Today I bought a radio for 47p. Not some modern disposable piece of crap, oh no. No, whilst I was pottering home after a bonus make up early shift and having been good and stopped off at the bank to sort out the mailing address problem*, I finally visited a furniture recycling place with the intention of seeing if they had a stool for Kathryn’s office, or anything else interesting.
I pass it each day on my way to/from work, but it’s always out of hours for them, and despite vague intentions to visit every day I’ve been off, I’ve never made it in. Well, I made it in there today and my what a random catalogue of stuff they have. Despite being called Sofa Project, they actually collect general household (and office) goods, and resell them. They’ve several nice shops (which have had things upto-and-including an exceedingly nice fridge-and-cooker that I’ve seen), but this is their warehouse. Or, as I’ve come to think of it after today, random-crap-store.
The warehouse was rammed full of ratty office furniture, billions of matching cheap mid-80s bookcases, etc. The odd bit of utility furniture was snuck in (including our tallboy that Kathryn has in her office), and the odd chair that I debated as replacements for our rather bendy bentwoods. However, whilst I padded around the place pondering the fact that I really should have headed straight home to work on the deck** I came across a veritable array of early 80’s tech. Early cable boxes, tape players, and OHP projects. Oh my life, OHP projectors…it just makes you want to reach for the acetates, and the piece of paper to uncover each handwritten point one thing at a time.
Heh.
And then, there it was. In a box of stuff and covered in rather a lot of filth, there was a staggeringly shitty 1960s Ferguson SuperHet Rangefinder radio. Now I’ve been wanting to sort out some sort of iPod amplifier for the purpose of listening to music or the radio wherever I’m working. And I’d pondered attacking one of the other radios around the place. The Dansette, for example, except my dad long ago killed that. Or one of my dad’s little portables, but I’m always rather, well… attached to them.
And so I picked up the ratty piece of crap and said to the bloke ‘Look, I’m just asking so as I know, I don’t really have any cash on me, but how much do you want for this’. And he looked at me, then at the filthy battered thing and said ‘err, you can have it for a donation’. I, having checked the contents of my bag, indicated that I had a grand total of 47p (and two dimes). He pondered for a second and then announced that it was enough. And so I stuffed said ratty old object in my bag in exchange for 47p and headed home.
Now granted, it looks like shit.
And it’s missing a piece of metal/plastic that I’m never likely to bother to replace.
…And it uses a type of battery you can’t buy anymore.
(And that one is providing all of 2.2 volts, instead of the 9 that it should give. Although since I don’t recall when Ever Ready stopped using that logo, and it’s got no date on it, I’m quite impressed it’s producing anything at all. I’m pondering whether to ‘restuff’ it)
Anyhow, having stripped it down you could really see how filthy it was:
Also I found that whoever had owned it before had done something to it – it was missing the positive battery lead and the negative lead appears to be made from a wire wrapped loosely around a resistor. Odd. Still. But rootling around in the parts bin I found a 9v power supply and ‘a bit of wire’. And lo, a test was a possibility***. Having worked out which wire was the positive terminal I applied power…and on came the radio.
You have got to love old tech. After a bit of fiddling with the tuning we had music. Not ‘high quality sound’ or anything, but music none-the-less. The volume control, however, only seemed to work on max or crackle. So off that came, and out came the contact cleaner:
And now that switch seems to more or less be okay, I’ve also cleaned up the utterly filthy power knob. Also, whilst it was in bits I took the opportunity to take a toothbrush and some ecover dish detergent to the radio’s casing, which is now looking more respectable. Indeed, it’s looking like something I’ll happily reassemble.
Tomorrow I shall have to nip out and grab a stereo socket, and a connector suitable for the 9v supply that I’ve got. Also, probably, a 9v battery connector for a PP3 battery. I’m thinking a modern alkaline battery should do the job….
Still, I’m quite pleased. I know you can pick up radios free; hell, people give away mp3 players like nothing else, but even a simple fix and then making this work is pleasing in a way that none of them ever will be :)
And of course, you can’t tune in to Saar Louis on a modern radio.
* And stopped at Full Court Press for more of their insanely good coffee (Aeropressed today) and cake and their dangerously delicious cold brew coffee.
** I did do a couple of hours’ work on the deck today
*** I really must, at some point, buy a bench supply. Really must. This is ‘silly’, this routing around and then wrapping bits of wire around plugs m’larkey.
