Vintage GE AM FM Transistor Pocket Radio Repair P1725 P1785

[@siskokidd]

When my brother and i were 9 and 10 in 1968, my father and a friend of his would take us fishing in a 50's era wooden boat my father beautifully restored. We'd get up very early on a Saturday morning to be on the midwest flood control reservoir before sunrise. The two grown ups had all the fancy gear and lure options, while we only had a simple bamboo rod with a short line attached to a worm on a line with a red and white plastic bobber. Hours of sitting there staring at that bobber while listening to either the men tell each other their dumb jokes, or a portable radio just like this one. Having a radio for weather updates while out on the lake in that part of the country during summer was necessary because the weather could (and did) change dramatically in a very short period of time. We learned that the hard way one day with my whole family in the boat and getting caught in a thunderstorm while on the water, running out of gas for the 35HP Evinrude, then drifting into a tangled grove of shoreline trees. So embarrassing for a father! Collegiate athlete that he was, he ended up pulling us out of danger with a rope, in chest deep water, his bare feet on the muddy bottom lined with rocks, roots, stumps and discarded glass bottles. That, of course, is exactly what a father should do in a situation like that.

[@davidraezer5937]

I want to thank you for your videos. Watching them sparked my interest to buy some broken old radios and attempt my own repairs. As a kid I built several Heathkits and always had an aptitude for electronics. This helped me when I started as a auto technician in the 80’s since I gravitated towards the diagnostic end of repairs. Having some free time the past few days I dusted off the old radios and so far have fixed one and diagnosed and ordered parts for another. Had I just followed the advice from other videos I would have done a shotgun recap and never learned from what I did. Thanks again!

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

Sounds like my story. Electronics hobbyist and a little time on the bench in a couple TV shops through and just out of high school. Some engineering college and a career in auto and light truck. You and I attacked automotive electrical and engine control as well as all of the other body systems. It was fun learning in the early days. With a comfortable electronics background was such an advantage. We were diagnosticians or Techs when mechanic described a person who worked on cars and trucks. Today everyone is a technician. That's ok. I still love electronics and am endeavoring to understand analog and digital circuitry in all of the ways possible especially what I didn't learn in the past. We may have extra time with this crazy Corona Virus COVID-19 pandemic. Enjoy and I hope you post a video soon. Also I'm curious what Sango069's background is and what he does for his regular work. Maybe he did a video on that? God Blesd

[@davidraezer5937]

@@johnnytacokleinschmidt515 no videos from me. I work too many hours to create. Still work part time on cars in my shop. Main line of work now is carpentry which I like but my passion is still in cars. I like to do restomods with newer power trains. Like to keep it original looking and OBD compliant.

[@JerryEricsson]

You know I sit here and watch your videos, I have watched so many now, it's almost like having morning coffee with a friend. What passed my mind as I watched this today though was this: "I wonder if the dude that screwed this radio up is watching?" If he is, I bet he is a bit embarrassed that the undoing of his messing around brought a cool old radio back to life and may well put it back in circulation. Speaking of which I was thinking of selling off the transistor radio's my late sister had in her hope chest when she passed away last year. Her daughter gave them to me, and I checked all 5 of them out. 4 actually sort of worked, they did work much better when I replaced a few capacitors, the other was beyond my ability and I had already ripped apart when you showed how to fix the blasted thing. Oh well I guess a fellow can have to many transistor radios. Besides my sisters, I have the ones my mother had in her closet, she never threw anything electronic away, said she knew some day I would ask for it, and she wanted to have it available. Well when we cleaned out her house after she entered the nursing home, I recovered several radios most were in need of some TLC to get them back up and running, however now the all work just fine. Some were of great quality, others were bottom shelf junk, but now they all work, thanks to what I have learned with my morning coffee buddy.

