it that stands for "Useless Semiconductor Addition" 🤔

[@carolriley9392]

Well, all i can say is ive been a fan of shango for years. I admire his humor and expertise with every video he makes!

[@ki4dbk]

I've always liked your site. Original real and awesome content. None of that "Perfectionist" polish high end presentation garbage. Thank you!

[@WC0125]

In 1967 you could get a Nobility 12 for $4.47 ($40.26 adjusted) at a Wal-Mart Discount City or in 1968 for $3.88 ($33.54 adjusted) at your Thrifty Discount Drug in Salinas. Mind you these were an "$8.88 ($76.76 adjusted) value! It seems the discount retailers were awash with Nobility brand radios from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s. A whole lot of models and transistor count AM sets, and even some AM/FM. One store in New Mexico even advertised "Nobility Brand Radio in assorted colors for the Rest Room". I guess that is so when it crapped out you could drop in the toilet, loose it in the mix and flush it down as repairing it wasn't worth the effort.

[@rogerduerden373]

I've seen radios of the period with transistors soldered into the board but not connected to anything. It was a way of using quality control failed parts to get the transistor count up, con the consumer into thinking they were buying a better product, and keep the marketing department happy. In this case, it seems to me that they've found a bunch of failed transistors that they can use as diodes rather than scrapping them, saving money and increasing the marketing bullsh*t factor into the bargain!

[@jeffking4176]

Until they put new laws out where the transistors all had to have a function. - then you get some real convoluted circuits. 📻😱

[@MattExzy]

Imagine the marketing from then applied to the modern day cell phone with a radio streaming app - '5 *billion* transistor radio!'

[@TrevorsBench]

Directive issued from the company CEO "get that transistor count up, we have millions of factory rejects we need to use up"

[@jagmarc]

2:01 AGC to reduce fading. 3:18 isn't a P/I it's class AB bias with automatic temperature compensation, 2 diode drops it's supposed to be, though there's usually a resistor in series. If all 4 PN junctions were in series the output transistors would burn up and flatten the battery. Maybe 4-series was a manufacture error then was recovered by adding a link instead of desoldering. Reduced bill of materials complexity by reusing 3 pin devices as diodes. Smart move. NFB around output stage to reduce distortion. 1 ohms more NFB DC to protect against thermal runaway damage when loud volume. 4:25 linear amplification . Not bad on the whole! Factory obviously bought a enormous quantity of "transistors" and the design brief was have as many as possible doing something credible and then market as high transistor count. In the early 1970s a UK electronics constructor magazine article covered mini radios in detail going through all the tricks to boost performance one by one.

[@craignehring]

Getting it done is sometimes more important than smashing it to bits Well done Master shango066

[@chrisingle5839]

Another meaning of "noble" is "unreactive", meaning it does nothing of any account.

[@LawpickingLocksmith]

Wow! Some new circuit to come across! Times when the public would pay for shortened transistors. I always wondered how we could detect both half waves in an AM detector. Thanks for you showing us patiently all details.

[@Rfk1966]

Opening up this craptastic radio is the equivalent of restoring a Daewoo in the year 2068. This channel goes places where few would care to trod.

[@audubon5425]

The problem of these faked transistor count radios was big enough for congress or the FTC to pass a law about it in the sixties - I have an article about it in an old Consumer Reports somewhere I'll copy when I run across it someday.

[@mianahmad5918]

@audubon5425 thanks for your comment but how will we know that you have uploaded the mentioned article?

[@whitesapphire5865]

Would that have been a law which said that the more transistors, the more tax you paid? I remember a time when transistor counts went the other way with ridiculously low counts of two, or three transistors, and marketed as a "Boys' pocket transistor radio" - This supposedly lowered the radio's status to that of a toy, thus obviating the purchase tax that would otherwise apply to luxury electrical items.

[@VanWinger]

Cost and labor aside, it is pleasing to see there is a useful product with a second lease on life at the conclusion. Sure is better than being e-waste.

[@German_byte]

I admire your tenacity, positivity and good humour.

