bought this Arvin 68R05 at a flea once apon a time for five bucks not working. in the box. used. good five dollar radio. looks good. all there. thought that I could get it working. never worked on a transistor radio before. plenty of tube stuff. got a new 9v battery. I can hear a faint station. audio works. good. couldnt find a print so I did some reading in this forum and watching a few YouTube. replace the capacitors I see. mostly 10uF 10v and one 50uF in this pocket radio. found some suitable substitutes in my collection 33uF 16V and 47uF 25v. replacing one at a time. I am seeing improving volume with each one til lastly huge volume. its fixed. amazing. pulled one of the speaker leads off putting it back together. will have to figure where it goes touching backside solder spots without a print. somewhere off of the output transformer Im sure. played really well otherwise. thanks forum and YouTube

Glad to hear that you got it working. The speaker leads go to ground, and one side of the output transformer. That trace won't have anything else going to it normally.

The good thing about nine volt battery radios is that you can probe the speaker (or any other) wire around the circuit without hurting yourself, or any of the set's components.

thanks. where I have the lead connected now its breaking into oscillation at high volume control setting. I will look for ground next time Im poking around with the meter. I am looking up 6 transistor circuits and see that common could be neg or pos

the noisy distortion output turned out to be the headphone contact switch and crappy speaker wire. when I improved both the radio is now working noise free loud clear and selective. I almost feel like I know what I am doing. first transistor radio fixit. soldering not as bad as I thought it would be. flows onto these tiny contacts with ease if careful enough

Congratulations TubeAMP !

Yes, those earphone jack switch contacts can cause grief---know from experience...
Also have seen that wire corrode internally and create troubles...

Sounds like you're ready to jump into the "world" of transistor sets now with both feet !

John

this model is as plane jane as you can get. the dial leaves much to be desired. looks like there should be something in the view space like a magnifier or something. although it performs well enough even without an RF amplifier stage. I am ready to move on to more stylish examples like Zenith or Channel Master. something that needs repair

found an image