Don't think the pot holes damage is exclusive to Russian. The crap roads around me will destroy anything.

Front end of ute has been re-built four times; A Magna was done twice; Agricultural motor cycle rear suspension damage. Friends Mazda (Ford) both front rims cracked. My Mazda front re-built twice & the whole suspension needs re- doing, or it scrapping for other undesirable failings.

Then there are the tyres. Mates A4 had a tyre "side walled" from the inappropriate gravel on the road $400. I have lost count. Trepidation is Driving a tractor down the road: I had a horrid feeling a few weeks ago when there was a funny "crunch" noise & I was concerned that I ran over a Mini, hiding in one of the pot holes. Just to make it homely the local stock sale yards carpark is riddled with pot holes..

Russian binoculars are "Helios" as far as I can translate: Somewhere in the system I do have the original instruction book. 7 X 50: CCCPCame with two sets of filters one lot Snow.

Interesting is the local Pawnbroker / Vacuum cleaner & Batteries also, had several brands of Binocular's. A woman came along checked them all out & took home the Russian ones.

Can send a photo of them.

Marc

Photos uploaded to Post 6.

Checked the "Optics" File; Binoculars book is indeed accounted for. Bought Sept 1983.

Unbelievable: Repaired set (Yeh!), two new NP caps, filter electrolytic caps replaced: The other 3 duds (one short one open: one more to check) rubber wire carrying mains shattering plus dial light wire. One dud NP not connected, five dry joints so far. Mains panel, no cover. Insulation tape over a damaged bare spot on figure eight mains cable.

Other issues. If this went with him into the "Home for the Terminally Bewildered"; no way would it be allowed to be plugged in & No way am I going to tag it as safe, as it is. Can't see how it ran?

I think particularly for RF circuits replacing germanians with silicon transistors is not they way to go.
It works sometimes but have different characteristics so affect tuning, bandspread,gain, stability, etc, plus I like to keep things as close to original as possible.
Depends on the situation.
It’s a bit like putting radial tyres on a vintage car designed for cross ply.
Lots more factors come into it than it’s more modern and works.
JJ

Early transistors had much more characteristic spread than we are used to today. If you wanted to design a radio that would go into production you needed to take this into account and design the transistor's beta (current gain) out, that is, so your circuit is not affected by characteristic shifts. It's still good design practice today.

Modern silicon transistors as I have said are much closer to "perfect" and so will always work in a properly designed circuit. They will give performance much closer to the original design centre values. They are far less likely to adversely affect tuning etc. than a replacement germanium device will. They don't drift or stop working if the radio is left in the sun on a hot day. They have lower noise too.

If I was restoring a classic car and I wanted to drive it on the road, I would certainly fit radials for safety. You can adjust the wheel alignment to take advantage of the modern tyres. That's not the case or needed if using silicon transistors.

What are some of the factors that "come into it"? Other than nostalgia? Your replacement germanium is going to look different to the device it replaces anyway...

On cars: The MKII Zephyr has a McPherson strut suspension. That suspension and cross ply tyres are a marriage made in Hell.

Radials last a lot longer; you can actually steer it. Currently its running "Light Truck" Radials: Quietest & best handling tyres its ever had. Only other major mod was to rid it of head lights by "The Price of Darkness" & use "sealed beam" headlights so as you could see where you were going at night: Handy when your rural.

And yes! One does have to bring the "Toe in" back to next to nothing, due to the superior grip, for one.

I just searched around on eBay for the helios binoculars and apparently sell for about $110 so that doesn't sound too bad.
i do agree with johnny with the germanium transistors.

See if you can buy a old pair from before the wall came down second hand.
Nov 1989.
Mine are great , but my brother bought a much newer set and it was his second set.He told me the newer set was not as good.
Mine came with filters too.
The disposals shops use to sell them in Sydney so you might want to check the disposals in Melbourne, not many left in Sydney anymore, big one in Albury I might pop in and see what they have ,also hunting shops had them .
Pete

The most common failing germaniums are the AF shielded series, BC557’s obviously not shielded.
Due to there inbuilt reverse resistance (germaniums, not by intentional design) lots of tuned circuits would have a lower “Q” factor,
So replaced with silicon type, would increase this factor and could cause oscillations or feedback etc.
I don’t want to raise a debate here, and lightly mentioned car tyres as an example.
I certainly will not be replacing tube rectifiers with silicon diodes if that’s the way thinking is going.
As long as we are all enthused with our interest in electronics, just keep it safe.
BTW radials on the old Vanguard which had 26 grease points in just the front suspension, improved the steering.(was very heavy).
But the geometry was complicated and no literature as to settings for soft wall tyres.
JJ

Army disposals stores went the same way as the old Scout shops and antique dealers unfortunately.

The last of the shops calling themselves disposals stores were just camping shops with a few busted up ammo cases in the front window for display purposes.

It would be nice if disposal stores were still around. When my dad worked at telecom in the early 80’s he went to one regularly and got quite a few things. Most notably a logic board from a LEO II computer using DTL logic. My dad went to RMIT the last year they taught Valves and grew up when they were getting thrown out by the dozen so he has quite a few NOS valves like U.S military spec 807’s etc.
I firmly agree with Johnny that it’s best to keep old technology original and not turn it into some weird hybrid.
Anyway that’s some more about me

A fairly newer portable from the USSR. Its AM and FM bands are nearly a complete mismatch from America's broadcast bands, except you used to be able to tune in sound carriers on analogue TV stations. No more analogue TV stations anymore!

As for potholes, I worked with a guy from Moscow, and he said that he thought the roads of New York City were in excellent condition, compared to Moscow's. Americans would give New York City roads a "D".

No more analogue TV stations anymore!

... except for this one, but not for too much longer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZNO-LP

In Australia, it was possible to listen to NBN-3 and ABHN-5 Newcastle and WIN-4 and ABWN-5A Wollongong on FM radio as Australian VHF channels 3 to 5A fell inside the standard 88-108MHz FM band.

These were the stations immediately north and south if Sydney.

Gee 63-77MHz!? I guess I shouldn't be surprised as it meant the soviet government didn't have to block out near by countries fm transmitters. Brad wasn't that the reason why it took so much longer for Australia to get FM radio because of the need to shift the TV transmitters out of the band?