[@SpinStar1956]

Great Video Shango -- a few thoughts: First, those transistors wired as diodes should be for temperature compensation. I an very dubious of the schematic because of their shown-configuration. The Vbe of germaniums really moves around with temperature with gain going up and Vbe going down. The reason they use transistors is 3-fold: first the transistors will have the same tempco as the others, where diodes have to be characterized; next it can be because they bought a butt-load and just used them; and lastly, for the reason you talked about in that they come with bragging-rights. On the converter, they can be finicky for biasing to get a good conversion ratio. The 2N5086 is actually a high-gain (150-600) low-noise, and low-frequency(40MHz) but are silicon so this will affect the biasing. Since the gain is so high, you got away with it both in biasing and conversion efficiency. If you played with the 2N5086 biasing, you might even make the front-end hotter than the 'mushroom' transistor that had the really low hfe. The diode-connected TR6 is just sets a emitter voltage for TR4 to work off of; also because it uses the BE-junction it will also track with temperature.

[@gratitudeistheanswer]

While I only understood maybe 1/2 of what you were showing and saying I truly enjoy your commentary, your choice of words at times :) . Use to make these with my ole radio shack stuff, I actully draw ( not real) schematic diagrams randomly as relaxing art . Thanks again for the pocket radio show and your unique commentary!!

[@josepheccles9341]

I knew you were doing parity on the VP..... I nearly laughed myself out of my chair.

[@handsomemann1]

I like when you start to speak like a Comedian about all these extra transistors put in there. It is laughable when you start to speak. And it suits the listener. Good sense of humor!

[@PhaQ2]

Your Camella impressions are spot on!

[@phillanassa759]

Couldn't wait to watch my favorite Saturday morning cartoon!

[@volvo09]

27:37 so someone is most likely selling off items from a relatives estate, and they are using "veteran owned" to try and increase the money they get for this guys stuff.... That's a quality person right there.

[@JenkinsUSA]

Been waiting for this today. 😊 Thanks Shango066

[@EskieWolf]

"Quality Control Approval" 🤣

[@overbuiltautomotive1299]

Man glad you fix this stuff i would just look at it in confusion not because i am to dumb to fix it but like why does this even exist Thanks for your videos

[@christopherhulse8385]

Hi from England, I don't know if you have come across a British brand called Hacker which made high quality radios up until the 70s, not sure if any made it to the US or if they were sold there but they were the Rolls Royce of portable radios.

[@ronaldspencer547]

Compressed air de-soldering! Your a genius!

[@kpanic23]

I've used a vacuum cleaner in a pinch.

[@DeadKoby]

Hot mushrooms and plinkotwerkulation. It's a good day.

[@mikefinn2101]

Great to enjoy my coffee and Shango Mornings This was a nice change and never seen the 4 transistor phase shift. This is a push pull configuration as you know. sure enjoyed my mornings been a ahile other than the short fireworks in the France on fire video

[@jrs0007]

You mentioned getting chinese transistors at a few cents a pop. Nobility probably found transistor "seconds" for less than the cost of resistors, so they used them to get the transistor count up. I would have used diodes for audio phase inversion/bias for the output transistor. I appreciate shango's logical approach to troubleshooting, although I would have lost $$$ trying to repair this pos back in the day. Being retired, it's now fun taking on these kind of challenges, but I could have never made a living estimating bench charges. Congrats on restoring some "nobility" to this radio. I look forward to your next desert DX shootout vs more noted radios. Hope the Nobility kicks some... I look forward to your next post.

[@Martin-io4wc]

Great job. Looking forward to a desert run with that puppy.

[@mauanderuk]

Kind of reminds me of watches from around this period where they upped the jewel count for no reason apart from perceived quality , they would literally glue jewels to the case.

[@tomb8185]

Ha! That AR post was mine from working on a Nobility 15 transistor radio. I need some of Shango's mushrooms to finally fix it...

[@Subarude-zr5qf]

Polishing turds, another form is Water Reclamation, your doing a fine job at it. City of L.A. has openings for Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators, your qualifications are excellent. Dig your videos. Peace

[@tocsa120ls]

That's a seven-transistor radio, they just used 5 transistors to bias the power amp 😄

[@shawnstthomas4811]

It's so oddly cool that you have the original boxes for these. And I'm really surprised how the box is modern looking with text and colors that look modern.

[@rfburns5601]

What the hell was I thinking? When you showed that last week, I spied that there was no audio transformers. With a 12 transistor count, that's enough to build an H-bridge output capacitorless and transformerless directly coupled to the speaker. Had they done that, the radio mighta had decent sound. Who'da thunk they'd put a buncha diodes in the circuit? Some of my better sounding radios have split battery supply with the transistors tied direct to the speaker. In the early 70s, Radio Shack had a few OTL/OCL radios that sounded fairly clean.

