Tube radio repair ?
 

Hi, I have a tube type signal seeking radio from the early 50’s

Can anyone advise of repair facilities in the Baltimore metro area ??

Tks.

Ask around some tv repair shops as they still carry tubes if that is whats needed , as transisters never came out until the 50's and only took the place of a tube that was used as a trans. just look in the yellow pages.---BOB

www.turnswitch.com would be a good place to reach out to. Excellent quality, excellent service.

Tim john---

A "TV repair shop" in 2020?:huh:

Might have better luck at a vintage guitar amp repair shop. They still deal in a ton of tubes and lots of 50-60s vintage electronics. Probably can't help much with the actual receive circuits but they could spot bad components like tubes, caps etc.

I found a listing for this place in Baltimore: https://www.just-audio.com/vintage-audio-repair/ They advertise as a vintage stereo repair shop so they may or may not touch a car radio, but it's worth a phone call.

If you are willing to ship the radio to Minnesota, Tim John's suggestion of turnswitch.com is good.

Tubes are usually not the problem but can be easily bought from

https://www.tubesandmore.com/

The first thing that needs to be addressed is the mechanical points vibrator. This is usually always bad. The original unit can be service by carefully opening the can and burnishing the contact points. or they make solid state ones now as well. Next would be replacement of the Vibrator ballast capacitor. Once these are done you may have a good chance it will work. All the capacitors should be replaced or it's just a matter of time for them to fail one by one.

Keep in mind that it takes time for a tube type radio to warm up. That means all the tubes must come up to operating temperature before the radio begins to operate property. That could be as long as 5 minutes in cold weather. Dont ever power up a radio with out hooking up speakers or some sort of load to it. That goes for transistor type radios of the 60s and 70s as well.

Great referral. They have everything, even solder and solder iron parts, unreal. Thanks.