Zenith Royal 820 1964 AM FM Transistor Radio Resurrection

[@matthiasmartin1975]

"It's tomorrow, which is yesterday." Very classy.

[@Roundymooney]

"It's tomorrow-which was yesterday..." You got to love this guy.

[@iamdarkyoshi]

Very nice resurrection! As for the bar antenna, we all make mistakes, learning from them can be more educational than just having it work right off the bat

[@badescuandi8617]

Hello from Romania mister shango 066 i admire youre work to attempt ressurect old radio s,

[@electrofan7180]

My plants grew a lot while listening to this video ☻

[@111000100101001]

Now we’re really cooking with gas, homemade bar antenna! I absolutely love this type of resurrection creativity! Great work and thanks for taking us along.

[@5roundsrapid263]

2:48 The “Winged C” is the logo of the Svetlana plant in St. Petersburg, which made very high quality tubes and transistors.

[@stirlingschmidt6325]

Made - past tense. Now shut down, I think.

[@dougbrowning82]

@@stirlingschmidt6325 The plant is still running, as a subsidiary of Ruselectronics. They still use the "Winged C" logo, however the Svetlana brand is licensed to the New Sensor Corporation, who does the majority of their manufacturing in Saratov.

[@blackvinylgrooves]

Love the old Soviet EL84 tubes from the 70s and 80s in my Scott and Fisher amps. Philips made a lot of tubes and transistors for Zenith back in the day.

[@frankowalker4662]

I kept yelling at the TV, "It's at 1.45mh, you need 0.45mh." LOL. Great fix.

[@bobbyk6585]

Only Shango is able to crack me up a number of times during an electronics diagnostic lesson.

[@EdgarsLS]

the multi-strand magnet wire is called Litz wire, it's used to raise the bandwidth of the inductor by reducing the conductor skin effect which is when the frequency is high enough, the current flow starts to flow on the outside of the wire, the higher the frequency the higher the effect and thus higher resistance.

[@willrobbinson1]

in a pinch it seemed to work ok , yes it is normally litz wire

[@jrs0007]

Spreading out the distance between windings on the ferrite rod increases the "Q" of the coil, but lowers the indutance. Also, the sensitivity of the low end of the band is affected by the position of the coil on the rod.

[@NickDalzell]

"love sounds" was actually for me 'shopping music' as it played at our old Lincoln Mall and Service Merchandise back in the '80s.

[@Zickcermacity]

I remember when love/beautiful music/EZ listening instrumentals were all you heard in stores! And I actually miss it! You had to wait until you were outside or at home to hear the original recordings! lol

[@teacfan1080]

When I heard that music, the Seeburg Background Music system came to my mind.

[@moisesalexandrewielckensci3237]

This video was very educational. And yes finding the right spot on the ferrite made the difference. Very good !

[@JerryEricsson]

Thanks for some fresh video to consume. I have missed that. Perhaps there was some and I missed it, would not be the first time. My sleep has been so screwed up of late that it seems I sleep more during the day then at night. Coming up on a year now since I lost the love of my life to Cancer and my doctors are beginning to consider withdrawing some of the anti depressives they have piled up on my daily med list, I look forward to that. They both agreed that I was getting way to much blood pressure meds, and have cut those in half. This has helped more then I ever thought it could. Suddenly I now have enough energy to get out of my blasted chair and do something. Dentist is finally going to tackle my teeth, a plan that stopped suddenly last year when my wonderful mate learned she had cancer. About time took, I am beginning to resemble an Ozark Hillbilly stuck in the backwoods awaiting those fellows from Deliverance to arrive. Damn teeth have been breaking off at the gum line till now I have but 3 left that are left to chew with. Here I sit with a damn deep freeze loaded with steak and other beef cuts, that I can't chew any more. My daughter, who has moved in to keep my house in order has begun giving it away before it gets too old to enjoy, Ah well, life goes on and so will I I guess.

[@jrs0007]

I am sorry for your loss. Get off the anti-depression meds if at all possible. I took them some years ago, gained weight, got high blood pressure, had sleep issues, and felt worse than I did before the meds. After losing 30lbs, the BP went down. I weaned my way off the BP meds, and then the anti-depression crap. Doc was pissed, but I could finally sleep and felt better than I had in years. Found a new MD and have never looked back. All the best to you and your family.

