Hands up, who had a transistor radio you carried around for entertainment? Well, my old man was no exception. He bought this 1959 model Standard SR-H105L (say that three times fast!) shortly before being shipped out to Aden with the Royal Air Force in '61. It replaced another set (National Panasonic) that he bought the year prior, which didn't have shortwave. As most of The radio broadcast in and around Africa at the time was SW, it made sense to leave the MW set behind and take this one. Well, it did lengthy service until the late seventies, by which time it was so worn out it was barely audible, so it was boxed up. He brought it with him last time he came to visit and left it here with my promise to fix it for him. It wasn't too bad. Grimy. The transistors had a problem seen in vintage equipment that's been left to sit for a while- tin whiskers. Everything else inside was otherwise original. I managed to get a very very faint station out of it by tweaking the alignment (which still had the original wax holding the tuning slugs in place). I knocked some of the dents out and gave it a good clean. I ordered a bunch of bits for it. About half of the old resistors had absorbed moisture and "gone high", that is their resistance was higher than it should have been. While this doesn't often make a massive impact on a transistor set, it does make it more quiet than it would otherwise be and they only get worse as time goes by. So, I replaced them all with new high stability metal film ones (turquoise) and all new electrolytic capacitors (blue). The e-caps were the main reason the set had lost its' voice. Replacing those saw it come to life again. Sat it in the kitchen and dialed through the SW band. Not bad. Should last another 20 years or so. It's nice getting these things to work again, particularly when they have sentimental value. Phil
Phil, I could only afford a 2 transistor radio in 1959, a 6 transistor radio was like having a Cadillac versus a Pinto. Noticed that your dad's unit had 8 transistors, which was definitely "upper crust" in the radio world. Very cool to have it working again, and with it's heritage. Bob
Bob, Absolutely. Funny thing is, the other radio (he still has it!) being very low hours in comparison still works very well. This one he chose because it has a good double-IF stage and excellent SW sensitivity, selectivity and rejection. I recall him saying it cost a couple months' wages at the time... Phil
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