Panasonic Radar Matic Receiver Teardown With Circuit Description, Troubleshooing, And Resurrection!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

To learn electronics in a very different and effective way, and gain access to Mr Carlson's personal designs and inventions, visit the Mr Carlson's Lab Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/MrCarlsonsLab

[@cjay2]

Mr. Carlson, I wouldn't have used the battery cover to leverage the wind-up piece. I'd be afraid of breaking it. Just saying.

[@shaknit]

Hi where do you buy your electronic components,

[@kd6tas]

This needs a part 2 where you show us how you repair the battery holder, on/off switch, and ferrite antenna.

[@docsav1331]

I agree! I did not fully enjoy this repair video because watching the fix is part of the fun. Too much time spent looking at the schematic. Although I still love watching Mr Carlson work his magic.

[@MagnaRyuuDesigns]

the ferrite antenna is an easy fix you can pick up replacement ferrite rods off of amazon

[@MrMersh-ts7jl]

This is one of the coolest mechanisms I've ever seen. Just the idea to come up with it and then to get the green light to go ahead and build it and then another green light to go ahead and sell it would never happen today. Thank you Paul

[@dakata2416]

Paul has blessed us with these videos lately!

[@edwatts9890]

Mr. Carlson IS a blessing!

[@adrianruess1646]

Please keep making these transistor radio restoration videos . So cool !

[@ramdor72]

very cool indeed. Looks like a great candidate for a restore/fix up (switch/ferrite rod/case dent/battery holder/clean). Great to see the alignment process as well. Cheers.

[@danmenes3143]

To judge by the last couple episodes, Mr. Carlson really seems to be getting into these new-fangled transfer-resistor things!

[@jimnugent3851]

"Hey look, we've got some rules! [...] 'Be careful not to damage or remove the plastic cover' [...] That sounds like an invitation to remove this plastic cover!... okay [...] we'll do that, because that's just in the rules." 😆

[@richc47us]

Even after all the work you put into the lab, it's plain to see you love what you do and this in turn makes it a joy to watch, listen and learn from you....Thanks!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

I appreciate that!

[@terrym1065]

Awesome Mr C., it's a true pleasure watching you work a schematic, a true art in and of itself. This was a very unique radio, never seen one before. I suppose this jewel will adorn the museum shelf after a few minor fixes, a rare find I'm guessing. Great video as always, as usual I learn from every episode. Thanks and 73.

[@ZenWithKen]

Electronics is my first love. I used to do a lot of board level repair on all types of printers, computers, monitors, power supplies, even hard drives. The thrill of chasing the problem. It's really very rewarding when you find and fix problems that few can and you sir, are a master at it. Thanks for sharing!

[@klumpy103]

Now that is a neat auto-tune mechanism, very unusual design and totally unexpected. I think it's worth a restore on that merit alone. 👍

[@zebo-the-fat]

Never seen that clockwork auto tune system before, very neat idea

[@mikevarry647]

I wish you would do a "Part 2" to this video showing us how you repair/replace the battery holder, the broken on/off switch, and ferrite antenna. I like seeing the repair as well as the trouble-shooting.

[@pixelpackingpiccys]

I bought one of these radios for my dad around 1980s he absolutely loved it.. Sadly he passed away 13 years ago, and i never knew what happened to the radio. I would love to be able to find one now to restore.

[@RadMatt1337]

I have been a long time watcher and wanted to share some exciting news! I have found my first radio for restoration, it is a Northern Electric Model 5000. Was picked up at my local electronics recycling center for the low low price of free! Super excited to follow along with some of your videos and dig in!

[@johnparichuk8367]

I have to agree with you regarding the old Tek 'scopes , Paul. I was introduced to them in 1970 at my first duty station, Naval Security Group Activity, Kamiseya, Japan. I Immediately fell in love with those 'scopes.

[@johnstone7697]

I have the AM/FM version of this set. Works very well.