[@lucasstiles8012]

I respect your attitude. I too, am known to spend some time polishing a turd.

[@alphabeets]

Nothing wrong with polishing a turd if it’s fun! 😅

[@coltronex]

I really enjoy your adventures into repairing radios,keep it up ,very entertaining and I love your accent!!

[@TheJohnb1]

More hongkodial “goodness”, nice one Shango066

[@davidmorris-jones210]

Great. I wish my current project my no transmit on HF & 6 Metres was as easy as this. My Kenwood TS2000 ham rig with tiny surface mount components. I'm pretty sure I know what the issue is. Wish me luck I must repair it.

[@M0XFXUK]

Well it performed much better than I thought it would. The pink mil spec transistor may be improving the overall performance however; I am a little unsure exactly what it is doing, local oscillator perhaps? I guess the transistor count was a big selling point back in the day. Loving the videos as usual, please keep up the good work. Best regards from the UK.

[@warlockcommandcenter]

My dad fell for the 12 transistor hoopla go a new radio at a flea market they sucked power from the battery. I read the articles about the these when I was getting my electronics degree.

[@Xplasma1]

"It's a transistor radio" "I have a sister who looks like a train." "This one's a different kind I think"

[@DonnyHooterHoot]

I always tell people that cleaning flux is not needed. These old boards confirm that for me. Cool viddy.

[@westelaudio943]

Depends greatly on the flux used and the thickness of the traces, temperature etc.

[@DonnyHooterHoot]

@@westelaudio943 NO, only depends if the flux is acid core, which should ONLY be used on plumbing! Rosin core NEVER needs cleaning, except for cosmetic purposes. FACTS.

[@westelaudio943]

@@DonnyHooterHoot Very thin traces (SMD etc.) can be damaged even by rosin, also the residue can be conductive.

[@Seiskid]

Thanks for naming that popcorn song at 30:00. Haven't heard that one in decades, I stopped the vid and did a search on what I remembered it was called, totally wrong of course, then started searching on the more generic synth songs from the 70s. That drew a blank too. Then you named the track haha and that was it. Had a listen to the real thing then came back to watch the rest of the radio.

[@andic6676]

At 54:29 the transistors form a two diode bias network for the output complementary pair, but with each diode formed paralleled with another - the whole thing has R11 (300R) across it to set up the bias voltage correctly. It's a bit weird, I have to say :o

[@flatbrokefrank6482]

Popcorn was the first vinyl I bought - about 1972 ish! I would have to change out the shorted transistors for diodes to prove a point - stay safe.

[@jeffreyhickman3871]

GREAT 👍 Nobility radio 📻 complete with leatherette case, warranty and box 📦. Just needs fresh electrolytic capacitors, the case is in a little rough shape, but it’s still a GREAT 😊 radio 📻. Your friend, Jeff.

[@LyonsArcade]

From Fake A&& Radio To DX'r in 1 hour flat. That's why we love the Shangster

[@robinsattahip2376]

It's diversity 1960s style, they have multi-color and types of transistors even if some of them are useless. The worthless epoxy dome transistor by the tuner is for affirmative action.

[@UHF43]

So I guess those transistors self identify as diodes.

[@russellhltn1396]

I'm thinking part of the reason for the sensitivity to the oscillator transistor is the transistor's RF gain. The feedback is transformer coupled and I'd expect it to decrease as you tune down the band. If there isn't enough gain at that frequency, the oscillator will drop out. That magic mushroom probably has good RF gain.

[@ralphj4012]

Well done, never gave up. I took it outside with the mushroom and it's hot, can't say that I have ever heard that phrase before. If it's ok I have recorded your response to the sales caller and will use that for similar calls.

[@WECB640]

Seems to have quite a bit of positive feedback in the RF. (regen). Not sure if this is by design or a defect. Mushroom for the win! Now I pine for an aircheck of the Real Don Steele. Thanks Shango066. 👍

[@BrainDamageBBQ]

TR4 and TR6 looked like a current mirror to me. But a current mirror in a signal path? I have never seen that before. Normally, current mirrors are used in ICs to avoid lots of bias resistors (and therefore heat). This is a really stupidly overcomplicated radio which was designed to meet the target of 12 Transistors on the label without investing in the engineering to make full use of all 12 transistors. They were probably using rejected transistors as diodes to keep the cost down and the transistor count stupidly high. Beta of 8 on one of them. 8. And we're not talking about a massive power transistor here. I bet the schematic varied by the day depending on what defective transistors they were getting at the time. Crap, we've got a lot of PNP transistors this week: "Okay, employees, you know the drill, we reverse all the electrolytic capacitors and you solder the battery connector backwards!" What pieces of crap. It is fun to watch shango066 fix them.