[@gretalaube91]

Consider that in most of the world, having a transistor radio is about as high tech as it gets in the average person's lives. So be thankful for your streaming and WiFi. 73 de W3IHM

[@JerryEricsson]

Cool. I am just recovering from flu/pneumonia crud. Doc gave me my 3rd dose of some sort of horse pill that ends in psyllin and it's supposed to make me feel better. Wish the fuck it would! Love your videos, they sure help pass the time. I used to listen to short wave radio, we lived in an old wooden 3 story house, my room was on the top floor and at night, man I could get that old short wave receiver popping. I had a little Jade AM transistor radio that I screwed the hell out of, couldn't afford those damn little 9 volt batteries but dad had some old 6 volt lantern battery. I found that, when properly fed, a 6 volt battery would make my 9 volt Jade radio a shortwave receiver. I still have the case, but the radio was beyond repair, mom saved it for me, but someone had replaced my lantern battery with a 9 volt back in 1968 or so. Well the insides of that were a mess. Perhaps some kid decided to do the same to that set.

[@jeffreyhickman3871]

Another very nice radio. Reminds me of a similar radio my mother bought me at a neighbor’s garage sale when I visited her in my hometown of Glennallen, Alaska in 1984. I think she paid $5.00 for it. I also got a tube record player she paid $25.00 for. These radios are like the classic cars of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Keep it coming on the restorations, even for the most hopeless radios. Please don’t throw away the cases or parts away to any of these radios, record players or tv’s. You’ll find some use somewhere down the road. Radios of 2003 and beyond? Really went downhill after this. Digital has its drawbacks. Don’t need Bluetooth and mp3 built in. Good old analog radio is the way to go. Hope we keep it until I die and beyond. It’s the best kind of radio, from the sounds between the stations as you turn the tuning knob, or the ghosting of two or more stations at the same place on the dial at night. I love these radios, so much that I would like to see you crank out two and a half hour long videos on them. Those Russian radios I’ve seen you do are fantastic. I’m sure, like you say, as you were working on one, those metal pieces that became attached to the back of the speaker. They were probably drawn there by the speaker’s magnet over time. Please keep these great videos coming. I am more than just entertained by them, even by the boring ones, as other people may say. They’re not boring to me.

[@duanevp]

Reminds me of the Radio Shack transistor that our family had for about 30-40 years. I think it used 4 C-cells as well has had an AC cord you could coil up in a compartment in back. We took it along on vacations for a long time and then my dad hung it up in the garage and then a carport for a good 10-15 years as a "shop radio" to listen to when working on cars and such. It still worked but finally got thrown out when my folks moved to a much smaller place. These days I heartily wish I still had it so I could take a stab at re-furbishing it.

[@renemichelnunes]

Few years ago I got one GE P1720, a little weak on reception and thank God no blob jobs on it. I took some resistors out on the am circuit and tested them, almost all was out of tolerance. The electrolitics I changed anyway, disc capacitors all fine. Very different design I must say, my radio doesn't have that 4pf cap, instead the speaker basket and the front grill is grounded, and I heard from some old techs if the radio got low sensitivity try to reverse the speaker leads, very strange hahahahaha. Thanx for sharing this video.

[@SeanBZA]

I think this was an attempt to go antennaless, using the headphone socket and the speaker grill as antenna and counterpoise.

[@renemichelnunes]

I think so

[@teacfan1080]

I wish I knew electronics as much as you do, you can fix anything! That radio sounds great now. Thanks for the Monday electronics fix!

[@hamandcheese25]

I loved your interpretation of hip hop, I needed that today 😃

[@jamesmcdonough854]

I love seeing electronics like this being brought back to life. The cool thing about this video is that maybe I could fix a radio like this.

[@victoryfirst2878]

I really like your videos on old transistor radios. Look forward to see more from you Sir. Good day too.

[@jackallen6261]

It is so funny hearing Marcy Playground coming out of that radio, lol. Great job Shango!! Thanks for the upload!

[@davidarnette327]

"Why because I like and that all that matters." True so true

[@randyab9go188]

we don't need digital on am. Leave a.m. as it is because you can literally find junk around the house and you could build a crystal set and receive something if necessary. It's not as easy as it was in the old days but it still can be done. Besides I hate the digital sideband screwing up my dxing at night

[@commodoresixfour7478]

That's the same thing the gentleman that helps people with shortwave radio on Havana Cuba's shortwave radio station.

[@JM-yx1lm]

Hey you know something, I like the way am has just enough static to make you feel like the old days. Also I only listen to am channel in my shop and it works just fine until the sun sets and then it's just static which means it's time to go inside.