[@manolisgledsodakis873]

I built my first transistor superhet radio when I was about 16 years old and not from a kit. I had to etch the PCB. This auto-tuning radio is fascinating. Thanks for showing us what it can do!

[@ram50v8]

Paul, I just love it when you find these rarely seen radios and fix them. Just for fun I did a search for one a few minutes ago and discovered an Ebay listing that had sold 6 hours before. Thank you for providing wonderful content and education!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

My pleasure!

[@hestheMaster]

Always fun watching you troubleshoot unusual vintage electronics Paul.

[@mistermac56]

Fun video Paul. Interesting to see the mechanical and electronic design that went into the radio. Pretty amazing to see the sensitivity of the radio and your troubleshooting and alignment procedures.

[@jansramek2867]

Yes, nice demonstration of auto tuning. Automatic tuning and station presets have always been a feature of "better" radios since the late twenties. This is about the 1960s and a beautifully simple drive. Thanks!

[@klif_n]

That's a cool mix of clockwork and radio. A very interesting find.

[@SPINNINGMYWHEELS777]

Excellent demonstration and that radio is just amazing! Hello from Ontario Canada.

[@xephon3000]

This little radio is so interesting. I love the auto tuning mechanism!

[@elmofeneken4364]

Never saw a radio like this before. So glad you took the time to work on it for us viewers. Interesting!

[@BadChizzle]

I get the vibe that we don’t even completely know just how amazing you very much are. Just my intuition, let’s call it. Thanks for all the fun videos to watch, or even just listen to. Great stuff!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Thank You for your kind comment!

[@stephenbeswick2163]

Hi I was in the electronic service industry sine 1998 until 2003 when I retired it’s great to see differnt items from other countries I still repair electronic equipment I use to train apprenticeships for young lads but they were not very interested and would leave after several months when computers came out I repaired them as well the young people whanted to play games on computer and not learn how to repair them they told me we will bin it when it goes wrong. That’s what people do these case I repair all y old tv,radio, cd players etc they do not want to pay for the repair. Steve b great videos.

[@stevenbliss989]

A motor and a latching relay, ....what a concept for "auto stop" tuning/finding ....I am IMPRESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@nndorconnetnz]

I also find the high frequency analog scopes useful to find clipping when voice is in place on RF transmission. Not for the spurious RF per say... But for if there is any thing up from the audio chain that can lead to spurious radiation. And they are defiantly quiet!

[@smet145]

Perfect Sunday night viewing. Thanks from the UK 👍

[@gregorythomas333]

Just curious...why didn't you use the external power connector to bypass the battery compartment problem?

[@GrandsonofKong]

Actually have one of these radios tucked away that belonged to my Mother-in-Law. Inspired me to dig it out and see if it still works!

[@hymermobiler]

That was an hour so well spent thanks Paul

[@OrionSYoung]

Thanks for teaching us poor folk something useful, I really appreciate the time and effort you put into sharing your knowledge. You're like the uncle I never had.

[@TheDevice9]

That radio is really cool. Very interesting to see how the circuit works. It reminds me of the 1950s "Wonder Bar" radio I had in one my first cars which, when you pushed the button, would seek stations and stop on them just like this radio... (though you didn't have to wind it up). It also had a foot switch on the floor board so you could amaze and baffle your friends by changing the radio station using 'magic'. I always wondered how the wonder bar worked... and now I know. I also like the way the tuning condenser just rotates endlessly, up the dial, down the dial and up the dial again forever.... very cool.

[@markanderson2904]

My dad's car had that. It was a Buick.

[@ronarant2897]

When you said the radio had a hand crank, I was thinking of a radio that was being given to Missionaries in South America. This so anyone in the jungle if no power could listen to HCJB and TWR, Trans World Radio on the island of Bonaire,( I was an TX operator). The radios were powered by a hand cranked mechanism. The radio you’ve got is a really cool radio! I’ve never seen one of those. Ron

[@johncantwell8216]

If you want to see a hand-cranked transmitter, check out the 1953 John Wayne movie "Island in the Sky". The plane has crash-landed and when the batteries die they have to crank this emergency locater beacon that has speed-up gears to rotate the frequency generator fast enough. (Very hard to crank.)

