Hello People. By day I repair the equipment in the average modern lounge-room. By night I like to play with the radios and TV's found in the average lounge-room 30 to 50 years ago, when it ends up in my little workshop. At work each week at least one valve radio or radio-gram is booked in, and management do the right thing by issuing them to me. It is difficult though as I have to treat them as any other repair and get them going quickly at a charge sufficient to keep us in business. But after hours, I love to fiddle around with my latest treasure, learning how it works, cleaning the cabinet and chassis, finding and replacing any faulty components and any adjustments. I usually keep them original but there is one 1958 Golden Voice which I have modified extensively, and I think it performs better but the original designers knew far more about their work than I do at the moment. Sometimes I play with designs I find on the internet. And now I have met an interesting bunch of like-minded individuals bent on keeping these old beauties alive. Very nice!

Welcome to the forum.

At work each week at least one valve radio or radio-gram is booked in

That's quite a rate. More than I would have expected for 2016. Is that a steady rate, or would you say the rate has increased over recent years?

It has certainly increased over the last few years, I think the retro-fad interest in vinyl plays a big part, also that we are one of the few repairers left in Adelaide, and our manager wont turn anything away, even if it isnt likely to be productive, as it might result in more profitable work coming through later.

Thanks, nice to know. Brad the Admin might agree to adding your shop to the list of service suppliers.

Hi, do you do transformer repairs. I have an AWA PA827 PA amplifier and the paper covering on the outside of the transformer has gone brittle and come adrift. The transformer itself works.
Am in Adelaide

Regards Joshua

The local motor rewinder will have the covering you need, mine gave me enough to do a transformer with the same problem as yours.

The local motor rewinder

They are becoming scarcer by the year, too.

Altronics sells a few gauges of enamel copper wire on 25m spools. Jaycar has a larger range of gauges but they are only on 9m spools - okay for smaller coils but probably not for power transformers.