[@skipwerk2251]

Thank you for showing the digital noise one the sides to the analog signal. I just repaired a GE 56X10 and i thought the noise was silver mica disease. It had me worried cause the IF transformers had variable caps in the cans. You just saved me a lot of work.....and cussing...LOL

[@joshjones3227]

AM HD is dying a slow death through attrition. Most of the HD hardware itself is industrial computers, and they die after a while. The local news talk station had their HD off for about 6 months while their gear was being repaired. Some stations have decided it wasn't worth the trouble and left it off. We had 5 or more AM HD's here in DFW, now there is only one or two left.

[@kusgilb]

I spent a large majority of my childhood years with one of those hanging from my wrist. Thanks for the memories...

[@reacey]

Thanks for giving me something other than corona scaremongering to watch

[@tinicum54]

yep

[@user-se8nh3yu1e]

Efuckingxactly

[@nbntelevision1]

I was a producer at a local AM news station and they were smart enough to add a digital stream onto another FM (country music) station they owned, instead. It was a much better option if one has more than one tower in a market.

[@dalerowan1085]

I used to have one my sister and I was lucky this guy gave us two of them. The guy who gave us the two radios said they didn't work that my sister and I got from him. We took them to our Aunts apt found out the guy put the batteries in backwards. We told this guy who gave us the two transistors radios. That they worked would he wanted them back. My sister and I was trying to be honest to this guy. But he told us we could keep them. I love transistor radios wish I had one. Took my radio everywhere with me when I was growing up

[@klafong1]

I wonder how the FM section of this radio could have possibly received FCC Part 15 certification. The common-base RF stage that most radios used in the FM section provided a good amount of isolation between the "autodyne" (aka converter or self-oscillating mixer) and the antenna. However, in this design, the only thing that cuts down the amount of local oscillator signal radiated via the antenna is the RF front end tuned circuit. Don't turn this radio on at an airport! :) I will have to check on reception of 1060 from Calgary tonight. During the last few years, reception of this station has been pretty lousy because of adjacent channel stations using IBOC. Now, there are fewer angry cats on AM, but there are still many buzzing mosquitoes on FM.

[@tgheretford]

Never mind AM HD-Radio closedown, Ireland is closing down its whole digital radio network! Though a pirate broadcaster is now taking advantage of the situation and launching in a number of Irish locations.

[@janosnagyj.9540]

"I don't know why I like it..." 18:22 The answer was given by the radio itself :)

[@justincase3880]

Your the best .. watching all your videos …

[@zx8401ztv]

Well done shango066, i bet that will receive well in the wide open spaces :-)

[@heath7766]

I thought it was older than 73 but 68 sounds about right l. But it is very very similar to the one 5 years later

[@onefootinthegroove39]

This basic design goes back to (I think) about 1965, I had one of the earlier versions that had the old Musaphonic logo on a badge, a slightly different finish on the grill, and metallic numbering on the dial. They are cute little sets, I used mine all the time and it seemed to barely draw on the battery.

[@brainndamage]

That feedbacl resistor that was supposed to add negative feedback, almost sounds like it adds positive. I wonder if they swapped the winding polarity on one of the transformers by accident, making it out of phase of what it's supposed to be.

[@icondonnied]

Alright, Shango.. You should show us all how to build a crystal set out of household items. We're all gonna need it after the power grid fails due to Coronavirus Social Distancing...

[@markmarkofkane8167]

One thing you'll need. Long, long wire for the antenna.

[@joeblow8593]

Yeah I agree that KNX sounds so much better now without that digital hash. Do you know how much it cost for KNX to to run digital?

[@radiotvphononut]

GE was bad about using the same basic chassis for years, often in different cabinet designs. Then, there were other cases where GE used one cabinet style for years, with varying chassis designs used.

[@A_RosnerNZ]

You talk about KNX.... we can receive them here in New Zealand when it's dark over the Pacific

[@SpeakerFreak95]

Usually the AM HD processing and Exciter fails, and most stations don’t repair or replace it. That’s a very common thing here in Louisiana. We have about two left that still have AM digital side bands. Usually an older Harris design. Unobtainable or extremely expensive components.