[@joelsciamma9322]

Thanks Paul, one of your best videos, full of interesting observations and useful information on this clever radio.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Many thanks!

[@jonathanreedpike]

Unique example of an evolutionary branch of portable electronic entertainment. Electromechanical solutions that work, but the "DNA" has evolved to modern life. I remember the solid chunk as the TV was adjusted by the clicker. Nice saga as always.

[@pfarnsworth84]

Ah, the satistifying clunk of tuning VHF TV. UHF could be fun too, but not as clunky; more tiresome really, if the station you wanted was halfway round the dial. I remember the first TV we had with a remote control. It was a Zenith floor console with a fancy keypad with LED (or VFD?) display that used an ultrasonic remote (the battery kind, not the one with tuning forks). My young ears could clearly hear the high-pitched squeals as you pressed the buttons - the cats could also, much to their dismay.

[@JCWise-sf9ww]

Paul excellent repair on getting this radio working and it is the neatest Panasonic portable Radio I have ever seen. They use to have signal seeking car radios that did the same thing in the 1950s & '60s.

[@d1bergman]

Before doing anything should you not secure a new switch and battery housing or have a plan to repaire the battery compartment?

[@Magnusaudiofighter]

It's been a very pleasant trend for you to work on smaller, affordable transistor radios. I always felt a bit diminished when you repaired those wonderful, museum condition tube console radios. I can relate to transistor radios as they are affordable to me. I actually had one of these for several years, and it worked quite well. I sold it about a year ago. I was constantly freaked out by the manual tuning. I always held my breath when pushing in and tuning that wheel...kept waiting for it to break.(I have anxieties, haha). You are a real gift in your calm demeanor and incredible knowledge. Appreciate it....

[@rimmersbryggeri]

Very cool thing this. I'd have liked to see the battery holder repair to though.

[@Rs500ybd]

People The Reason why we use Analog scopes even today is because A DMM Or a Digi Scope can lead you up the garden path when you want to go down it... Even today 2024 When I Test Longitudinals copper we Use analog Low Ohm ... You can end up in a world of Hurt if you are Not Careful. Spot On Mr C as Always ..... Legend Ham Operator ..

[@STR82DVD]

New content, my day just got better, thanks Mr. Carlson. Long day teaching young lad.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

My pleasure

[@renowden2010]

Clever arrangement with a continuous tuning cap which scans up and then down the frequencies whilst always rotating the same direction.

[@GrundleStiltSkin]

looks like bots in comments! love your content mr carlson, always learning something new

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Thanks!

[@mohamedarshad6207]

Wow some clever stuff It was good to see the mechanism. Thkyou for putting it out and your explanation brilliant. God bless

[@mikefinn2101]

Paul one of the best videos you have made very informative on alignments really got something out of this. Thanks Mike

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@W1RMD]

Thanks for the great video. What a neat little radio! I've never seen one auto tune like that.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

You're welcome!

[@jameslawrie7517]

The best small portable transistor radio ive ever owned was a Panasonic that i bought at the px in Germany back in 1982, am/fm/sw. It was lost in transportation when i came back to the states, nowadays the only comparable radio ive found is a portable grundig but its alot bigger.

[@AHein-ym3mi]

It has not yet stopped to surprise me how you get anything that lands on your bench to work at its peak performance every time. I've joined the Patreon years ago and looking forward to every video here and there. Now still on the way to figure out where would be the closest ham radio swap-meet to get to meet like minded people here in Ireland, and to get my hands on a few "holy grails" of test equipment.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Thanks for your kind feedback!