[@richardweinberger2756]

I drove from L.A. to the high desert area yesterday, and I wanted to listen to AM radio, and guess what the best reception was?? Good old Radio Mozart AM 1260 :)

[@BigDaddy_MRI]

You’re way too mean to your phone. And your tunes are soooooo relaxing. My Aloe Vera branched a whole new leaf. “It’s tomorrow, which is yesterday.” - Good safety tip!! Thanks!! And antenna winding 101. And … great video!!!

[@ArlenMoulton2]

Can't beat a high voltage scrobolboymler, especially when repairing an American radio with Soviet parts!

[@d.jeffdionne]

and a Japanese scrobolboymler at that.

[@waltschannel7465]

Hmmm, I thought it was scroto boymler. Not sure if a hyphen is required...

[@ArlenMoulton2]

@@waltschannel7465 Nope, definitely scrobolboymler! Although you could have Scrotumboiler if you wanted...

[@davepike6170]

I have been shocked by one or three of those "high voltage scrobolboymlers" over the years! I hate when that happens! 🤣😆😁

[@danmackintosh6325]

@@davepike6170 Shango066's standard response to suddenly being zapped by many Kv of high freq wakeup juice = *calmly* "well, that just burned a hole right through my finger!"

[@barryfairwood2174]

Excellent viedo, I like the audio from the phone to the driver transistor base. Keep up the good work!

[@VectraQS]

It's absolutely OK to use an identical radio as a second reference. I have two 1981-82 Panasonic RX-1460s, and I bought the second one after I thought I lost a gear out of the cassette mechanism, which I had 3D printed. (The originals were cracked anyway). I later used the first one as a reference to restore the broken AM antenna on the second one. There are always things like that which aren't in the schematic.

[@poormanselectronicsbench2021]

"It's absolutely OK to use an identical radio as a second reference" - At my place of employment, we would call that the "stare & compare" method of troubleshooting or installation.

[@chetpomeroy1399]

At 16:50 it sounds like some music I remember hearing on the overhead intercom at Safeway and K-mart back in the 60's.

[@IanThatMetalBassist]

Definitely some Muzak type stuff

[@NickDalzell]

I sometimes put on old Kmart music on the bluetooth speaker at work. Makes it easier to relax when focusing.

[@r.dsvintagetuberadiotvsand3140]

Zenith the quality goes in before the name goes on

[@jamesmann1243]

The Quality goes in, as Shango066 goes on! Great job as always 👍

[@deankq4adj125]

Really enjoy listening to your commentary! The information you give is awesome!

[@davepike6170]

I have this same Zenith AM-FM, except with black leather case, in my garage, I use it almost daily! It came with its original AC adapter, but I mostly use it on batteries, because AM works better on batteries, for some reason.

[@rdg2124]

Got into repairing old vacuum bulb radios mostly from watching your video on the 1938 GE from New Years 2019 and I've done several radios with a working version sitting next to it. Nothing wrong with that. Same with mistakes, we all make them, all can be learning experiences if your mind is open enough to realize that mistakes happen. I've not attempted a transistor radio, yet, but I may sometime. Thanks for your excellent presentation skills, far, far better than most. You are a teacher.

[@ChicagoMillingCo.]

Man that NPR mix that was playing at around the 30 minute mark was SICK!

[@hql400]

Very good work and Video ! Mistakes can be done and I appreciate that you share these with us, this might be happened to everybody and as you said in early vids... ... ... Anyway the "1" is a bit to near to the "="... The trimmer-C on the input-circuit must be peaked on the high end of the AM-Band with the variable capacitor nearly open (because of the "3-point-alignment", on medium wave-AM-band there is a fundamental problem with the parallel-run of input and oscillator-circuit...), you did it quite well in this video. The main-coil on the ferrite must be peaked on the low-Band (varicap ca. 90% near close) and the trimmer-C must be peaked on high band, this procedure needs to be repeated some times and always ends with the trimmer (!). This is clear, if you remember, that the coil-alignment- effect on the resonant frequ. is very high on both ends, but the capacity-change with the C-trimmer only effects significant on the high band with the varicap open. Add1: The motorboating-effect in the tuning happens, if you tune your input-circuit on the AM-IF (455...460 kHz) and this is a sign, that the resonant frequency of the first resonant circuit, for instance the inductance of the coil, is too high like in your case. I had this effect often in my self-build-radios, too, because I took parts that I just had in the moment without any measuring.

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

Great job. Great video. You've taught much in this video. Russian Germanium transistors and ferrite AM antennas. Thank-you!