[@shango066]

I guess the station was dark for a few minutes and when it came back up no digital. Whatever, its nice

[@XMguy]

In my area FM Stations are using their HD-2 signals for AM translation, which is better.

[@joeblow8593]

That Beatles sounding song at 9:02 is, Dennis DeYoung - "To The Good Old Days" with Julian Lennon

[@rsattahip]

Strange you would pick a radio to fix that some idiot had butchered. Good video

[@teacfan1080]

Forgot to mention, the KNX station in LA is similar to KFGO here in Fargo. That's the station with the news, talk, sports and weather, the go to station for everything. They carry local sports broadcasts, Minnesota TWins & Minnesota Vikings. It has been #1 in the ratings for the area each quarter for years, an AM station yet!

[@moderateextremist7344]

The professor rewired it to make a transmitter to get off the island, and since Gilligan tried to help.....

[@bitrot42]

I hear coconuts make good replacements for germanium transistors

[@ChrisR]

Yeah that Bob Denver was never much of an electrician.....

[@rugrataudio]

Another great video! Thanks

[@equid0x]

While it would be sad that most of this older stuff would no longer work, I think we would be better off in the long run if things went full DAB. I think the biggest issue with it's uptake in the states as a sideband is that the tuners to support it have never been readily available in anything but cars. I bought an SDR a couple years back I was excited to listen to some of these subchannels with but it died in a day and that was the end of that.

[@mohinderkaur6671]

Radio Sounds Good - nice tone!

[@cargo4441]

Was hoping you were going to submerge that grill in some sort of solvent with a high voc To remove gunk from the grill.

[@cvbabc]

OMG, I know the guy who owned this radio! He used to do all the repairs himself, his name was Stevie Wonder.

[@JoeHeine]

This old stuff is more art than the hyper complex crap we have today

[@Flexin010]

That digital noise was annoying. Glad its gone. Great video.

[@Musicradio77Network]

I haven’t check NYC, because WCBS-AM and 1010 WINS got either turned off the digital noise or not, or perhaps WFAN-AM, WABC-AM and WOR either turned off the digital noise or not.

[@fanofoldfans9238]

Good radio to take to the ball game. Oh wait can't do that now. That was a Thrifty's special way back in the 70's $8.99. Cool

[@minipolenet]

11:22 This is very spooky. I heard a voice preaching in Korean from unknown pastor 10 thousand miles away

[@45AMT]

No digital stations around here. Just tons of simulcast stuff. But that's fine i'm happy we have music still on AM. That radio looks well built especially for the cheapskates at GE.

[@Acein3055]

You think this radio is a mess with all the odd alterations? This TV shop where I worked in the 80"s and 90's used to pick-up little B&W TVs from a prison. The inmates always got into them and did all sorts of strange things that made the TV not repairable 99% of the time.

[@69Dartman]

I think most am stations are dropping the digital broadcast as it never really took off. Most of the FM stations here still have it though. HD tuners just haven't sold well but they did work. I have a Sony small table top version that had one of the best HD tuners ever made. They made it exactly one year and dropped it. A good FM HD channel sounds like a CD, AM sounds like somewhat like a low Bitrate mp3. FM has no static or dropouts when HD is locked and drops to regular FM when it gets too weak. I have a HD radio in my car as well and like the clean sound and oddball HD2 Locals only channel my favorite station has. The 2 AM stations we had went away. Tuners are hard to find now.

[@jeffshaw4039]

Ge made some good radios I like your radio.

[@rafaelgruber6133]

Austria shut down the schools till Apr. 20! due to coronavirus! BTW: good video as always

[@randyab9go188]

The antenna bodge wire that type of construction is not at all unusual in made in Hong Kong sets. Absolutely some of the most atrocious work ever came out of Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s. Some really questionable looking computer products in the 1980s but somehow the stuff actually seem to work and hold up. I had a 1200 baud modem back in the day that was made by a long-forgotten manufacturer. The only Hayes 80 command set modem I can find for a hundred bucks. It worked for two to three years until I upgraded to 2400 baud. if you opened it up and looked at it you would swear it wouldn't have worked or it wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes. Always work reliably and never gave me a problem.