[@Paulwe4]

Are you going to finish The Grand Radio Receiver Restoration Series

[@Peterjames3535]

Great explanation on the tear down 👍….So clever how they get around the auto tuning using what was available at the time.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Thanks 👍

[@bryanirwin5473]

Thanks for the O-scope work, it's always my favorite.

[@PlanetaryThoughts9861]

One of the things I liked to do was to just look at the circuitry and figure things out. Some of the old tuning mechanisms are close to being works of art with the springs and cables tuning inductors that track with the tuning cap. Thanks for the education!

[@AK-vx4dy]

Very pleasent to watch and educate slef. I didn't realised that some one can use spring mechanism as autotuner... In my country constructions small ferrites were screwed with small ruber string, wich stablized core in somewhat loose screw, maybe here was similary and rubber degraded making it touchy.

[@tomj4506]

I found over the yrs butter knives are great for getting apart things with claws, tabs etc. LFOD !

[@Rev22-21]

Reminds me of my 1938 RCA console that has presets. It of course has an electric motor that tracks back and forth the dial, but it mutes the audio until those preset stations are located. Great video sir. Enjoyed it very much.😊

[@45rpmrecords]

Very Fun video on a Panasonic Radio. Panasonic made some cool stuff of the early 70s. Never knew this radio existed. Thanks Mr. Carlson.

[@RestorationsbyKennyFidler]

I didn’t know that Panasonic made an auto tune portable radio! Very cool!

[@FrankJoiner]

Enjoyed this video - learn something each time I watch one of your teardown . Thanks

[@hwirtwirt4500]

Interesting portable radio and one I've never seen before. This reminds me of the old vacuum tube car radios of the 50's, Ford had a model called the Town & Country signal seeking radio. It worked very similar to this but the Town button only stopped on strong signals and the Country button stopped on weak and strong signals and was used in fringe areas. The tuning mechanism was driven by a DC motor that must have been well filtered because is caused no noticeable interference on the AM band. Great job on the repair and circuit explanations Mr. Carlson.

[@jeffberwick]

Very cool electromechanical system! Also cool to see the debug process. I always know Paul will fix it, no matter what it is or how weird it is.

[@davidportch8837]

what a super cool radio Paul... great job and I love that "Star Trek" dial! Also thinking that a DC motor, in addition to being electrically noisy, would also put extra drain on the batteries.

[@JFirn86Q]

That is so neat. Modern stuff just doesn't have the pizzazz something like this does. Appreciate you taking time to go through the schematic in detail, learned a few things.

[@cafemolido5459]

Yes, please do more Solid-state repairs

[@andymouse]

Awesome ! never seen a mechanical scan like this....cheers.

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

@ 4:15 -- The viewer at this point scratches his head and wonders why Mr. Carlson doesn't break out his ultra flexible, 3-D rendering boroscope invention that enables Mr. C. to walk through the innards of the radio with VR goggles...

[@pharanchemie8645]

I like all your videos and I always wait for you to bring a new one. Thanks Paul.

[@planker]

Excellent. I do R/C stuff and was pondering the escapement servo and reed receivers just today, but I'm anything radio related and to see this Radar Matic video as well, kinda got me thinking I need more gears in my life.

[@sergiogomezxe1-ygs876]

Increíble aparato, y mas el maestro que lo pone a funcionar, nuevamente mis respetos al experto. Gracias por compartir. Saludos desde México.

[@Drottninggatan2017]

That orange strip should be on the inside of the batteries. You pull on it to get the batteries out.

[@seanobrien7169]

Thank God you were here to let us all know! I mean the man is only the foremost electronics genius on youtube, as capable an electronics engineer as ever was. Of course he didn't know what the orange strip is for...sheesh 🙄

[@francisMbizaree]

What???You ever believed this genius man is ignorant of that piece of orange strip😅

[@Drottninggatan2017]

@@francisMbizaree A genius is a person who understands that he still has things to learn.

