SC have printed my Vogue project as the Vintage Radio article in the November issue.

They have done an EXCELLENT job in shortening my many pages of dribble into an 8 page coherent story.
The editing by staff is first class.and they have selected enough photos to tell the story well.

Well done SC.

Fred.

I was thinking, what Vogue (or Vouge) project?

A search brought up this thread: https://vintage-radio.com.au/default.asp?f=2&th=586 , which I assume is the one in question.

Congrats on getting it published.

Yep that's the one.
I thought it may have been a bit out of the normal range of activity for Vintage radio.
Usually they will have a well known model of set and restoration of that.
This is well and truly making something up on the fly and may trouble Classic radio guys.
Heavens knows what they would think of my "Empire State" AWA lookalike receiver also posted in special projects!
Anyway it is a "well done" by SC.
Fred.


I just realised I started the thread in the "tech talk" forum, locate by searching for "vogue" or look back to 24 November 2015. I thought it was also one of the "tutorials" but its not there when I looked.

Fred , I saw your project in Silicon chip while I was at Ian's house, fantastic ! Looks great.

Pete.

That is a good article: I do believe that there have been a few changes due to the decreasing numbers willing to submit restorations. The other point there is that, some articles have contained some very badly worded explanations. Whilst everyone has their own opinion, some of us see things from a different angle and consider accuracy of paramount importance.

I very rarely do restoration work and having had an article in SC which was a straight out repair (Roberts). Putting in strait out repairs of vintage equipment can be very informative, perhaps more so, for those looking to take on such projects. Especially in the area of high voltages. Which some like to Nanny on about. Accidents tend to mainly happen to the ill informed: So provide the information.

In the case of the Roberts, the customer wanted it pretty much as it was, but working. So the repairs were confined to making it work & re- gluing the leatherette (or whatever it was) to stop it suffering damage.

One of the contentious issues revolves around paper capacitors. As a fixer I do not consider wax paper caps and many oil filled ones, viable and I cannot take any commercial risk with them. I have an of the era Resistance & capacitance testers. The manual of one tells me that 10mA is the maximum a filter electrolytic should leak: Modern ones will not get any where near that. An old unused one is more likely to present as a short circuit as its lost its form (polarity). The same manual says Screen Non polarised bypass caps Below 50Meg are unserviceable & for coupling below 200Meg is also unserviceable and that would be at its working volts.

Leaking NP caps can impinge seriously on bias & the life of a valve, which in turn affects performance. Therefore if its Wax Paper I toss them as new ones don't leak no fail at the same rate. I have scant regard for those who dare write that a Wax Paper cap is good, without proffering any test result. Rarely in hundreds do you find Wax paper & many oil filled types that get past 100K when tested at their rated or working volts.

Not often do we see, "Bare chassis" restorations, so that in itself makes it interesting.

Guys we had a discussion here about what people would be really interested reading in SC for a "vintage radio" article.
I know what really interested me was the article about a year ago by Dr Hugo Holden about a HMV 1939 TV set.
Now that was really interesting with a high degree of difficulty and endless problems to solve.

When SC put up yet another "AWASTC model 12345" where the capacitors are changed and the cabinet polished, well , my eyes glaze over. Other people of the next gen are just not interested at all.
What my people think is, an article is interesting when the tech actually does something different, or, where something is created.
There has to be some degree of difficulty and then some problem solving other wise there is no story.

That is the 2nd part of the thing, there has to be a story.
The Radio and Hobbies Serviceman series got away with endlessly replacing output valves, electrolytics and endless boring stuff because he told a story (put the problem, work out what is wrong, show how it was fixed) . As does the present guy (Dave Thompson), I love reading about him and his travails.

So, in this modern day should SC print yet another dead boring article about the same old Classic / Historic only radios having their filters changed, or, should they print articles about 9/10 degree of difficulty projects like Dr Holden his TV set or (blush) my Vogue where we have actually done something?

Marc mentioned a bare chassis resto, would my Kriesler (in special projects) bare chassis resto be something you would like to see in SC?
Or my "Musicolour" valve AM/FM/CRO creation, (a real learning project for me ), or my 3" TV, all with high degrees of difficulty?

If you liked my Vogue article (as edited and written by SC I must add) TELL THEM (just email the ed) otherwise they will never know.

Fred.

Fred,

I have had a bit of a discussion with SC on the subject of what gets into The Vintage Radio section. There is as I noted a shortage of willing writers, familiar with the technology, or still have access to a library of info of the period.

I have, in between other jobs, evicted, or I am about to, 3 radios that are just repaired in a few months An STC is stalled with open coils (Details sent to "Radio Waves"). So as I noted just what was done to get the Philco nightmare up and running, like the Roberts; has the potential to be educational, when written up & presented. There is currently a big 1951 Philips on the bench. Albeit Tuesday it was sharing it with an electric motor.

This in the face of fact. say 15 years ago in this town there were around six people actively sorting valve stuff. As far as I know one has semi retired & he occasional gets parts off of me. Other than me the rest are either in homes for the terminally bewildered. Two went blind, or just stopped radio repairs & one died. The Radio Club has lost One member & his wife and three others to the grim reaper since April.

Marc