[@reginaldlawrence412]

Great video Shango.

[@hestheMaster]

Social distancing the Shango way. I love it!

[@markmarkofkane8167]

Hey, Shango, got enough tp? All joking aside, thanks for a great video. Makes my day. :) Many police and government frequencies are digital. The encrypted ones are unlistenable.Even on a digital scanner. Just hear that noise.

[@cardboardboxification]

in this stressful time of the great toilet paper panic, it nice to see some common sense .....

[@AriaPosting]

This is kind of an off topic question but could you replace a cap rated at 50v with one rated at 350v? The capacitance values are the same. It's just a filter cap. I ordered the wrong one by mistake and don't really want to pay for shipping again.

[@shango066]

yes

[@AriaPosting]

@@shango066 thanks for answering quick man. I really like your videos they're super helpful

[@Martin-io4wc]

Hi Shango066. Are you and your family okay and virus free? 73, Martin

[@franklynpolster8949]

In the UK, HD FM pretty much destroyed FM's sound quality. Its less than CD quality and Mono because of all the sub-channels they are squeezing into the bandwidth. Techmoan did a video explaining.

[@cbhonda90]

What I think is this little radio was modified in the late 70s to mid 80s to work with a metal detector

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

I wonder how that design came to be? It looks bad. I wouldn't think American GE engineers would have cooked that up. Was it Japanese or Chinese/Hong Kong? Possibly designed by Asian division? Very interesting. I'm pleased to see it working. God Bless

[@abc-ni9uw]

Nice new phone shango shame you still using that old raggy green jacket

[@loderunner-80]

Hi, I'm looking for the wiring diagram of this radio: magnavox 90al070, it's broken but I couldn't find the scheme anywhere.

[@tiporari]

Great video. Social distancing? Lol. Only delaying the inevitable. Pretty sure this thing has already gone through my household. Dayquil did fine.

[@josephkerr2976]

Binge watch shango066 for quarantine.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

7:15 Ground plane for AM?

[@quantumleap359]

Wow, I've never seen so many bodge wires in a portable radio! Way to go GE, is this the only way you could get it out the factory door? Guess so... Good video!

[@michaelmcdonald2348]

interestingly here in the UK for a few years they were really pushing DAB digital radio, in the last year or so though, the national broadcaster now doesn't mention it, choosing only online, on smart speaker and the FM frequencies. Digital has basically become just somewhere full of stations that don't have FM allocation, and mostly in low bitrate mono. Pretty much the radio equivalent of Digital TV. More choice, less quality.

[@blitzroehre1807]

Right on, same here in Germany. And that DAB thing just doesnt seem to take off cause its being eaten alive by its more modern successors like livestream, podcast etc. Hongkong has already shut down all DAB+ transmissions recently. Just wait till 5G has good coverage, that will be the death blow for DAB digital radio

[@andershammer9307]

Someone gave me a AM/FM transistor radio from I think the early 70's and the audio section works but no AM or FM. the thing is hard to troubleshoot. I think it was a Radio Shack but not sure. Have to find it again and look at it. Will definitely need the schematic.

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

Why would stations broadcast a digital stream on the same band as their main signal? I don't get it.

[@steviebboy69]

I always thought digital was a different frequency, i dont even think i can get DAB out here in the country, down under. I dont even have a DAB radio anyway,

[@klafong1]

@@steviebboy69 That depends on the country. The United States did not go with the European DAB system because the bands for which the hardware was designed were allocated to the military.

[@klafong1]

The explanation that I saw in the early 1990s was that American broadcasters favored a system that worked in this way because part of the monetary value of a broadcast license comes from the number of listeners that it can potentially reach. Analog signals with better coverage would have digital signals with proportionally better coverage, thus preserving the market value structure behind radio station licenses. An all-new band would upset the apple cart.

[@maniatore2006]

Thank you for the Video. :)

[@johnbeckham1483]

I would like to find a 1960 GE AM Pocket portable with a leather carrying case that I received as a Christmas present back in 1960? It was a 6 transistor radio I believe? Anyone know the model?

[@siskokidd]

I gots to know. What amount was on that price sticker?