[@bones007able]

I have a few of these Zenith's one is same as you show...and a few transocienics they still all play great

[@blitzroehre1807]

Ex DJ says: Good jam from 30:17 on is "A lovers holiday" by CHANGE. Absolute floor filler in 1981. Excellent resurrection BTW, Mr Shango.

[@jake2213b]

You brought back an very old memory. My Father had an radio like the black one.

[@fixxerautomotive4917]

Just want to let you know how much I am enjoying your videos. Electronics and TV repair is always been something that has really fascinated me. Just a suggestion; If you get the chance someday, it would be fun to see a vintage rear projection repair. Thanks again for all the great videos!

[@davepike6170]

The "music to grow plants by" sounds like department store music! 😃😀

[@danmackintosh6325]

I caught that 38:35, didn't skip back to make sure but I had a feeling the 1 wasn't there on the first measurement. Easily done though as the readout went something like *L=1 .47uH* rather than L= 1.47 for example. I noticed the resistance was different also and I feel maybe the core and the way it's wound has a sizeable bearing on how it all comes together & maybe a smaller core/more turns but more widely spaced or perhaps thinner wire might help even further since I think the DC resistance was about half that of the original, but 3 times the inductance. (IIRC the original bar was 3 ohms/0.46uH whereas the hand wound one ended up as 0.9 ohm/0.45uH) Definitely a cool video so far, make happy working and make happy learning too. Good stuff as always, appreciated.

[@poormanselectronicsbench2021]

Radios with sockets for transistor connections ROCK! And what really would be fun, would be to take the worst chassis out of the 2, and try to do a silicon transistor conversion. Might be a multiple part event, maybe trying the audio section first, but it would be a fun challenge. And the antenna creation was a good lesson as well, thanks fo sharing all of this fun stuff!

[@markmarkofkane8167]

Great! Found another video I missed.

[@TheUbuntuGuy]

The antenna is off by a full 1mH. The original measured 0.45mH, but you made a 1.45mH.

[@aerotro]

I wind lots of coils Shango066 super-glue is good at sticking the wires in place once you got them located right, or nail varnish, use elastic bands to grip wire if tape wont stick while glue or varnish sets.

[@jeffreyhickman3871]

Looks like a great kitchen space saver radio. Great internals. Your friend, Jeff.

[@tomj4506]

Great resurection ! Best yet. LFOD !

[@tedbell4416]

Great video as always Mr Shongus

[@sonjakavalut]

Shango for the president🙋‍♀️👍

[@majordisappointment8692]

Nice fix Shango seems like it work well with a homemade copy of an existing antenna swap the volume control and Bob's your uncle. Thanks

[@ronaldspencer547]

Nicely done. I like how you made your own coil using your inductance meter!!!

[@markwyman2912]

Got to love the early Zenith Royal radios. I have the 1000 model and it works as well as the Panasonic RF-2600 I use as well.

[@marksmith5324]

This was a great video love the sockets for the for the transistors and the Russian transistors

[@rogertyler3237]

That's What I Like About A Digital Tuner. They Don't Need Realinement.

[@borisborisov195]

Wasn't the original coil 0.45 but you winded new one to 1.45. Or I'm missing something? Oppps you corrected it later :)

[@michaelyancey3021]

We distracted him...

[@a587g]

The Royal 820 is a much underappreciated radio due to the cabinets that are almost always falling apart- collectors usually ignore them. Same quality and performance as the Royal 2000 and 3000 but smaller size! Interesting about the "love sounds", here we had 99.9 WEZN which played "easy listening" including instrumental versions of current pop songs; they switched to an adult contemporary format in the 90's. We also had CD 101.9 which played "smooth jazz"... They're gone now. Those formats were popular with older listeners in the 80's and 90's and many are no longer with us.

[@michaelyancey3021]

I noticed what looks like a name & address sticker on the bottom. I have a white 820 with an address sticker of the (probably deceased) owner - I guess it was a thing. That radio is in my bathroom and has worked well for years, even though I was quite the beginner at going through transistor radios. Also, I've read this was essentially the replacement for the Zenith 2000-1 Trans-Symphony. Even more portable, big sound. Besides the electrolytic rot & silver-mica disease, It's fairly fragile - the white (or black) covering is just vinyl on cardboard and it ages by peeling off, but Elmer's glue with hold it. Fantastic little radio.

[@craignehring]

shango066 for the win... nice work tutorial mister.. Don't you just love this channel? I sure do

[@vicmabus1532]

Wires look like they were soldered with a match. Ask me how I know what that looks like... Socketed transistors are FUN!