[@russellhltn1396]

@@BrainDamageBBQ It's hard to read because of how it's drawn. If you redraw it with power coming from the top instead of the bottom, it starts to become understandable. I see a typical audio stage with TR6 as an emitter resistor (or level-shifting diode).

[@pcno2832]

3:09 I'd guess that those 4 transistors-made-into-diodes are there to regulate the voltage drop needed to keep the upper emitter-follower in the push-pull output stage turned-on. That, and to increase the transistor count to 12. I don't know why they needed 4 instead of 2 in series; maybe they were rejects that were just good enough to sort-of work as diodes, so doubling them up reduced the chance of failure. I've read that these early imported pocket radios were made from the many transistors rejected for use in the computer and defense industries in the USA. Also interesting is that they tied the emitter and collector together to make the detector diode, but bizarrely tied the base and collector for the rest of them; could it be that they were using transistors sorted according to their failure modes?

[@pcno2832]

4:54 Yep! Look at the "USA" markings all over those transistor cases. They are probably defense-industry rejects.

[@teasea3152]

I'm in my 70's and remember very well when transistor radios flooded the market in the late 1950's and 60's. People didn't know any better and were led to believe that the more transistors a radio had, the better it performed. Many manufactures took advantage of that falsehood and advertised the high number of transistors in their sets. In the electronic magazines of the time they addressed this topic. They called those extra transistors gimmick transistors. I remember one magazine that had photos that showed that some transistors were used as diodes with one lead cut off and some did nothing at all since all 3 leads were soldered together on the foil side of the board.

[@joebrock9784]

Good job shouldn't we take that 1 on your next hiking trip and see how it does it out in the middle of nowhere that's gonna be interesting a good job for a proud of you for what you do and it's very interesting what you can make these old radios do this with a few changes and transistors

[@joshuaneilson]

I love when you bash these things and call the designers idiots it’s great

[@wayneheigl5549]

i love how you piss off the telephone marketers shango. markel farval larbin blad . i can't make out what you are saying to me, your markel farval deck La tay is drooping lady. I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS . lol lol lol lol HA HA HA HA. i love you brother shango,

[@alibekabregov7526]

я пишу на русском не знаю читаете или нет мой комментарий . Но видео у вас всегда классное однозначно лаик

[@tompsheridantsheridant7354]

To Shango 066: I HAVE *2 TRANS-"BROTHER" RADIOS*

[@robames1293]

Those 2 audio output transistors are NPN and PNP connected as a "Complementary Symmetry" pair and in those packages prob Germanium. Comp Sym used in HiFi coz gives good frequency response and in cheap crap coz they does away with expense output transformer. I enjoy your adventures.

[@klafong1]

If the metal can transistors are alloy-junction germanium transistors, then there is a good chance that manufacturing tolerances caused the emitter and base to short together. I vaguely remember a college class discussing how engineers in the early solid state days came up with the idea of selling such transistors for use as diodes so that at least some money could be made from them. I suspect that having only one IF stage and two audio stages ahead of the output transistors was another cost cutting measure. Adjustment of the IF transformers was a labor cost, whereas the audio preamp stage did not require adjustment.

[@mp-ov9dh]

Never seen the compressed air trick, very nice!

[@mohinderkaur6671]

AM Converter transistor is very susceptible to parasitic oscillations if they have FT higher than 20mhz. You can tamea high ft transistor with a stopper resistor in the base of about 1k. creates a lowpassfilter and effectively reduces FT

[@mohinderkaur6671]

Another thing that can help with excess birdies is a 10 to 47 ohm resistor in series with the emitter coupling capacitor to oscillator coil.

[@mohinderkaur6671]

The am detector diode transistor can be biased as an active detector increasing performance even more. I recall the best AM transistor radio I built used a unbiased germanium transistor as a detector. had 3 transistors and was TRF. simple.

[@Bob-1802]

That's because a germanium signal diode needs no bias to output some audio. That "feature" is usefull for crystal radios.

[@mohinderkaur6671]

@@Bob-1802 unbiased germanium transistor has sufficient base current to make it work very well as a detector - it was known as the power detector circuit.

