Radio working perfectly again
I have a Russian Vega VEF-206, bought a few years online for the nostalgia of once again owning the first shortwave set I ever bought as a boy in 1983/4 from a local electronics shop in my hometown of Callington. Reception and audio quality is superb. And so when it recently developed intermittent very low audio and signal levels which could be remedied by a gentle slap on her head (!) I eventually discovered this solder joint that had come away from the PCB. I have just resoldered it and she is working as good as new again.
I thought at first it was a component failure, but after posting a question on the UK Vintage Radio Repair forum and needing to more carefully clarify the symptoms, I discovered the intermittent nature of the fault. So as well as a small degree of technical skill and patience which I learnt in abundance over the few years it took me to eventually get my vintage Swinburne CR600 airband scanner working, this weekend I have also discovered that carefully clarifying the symptoms is also key.
But more than any of these things, I have learnt that without the help and kindness of other people us beginner repairers would be lost. Not sure it would have been possible in the pre-internet days to ask for and receive help and guidance from technical experts and other hobbyists and enthusiasts from around the world. So if I'm ever tempted to think ill of the internet and complain about the time it wastes and how we'd be happier without it, I shall remember this!
I actually sent my airband scanner from Swinburne Electronics, a 6-channel, crystal-controlled scanner from the 1980s, off to several "professional" repairers advertising their services online. At huge expense. One even charged me £50 just to tell me it was completely broken and no longer repairable due to the age of parts! Can you believe it. You pay to send it off, you pay to have them look at it, you pay to have the *hopeless radio" returned. And then....... with the kindness and patience of other people who offer their services for nothing, you work on it together over the months until it is fixed and working just as it did when your parents first bought it for you, some 40 years previously. Some of these "repair" people ought to be ashamed of themselves. But of course, none of it is regulated.
No wonder so many of our belongings end up in landfill and few people get anything repaired.
I'll post a video of my own VEF-206 radio receiving a shortwave station in the next few days.