[@jdod64]

My favorite radio, and that nice cream finish

[@Seiskid]

I've seen a small precision polyester short and stop fm stereo decoding from working. I changed and checked literally everything else including the demodulation ic against my better judgment because was no way in my mind that little cap could be a problem. Learn something new every day.

[@MrHeem94]

Intense, educational video. Interesting!

[@stridermt2k]

I like it more than today, but not as tomorrow

[@PeopleAlreadyDidThis]

“Who caught that?” I did, but my “Wait!” didn’t resonate into the past. It was instructional, though, to find it worked that well at 3X the inductance. Always enjoy your videos.

[@IanDarley]

Same 👍

[@janosnagyj.9540]

Yeah I was shouting here at the computer "man you have 3x the necessary inductance there" but he did not listened to me :D

[@zulumax1]

I heard it, but I was thinking I must have misheard it. When it came to the end I knew "I" was not mishearing things. Love the fact Shango leaves the flubs in, makes the rest of us seem normal and human.

[@masoudmontazery907]

Good luck sir 🎉

[@bruceferrero8178]

Cool resurrection! My old Zenith tubes are mostly from Holland also.

[@teacfan1080]

That was interesting about the antenna. I always wondered about the number of turns of wire around the bar mattered or not. Well, I guess it does! Very interesting, AM really sensitive now.

[@-Jme-]

Hello from Argentina.- for when a video similar to this one but on a Galena radio, the explanation about the coil of the am antenna is very good.

[@dklucas1]

When I was growing up in Buffalo NY in the 70s and the 80s WJYE fm used to play elevator music now I think they went to adult contemporary music.

[@greengrayradio1394]

Nice! I caught the 1 mH too high inductance at once, and wondered why you didn't catch it untill later :)

[@spankyharland9845]

I learn more about fixing the radios I buy at thrift stores from watching these videos.

[@mimo5968]

Another great video, your efforts are greatly appreciated, thank you, we like your mining channel too! :)

[@Jose_Pointero]

Wait, what mining channel?

[@mimo5968]

@@Jose_Pointero Hi there is a link from the Shango066 channel or just search KZbin for a channel called ‘Mine Explorers’, highly recommend!

[@Jose_Pointero]

@@mimo5968 Oh cool I found it, thanks for the info!

[@radiotvphononut]

I recall a few stations in our area that played "elevator music"; but, they were gone by the early '90's, at the latest (the main demographic that listened to that type of music was, by that point, starting to leave us).

[@shc75]

GT346 transistors were widely used in TV VHF and UHF tuners. GT313 were used in FM module of receiver, for example "Ocean-209" in 70's-early 80's.

[@Rev22-21]

"Soft and easy....my music...love sounds." Zanax (or Xanax) for sure.

[@huwkelvinmorgan3575]

I remember building crystal sets back in the late 70's early 80's i was around 13 i had massive antenna's up in my attic and out the back garden next door used to have an AM radio on very early in the morning extremely loud right up against my bedroom wall so one morning i have had enough of the loud music and decided to pull the ferrite rode in and out of my crystal set that was under the bed at the time it totally killed the signal he then moved to another station and i retuned my ferrite rod and totally killed the loud station again, it was bliss and i had the power to turn down his radio i also built a VHF crystal set that did pick up some signals but was a bit crap at least i was ready if next door decided to use FM at 5AM for 2 hours.

[@SeanDamonGreene]

The "love sounds" station you were thinking of might have been KTWV 94.7 "The Wave".

[@KameraShy]

Radio wakes up after 40 years to find California has become a colony of Mexico.

[@mjg263]

A very successful resurrection, that is one sensitive radio. What else would you expect from a Zenith!

[@DeadKoby]

The "Winged C" Logo on your transistors is the same plant that used to make tubes. Once upon a time it was called Svetlana, but later they went by S.E.D, wtih the Wing C being their brand.

[@andymouse]

I saw that and thought " must be me ...never mind " glad you spotted it, gotta watch my numbers, great tutorial I always take loads of stuff away....cheers.

[@zx8401ztv]

Yep i was shouting at the screen ' 0.45mH you pillock!! '

[@connorm955]

According to wikipedia, KJOI (1970-1990) "played beautiful music for nearly two decades"

[@Steveuk405]

We all make mistakes old boy! I have done similar. At the moment I am working on a Polish set - ZRK Unitra. Interesting set in a few ways.... Here in Bighty we used to have the BBC Test Card and they used to play similar music and there is quite a following for it. The Media Giants and Radio Stations are missing a trick by not having a station playing that stuff..... Would get listeners and adverts would follow.....