[@andygozzo72]

philips used a slightly biased OC71 as detector in some of their AM radios

[@thecircutandgameguy1018]

i have an am/fm transistor radio that i have enjoyed for a very long time and hasnt failed and is very reliable

[@soopergoof232]

Lookin forward to the antique Regen resurrection. It'll be a nice respite since everything's almost exclusively superhet ('cept the SDR stuff).

[@Synthematix]

They used transistors as diodes because early diodes were extremely unreliable, and whenever you see a chinese QC sticker, you know youre dealing with an extremely high quality piece of technology. good enough to be used by the armed forces for critical communications.👌

[@westelaudio943]

A diode is always more reliable than a transistor (of the same material/quality) and this isn't early, it's from the 70s. Made in Hong Kong from surplus and factory rejected parts probably. People thought "more transistors = more better", or at least that what they thought back in old Hong Kong...

[@Synthematix]

@@westelaudio943 Yes i know, i was using extreme sarcasm.

[@ElectronWranglerTV]

Ha! I'm a veteran and I have no idea what "Veteran Owned" has to do with the radio for sale. Anyway, love the videos!

[@cfd_novotroitsk]

4:08 Two of these four transistors serve to slightly open the output transistors to reduce the step distortion, and another two are there just because)) Actually, they are just paralleled two by two, but the schematics looks like it's not something that stupid

[@andymouse]

Bloated Bias.

[@andygozzo72]

@@andymouse ferguson(thorn) used very similar circuit in the AF out stage in their TX90 portable TVs in the 80s 😉

[@bobgorman9481]

I remember those old imported radios , it always looked as though someone threw a handfull of components at the pcb then covered it all in wax 😂

[@AndyFletcherX31]

Might be worth cutting the top off one of the fully shorted transistors to see if there is actually a transistor in it - they may have simply bonded the 3 leads together.

[@westelaudio943]

Or rejected parts that had this problem and were still considered useful for this "purpose".

[@andygozzo72]

very sneaky way of upping the transistor count 😉

[@joebrock9784]

Little mushroom really woke that up

[@619Bob]

The point of "THAT" Is a way to add more transistors to make a more transistory sound!! Lol

[@KameraShy]

Learned a new desoldering technique. Interesting.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

Very good work! I couldn't fix it for a million dollars so I'd better go buy a few lottery tickets tonight...

[@akshonclip]

Thanks for the transistor salad Boxie!

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

Is it perhaps possibly uninsane.. lol ..to think those extra transistors are just there in case the main Necessary ones fail?

[@annaplojharova1400]

Stalling at low frequencies means there is not enough transconductance on the oscillator gain stage, because at the low part the wire resistance in the LC circuit is causing the highest loading of the circuit, so needs the highest gain. And regarding the amplitude: It has to be in the 200..400mVpp range on the Vbe in order for the frequency conversion to be efficient, yet do not eat up too much from the collector supply. And a scope connected to the LC does cause a havoc there, the operating impedance there is in the higher 100's kOhm range...

[@tompsheridantsheridant7354]

DARFLERSHARHBERFLARFER? DARFLERSHARHBERFLARFER?

[@johnsampson1096]

Hearing Popcorn by Hot Butter made my day! Another classic how to diagnose problems. Maybe a 20 count transistor would have an RF stage........

[@keithperry8098]

The mushroom is hot tonight. But where will it be tomorrow?

[@inventor1978]

Wow good job!❤

[@kokodin5895]

8050/8550 are transistor pair used in h bridges in some chinese rc cars, c945 should be high frquency general purpose with high power output used in walkie talkie amplifiers (27mhz range) bc 327 337 and 547-548/557-558 should be as you said basically the same in any regards anyway by datasheets, the beta would be indicated by last letter a,b or c and non sorted for beta are with no last letter so rage of amplification is wide, 517 might be a darlington and 550 could be a low noise version a1015/c1815 were used by taiyo rc as h bridge drivers in 1986 version of posche turbo targa (i have 2 of them so i know) i have no idea why do you need so many general purpose transistor variants while they are almost the same but a nice set to have

[@igorrogi8971]

I forgot all about that hot butter popcorn song thanks for reminding me

[@lucasstiles8012]

That explanation about transistor radios sounds straight out of a VP press conference. All you needed to do was cackle like villian afterwords.

[@shango066]

I got her formula down now, Can do it all day long