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My son was looking for a vintage boom box. I had a Fisher Ph-W405 as a kid (35 years ago!) so naturally I steered him in that direction.
About 6 months ago he managed to find one and bought it. Once we opened the shipping box, it was exactly as described. It was clean, very few scratches, both tape decks worked, as did the radio. It sounded very good.
All was good, until he bought a RCA Bluetooth adapter. Only one channel of the RCA inputs work. We took the radio apart hoping to find a bad solder joint, loose socket, defective circuit trace, nothing obvious.
Im not really interested or comfortable in attempting a repair. At this point, I’d like to find someone who is familiar with older audio equipment for repair.
Anyone in readerland know of a repair shop that could repair this? Thanks!
Contact Bill Waller at Clairmont Skyland Radio & TV. Tell him what you got and he will agree to take it in or not. In business since 1959. He receives repairs from all over the country. He has a storefront with normal business hours. Grumpy, but honest!
Matt, any service shop for stereo gear would also likely take in this repair. I know there are places all over the country, and there are vintage audio forums (audiokarma.com comes to mind) that might be able to steer you to someone local.
The selector or source switch is probably your culprit. If you can get some deoxit into those (and all) switches (and *****) you might find there’s no need for repair. The fact you’re getting 2 channel sound from other sources is great news, so shoot some caig deoxit onto all pots (potentiometers) and switches first and you may find you’re back in business without shipping off for repair.
Good luck and let’s see the unit, recently I picked up a mini JVC boombox circa 84 / 85, and although it’s mostly a display piece, it’s full of great memories. As typical of these units, the tuner and aux inputs work, but tape deck belts are fried.
Last edited by vCode442; Jun 13, 2023 at 07:24 AM.
The selector or source switch is probably your culprit. If you can get some deoxit into those (and all) switches (and *****) you might find there’s no need for repair. The fact you’re getting 2 channel sound from other sources is great news, so shoot some caig deoxit onto all pots (potentiometers) and switches first and you may find your back in business without shipping off for repair.
This is always good advise for older electronics. After you hit all the switches and pots with the normal DeOxit, and work the controls back and forth a bunch, use a little DeOxit F5 Fader to further clean -and lubricate- all the old controls. You can fix bad connections, scratchy volume *****, etc. Otherwise, yes - check for bad solder joints, failed electrolytic capacitors (other capacitor types are usually fine - unless you have old tube gear with paper-in-oil. those are almost certainly bad, or AC decoupling "RIFA" caps). In any case, good luck. Yes, I also run an electronics lab for repairing, upgrading, and creating computers and electronics going back to.. well, the beginning of electronics.
Q'pla!
-Scott
Last edited by scottjtoland; Jun 13, 2023 at 05:59 AM.
Reason: fix bad grammar and redundancy
This is always good advise for older electronics. After you hit all the switches and pots with the normal DeOxit, and work the controls back and forth a bunch, use a little DeOxit F5 Fader to further clean -and lubricate- all the old controls. You can fix bad connections, scratchy volume *****, etc. Otherwise, yes - check for bad solder joints, failed electrolytic capacitors (other capacitor types are usually fine - unless you have old tube gear with paper-in-oil. those are almost certainly bad, or AC decoupling "RIFA" caps). In any case, good luck. Yes, I also run an electronics lab for repairing, upgrading, and creating computers and electronics going back to.. well, the beginning of electronics.