[@BlueSkyScholar]

If you touch the antenna and speaker grill at the same time it oscillates at 2600hz... Shango just unrigged Woz's long lost blue box.

[@briangoldberg4439]

AM radio stations are using internet broadcast via websites and podcast programs, so it's not surprising that they would do away with digital broadcast.

[@gavincurtis]

Put that resistor back, it was part of the mono-WIDE sound circuit.

[@Sys-Edit0r-1995]

Would have been neat to see the AM digital sidebands on a waterfall using a cheap RTL-SDR... Hmmm maybe the signal Wiki has pictures of one. Also to anyone who might know does an AM stereo signal on a waterfall look any different from a Mono AM signal?

[@john-cm8yn]

Nice!!! Not the video but, the Easy Bra commercial.

[@norbs]

12:05 I didn't think you knew the lyrics

[@bestamerica]

' what year was this old fashion radio made... old time radio was handmade

[@tgheretford]

Is HD Radio dying in the USA? Seems at odds with the UK perspective where most listening is now via digital (via DAB and DAB+ mostly) and it would be a shame to lose free-to-air broadcast radio.

[@DanafoxyVixen]

screw DAB(+), analog FM is where it should always be

[@Synthematix]

Your videos are a refreshing upgrade from phononuts' he complains about things so much i really cannot watch his videos any more, gets on my nerves

[@azariayehezkel9064]

Hi Enjoy your's videos

[@waltschannel7465]

The theory on digital AM was that the quality could be improved on over conventional AM, but WHY?? It was another radio fad like AM Stereo in the 1980s. I actually had an AM stereo receiver back then for about a week. Bought it from Pacific Stereo in Seattle. There were only two stations broadcasting music and the fidelity was not that great.

[@LakeNipissing]

True, because the frequency response would still roll off around 5 kHz.

[@blitzroehre1807]

When working in Edmonton AB for a few years in the mid 90s I bought a new Dodge Caravan there and was gobsmacked that the car radios stereo light came on on quite a few AM stations. Coming from Europe that was something I had never heard of before. It didnt sound too bad though, I think they did a quite wide modulation to get a little more treble in. Are there still AM stereo transmissions there nowadays?

[@LakeNipissing]

@@blitzroehre1807 Check out www amstereo org for info on AM stereo stations, and a full listing of surviving AM stereo stations on Wikipedia.

[@JessHull]

I wonder if Shango

[@shango066]

yea so do I

[@frustro4323]

Nice. Can you help me identify a chassis please? It's a catalina 122-1840A. Rca clone? Video here. Sorry for quality. Plz help, thanks.

[@frustro4323]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jIjPd3V9qbV9nZI

[@cjpwolf2436]

GREAT CHANNEL!!!! :D

[@cjmarsh504]

Someone was Jerry rigging that thing up.

[@attilarivera]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@chrisduhaime5689]

If only you could buy a new pocket radio that had that tuning as good as those old one's . Cheap China one's don't last long and seem to have poor tuning . Wall mart don't even carry them any more. Brands mart here in Florida has the cheap ones . But just don't see pocket radios any more in most store's. Repairing those older radios you have a better tuning and sounding one and would probably out last the new crap.

[@MsCori76]

Neat radio. xoxo

[@pyeltd.5457]

I have not seen you since the Aussie fires

[@jim8230]

You mean, turned off their digital hash generators.

[@geraldcampbell6834]

Looks to me like someone was trying to make the radio receive out of band!

[@chetpomeroy1399]

People who bought those AM digital receivers will not be happy, if it's true that U.S. radio stations on the AM band are getting rid of their digital signals. It's nice not to hear all that hyperventilating about the coronavirus "crisis" over the airwaves, for once.

[@johnnydxer]

12:04 bleh bleh bleh bleh...haha SPOT ON!!

[@Trev0r98]

Why couldn't shango try the FM on this radio? So disappointed.

[@LakeNipissing]

The Hip Hop being played was on FM, either KRRL 92.3 or KPWR 105.9

[@BetamaxFlippy]

Shango can u say hi?

[@pyeltd.5457]

hi

[@craignehring]

This GE sounds pretty good. Enough lead solder to contaminate something somewhere, lol didn't lead come from the earth?