[@philipbarry9209]

Wonder if shango066 remembers the defunct 105.5 KNAC from 1986-1995?

[@LakeNipissing]

15:33 . . . When you connected the power, it didn't turn on the radio, but it turned on the mourning dove.

[@danmackintosh6325]

Ooh that soldering, it looks like they used a stick of plumbing solder and a cigarette lighter... I wholeheartedly approve. (Because it was likely some kid or newbie who just found some junk and tried to get it working, and that's always cool IMO)

[@TheDigitalAura]

I just got a Sony ICF-2001 from a dumpster. It's dead but should make a fun project.

[@R.AudioElectronics]

I saw what it said but assumed not knowing your meter that you were reading it correctly…nothing I could have done about it. Hey you got it though..good job, good video

[@reo52]

40:39 Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol Op 34

[@fanofoldfans9238]

I love it. Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday. Forget where I first read that? Nice job on the antenna windings. Who was Micro Henry?

[@danielmusat597]

I caught that! Cheers!

[@MrBillmcminn]

31:45 I sure do remember Radio Shack, I still have half a spool of Radio Shack solder

[@Seiskid]

Word of the day introduced at 6:51

[@waynio67]

RadioShack was Tandy here in the U.K.

[@Elfnetdesigns]

Just think, Those boxes of transistors could have been sitting on a shelf in a cold war era bunker next to a case of vodka.

[@batterymakermarkii2654]

In the days when chassis were metal, hardwired and socketed transistors...

[@sreejaict8626]

super

[@Barbarra63297]

I was born in 54' and I remember seeing a lot of Zenith radios like this, must have been a good one or cheap?

[@5roundsrapid263]

Zenith was almost always very good quality, well up until the ‘80s.

[@michaelrobertson575]

This is not directly related to this Video but I wish to ask this question- Have you considered trying to make an A.M. Radio with all components salvaged from recent Electronic Scrap or E-Waste as people like to call it now? I have tried and had a bit of success setting up an adjustable parallel Tuned Circuit which roughly covers the M.W. Band (Ferrite Slug Tuned) with one junction connected to True Earth and the other to a Long Wire Aerial. Now Germanium Diodes haven't been used in Consumer Electronics for decades but it is possible to bias a small silicon one to function as an A.M. demodulator and so that's what I did with the cathode connected to the hot junction of the Tuned Circuit,the anode connected to the positive of a AA Cell through a 470Kilohm Resistor and the Cell's negative to the earthy junction of the Tuned Circuit. To hear the Output I used an improvised Crystal Earpiece made by sticky taping the Piezo Disc salvaged from a defunct Smoke Alarm over a hole cut into the base of a disposable plastic cup which I connected between the Diode's anode and the earthy junction of the Tuned Circuit. I could hear BBC Radio 5 Live loudly and clearly enough to make out the words but that was all I could receive. It does give a taste of possibility though doesn't it?

[@shango066]

I built a lot of stuff when I was a kid. Time is too tight these days and people want stuff fixed

[@mycomment474]

It's tomorrow which was yesterday. And, this week was last week.

[@pepegarcia2521]

good

[@eddiejones.redvees]

Things always sounded better in the 60s I can remember getting my first transition radio back then I was always curious how things worked and a tuck a screw driver to the interesting things inside and after fiddling with it stopped working since then I have stopped a lot of things from working saying all this I got pretty good has a now retired telephone engineer at getting peoples phones working again

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

16:55 Seeburg music no doubt.

[@janosnagyj.9540]

Subscriber @ Techmoan? :)

[@johnnytacokleinschmidt515]

@@janosnagyj.9540 Hmm... DRH4683, K-Mart Christmas, and I think there's a Seeburg channel too. I have seen techmoan. I downloaded a Seeburg track list on my last phone and the song at timestamp I noted was on that list. I like most of those tracks. One presentation on KZbin explained that there was this "Progressive" programming that Seeburg claimed would help people at work to stay relaxed and also pep up at times of day that people supposedly get sleepy. All very Interesting. When I was a kid I abhorred the easy listening FM stations. We h a d 2 at ones point.

[@Withered123]

I do believe the Royal 820 is an older version of the Royal 76 I have. That being said I am fairly certain both use 6 C cells ,and you could probably interchange parts between the two.

[@fisqual]

Love the AISIN box in the background. What's that for, a timing belt kit?