Yesterdays' Waves

08/31/2026

08/31/2026

Philco 41-220. This has been in my stock for two decades. The `patina` was kind of off...
There were lots of issues as is the case for so many of these neglected and forgotten gems. So the usual repairs were needed plus a brand new façade, stripping of the paint and new finish, speaker repair, electronic overhaul, fabricate a new lens, change grill cloth and some more details. So here`s some photos of the process.

04/13/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CftjUVppk/?mibextid=wwXIfr

03/31/2026

Made these a few years ago. I bought an empty cabinet which has 1 1/2 inch panels made by an electrical engineer. It’s been partially redone with a new baffle to accommodate the Goldwood horn with Altec drivers, Altec crossover and 250 watts BLG 15 inch woofers.
They sound great.

03/06/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1NqWd4GbrT/

02/26/2026

This Heathkit integrated amplifier AA-21D was destined for the scrapheap. After all it's vintage of old germanium transistors with little style and little value. Missing k***s, dirty, broken cover that eventually revealed as not original and wrong size.... there was no appeal to invest any time in it. However...
The value of things change when you put your mind and heart at it. And the more I worked with it, the more I fell in love with it.
I was surprised to find it's rated at 40 watts per channel, powered by four TO-3 Germanium power transistors on each side despite being made around 1964, so it's more than 60 years old!
Before scrapping it, I plugged it in just to witness smoke or any sign of life. It tripped my breaker indicating a bad short-circuit. It had been stored for years outside in a Tempo, temporary canvas shelter. Our winters can reach -40 Celcius. I was to send the electronics to the recycling center and I got triggered by the challenge of diagnosing what was the issue (s). A short-circuit is usually pretty easy to find. Indeed, as I opened the bottom cover, an electrolytic cap was blown. That indicated to me like blown power supply diodes. I was right. So protections should have lifted too. Interestingly, this design has a glass enclosed breaker, but leads had broken off, probably from corrosion or excessive current. I was able to solder them back and happy to see they still conducted. Then I suspected the output transistors as they're usually involved in dead shorts. It was the case, four of them, but on only one channel! I was happy and surprised the other channel had survived.
Those transistors are not available anymore but a direct replacement is NTE121. I was totally amazed to find four new ones in my stash of parts! I changed the diodes for newer better ones, that blown cap and the four transistors. More measurements on the output stage resistors revealed one defective and inflated resistor. I couldn't see that on visual inspection until I removed it. Everything else looked good.
Upon initial tests, I was surprised first, that it worked, and second, that it sounds pretty good!
Cosmetically, the cover was in the worst shape. I tried to save it but when I realized it wasn't original and not even the proper size I decided to make one. But I used some scrap pieces of plywood and cover it to make look ok. I tried Mac-Tac but it's not sticking properly, so I'll make something better eventually. A vent for the heat must also be made. I stole the k***s from another project plus that yellow brown one from a tuner that smoked too much ci******es. Pilot lamps were shot and the plastic bezel didn't hold properly because of broken tabs. When all was taken care of, it looked pretty good!
I'm happy with my decision. That makes for a nice little vintage amp back to life!

02/26/2026

Sometimes I get to fix a battery radio. This Sparton Hiker was a good candidate. Fairly easy to fix, it needed a good cleanup and the usual fix me up parts replacement. I added a small 90/1.5 volts power supply in the battery compartment so it’s a plug-in the wall now. One k**b was missing and put what I had instead, but rubs against the case. Still enjoyable!

02/25/2026

This nice little oval racetrack style radio was in bad shape with many cracks. The case is thinner than usual and many layers on five minutes epoxy and sanding were necessary to fix it.
I wanted to keep it’s original colour scheme so I painted only the outside case without the faceplate.
Getting it back to work was fairly easy, just changing about half a dozen capacitors and only one resistor. An alignment and voilà another nice AA5 working again.

02/20/2026

Very interesting story:

In 1958, Philco Corporation unveiled the Predicta, a revolutionary television with a swivel screen that looked like it came from the future. RCA's president ...