[@qzorn4440]

I enjoy these wonderful radio repairs. Also, the Gilligan's Island Style Radio Packard Bell AR-851 is an interesting radio. 🤔 Thanks for the great troubleshooting video.

[@steverhenius6734]

Great tear down and circuit explanation. Thanks !

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@solarbirdyz]

I love this little radio! I hope you continue fixing it up. ^_^

[@Greg-et2dp]

Mr Carlsons lab you are good at restoring antique radios and alignment of antique radios my friend

[@BixbyConsequence]

I couldn't have resisted taking care of that battery box and switch first. But The Master has no worry for those trivialities.

[@Greg-et2dp]

Mr Carlsons lab your antique panasonic radar matic Am transistor radio is awesome my friend

[@shamalber1]

Well done Paul !

[@mrpappa4105]

Great video in somewhat new "rough" style, im here for any MCL videos but this was just +++. Now im hoping to find this type of radio with FM... Thanks for a perfect schematics walk through, im still amazed how much stuff you know. Thanks from a Swedish Patreon.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ntfs64]

It would be interesting to see the operation of this receiver in the open air, away from industrial noise and city interference. A very interesting radio product)).

[@LarryBlowers]

Thanks for showing the tuneing details near the end, most radios don't go full circle so to speak like that one does and I was wondering how they pulled off the auto searching feature!

[@DEO777]

At 41:30 you say it's way off the red dots. If your signal generator was at a different frequency, would that effect the optimal tuning position of the screws?

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

Absolutely!

[@imranahmad2733]

My older brother hated dimmers and LEDs because of the noise they made on SW and AM, before we had camera phones to test IR remotes I used to tune the radio to an empty AM station and test the remote by listening out for the IR emitter noise.

[@larryh8072]

Great video Paul. It almost looks like some friendly competition with Shango! Between the two of you I think I’ve learned enough to tackle almost any transistor radio!

[@graemebrumfitt6668]

Awesome as always Paul! If it lands on the bench you just know its gonna work. TFS, GB :)

[@edwatts9890]

I once owned a 1970 Toyota [top-of-the-line] Crown. That vehicle came from the factory to the United States with a similar radio, but the "SEEK" function was performed by an electric motor and it was an AM/FM broadcast band receiver. With no integrated circuits, there was a lot of "stuff" in a tiny box!

[@xenia5101]

Great view of innovation and troubeshooting, thanks

[@jamesharris9352]

WOW! 😲 My grandma had that very radio... 😊

[@genestatler2514]

I found this very interesting Paul, because I'm an old guy and used to work on tube type radios and TVs and I don't ever remember any tuning mechanisms this. So thanks a lot. All the best from Gene in Tennessee.

[@bathesheba111]

Thanks Paul for your great videos. Nice to see transistors for a change. Maybe in a few years you’ll move on to IC’s 😀.

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

You may find this video interesting then: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aWjPeqOKrbqEmac

[@Forensic1Man]

Hi! On the schematics the ferrite antenna shows that it should be broken in the middle!

[@MrCarlsonsLab]

That's not what that means. Thanks for the chuckle though!

[@morlanius]

@1:43 Mr.C, I did not expect you to be one of those that doesn't use the little ribbon. It goes under the battery so you can pull on it to get it out easier.

[@bones007able]

First Panasonic I ever saw with a wind up mech....cool!

[@thomas-i5o7h]

I agree with you that adding an external antenna would be very beneficial to the operation of the radio.

[@jeffminnick5209]

Wow Paul, I haven't seen one of those since my grandfather had one...how cool is that and once again you made my Sunday complete, I've said it before and I'll say it again you are the man and your skills are impeccable kudos...WD8JM

[@katyair1]

That was a good one Paul! 📻

[@error52]

I remember years ago an antiques dealer in my city had one of these for sale. The price he was asking, however, was absolutely insane! Eventually he did sell it, just not to me. I'm still sad I couldn't get it, but maybe I'll find another one in the future.