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Notes from the Service Shop A fictional series by John Reinicke Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 Chapter 3 Man it is HOT!, I was thinking to myself as I drove toward Centerburg. This had to be the hottest weekend yet and the heat must have helped those orange cone plants that spring up in the middle of intestates this time of year. The single lane was backed up and the heat was shimmering off the cars and trucks. If only I could move, the open windows would help. I took the next exit and decided to try to go cross country. The country drive was worth while. The corn was more than "knee high" and the soybeans were lush. The air movement rendered the truck almost bearable in the heat. Centerburg is in Amish country so I was keeping my eyes open for the horse drawn buggies. As I passed them, I was glad my conventions would permit the shorts and tee shirt I was wearing rather than the long pants and long sleeve shirt the driver of the surrey was wearing. As I passed the Carter Lumber, for a moment, I thought the guy on the ladder painted on the sign was sweating! As I approached town I encountered more of the accursed orange cones. The bridge was out and although I could clearly see where I wanted to be, it would take a 10 mile drive along the river to find a bridge, cross, and return on the other side. This time I parked on a side street, under the huge old trees in the interest of leaving the truck in the shade. The Victorian houses on this side of town are quite imposing and well maintained. If it were not for the TV antennas and the power lines in the back, one could imagine how the place looked at the turn of the century. Two little girls with a wagon at a front walk were selling lemonade and I could not resist. I must say, it was not bad at all. I walked up the alley to the back door of the shop. This time of morning the alley was still in the shade. As I entered the building, the inside was cool, indicating this hot spell had just started and the heat had not soaked into the building. It is always amazing to me how the thermal mass of these old buildings works in their favor in this weather. I knew the attic would be hot, so my first step was to open the windows at each end and then retreat to second floor to wait for the attic to cool. Marc told me that he thought Clem had lived in one of the back apartments, overlooking the alley. As I waited, I decided to explore the the back units. The two units were on either side of the hallway and I started in the one on the North side. The front room, with the entrance, was the largest. The other two rooms were very modest in size and I presumed the front room was used as a Parlor, the middle would have been a sleeping room and the third would have been the kitchen. The third room did have a sink and you could see where the various stoves and refrigerators had left their mark in the vintage linoleum. Off this room was a closet, and, to my surprise, the closet had a stairway leading up to the attic! So this must have been Clem's apartment. At the top of the stairs was a trapdoor which had been nailed shut to keep the later tenants out of the attic. The steps must have served as a rather inconvenient set of shelves. I decided sufficient time had elapsed and discontinued my exploration to return to the attic. It was still quite hot, but at least it was now bearable. The heat brought out the smells of dust, old wood, and electronic gear of times passed. As I walked toward the front, I noticed a rather nice looking Zenith. What had attracted my attention is the knobs were missing. Further inspection revealed the chassis was not fastened and all of the hardware and knobs were in a bag, neatly closed and placed in the cabinet on top of the chassis. Odd, I thought, since most of the sets here appeared to have been repaired. This was an old Farm set, a model 6B-164, designed to work on a 6 volt "car" battery. The chassis looked odd under the dust. The copper plating had a strange color and shading and there was some odd, white, powder around the openings and at the base of the I-F transformers. I carefully removed the chassis thinking I would have to wash up at the sink after this one. The underside of the chassis was a complete surprise. All of the insulation on all of the wires and all of the other combustible materials, such as coil forms, was gone! All that remained were charred surfaces and annealed copper conductor. The white powder was obviously the remains of Fire Extinguisher powder. That which was not burned was corroded due to the heat and the chemicals from the extinguisher. I replaced the radio on the shelf and pondered what had occurred. At least, I no longer wondered why the knobs were off. I decided to see if there might be a history on this particular set. I hoped it had been filed under Zenith rather than by customer and my hopes were rewarded. In the Zenith folder, I found the history. Clem had taken this set in for repair. In order to operate the set, he used a charged auto battery as a source of the required six volts. He connected the radio to the battery and completed the repair; a bad tube and an open resistor. As good technicians do today, he left the radio play to be sure it was working and went on to another repair. With his back to the set, something failed; a shorted capacitor, a stuck vibrator, some bad insulation, we will never know. The short was solid and in very short order insulation was on fire. By the time Clem noticed, I presume because the set had stopped playing, the entire underside was in flame. He quickly disconnected the battery and flipped the set over. Fortunately, he also had a dry chemical extinguisher by the bench and he put out the fire. Apparently he later worked out a deal with the customer for a new set and had placed this one here for future attention or as a reminder of his mistake. The modern collector can learn two things from this experience. First, like our friend Clem, be sure to have a fire extinguisher handy to your bench. These radios are a lot older now than when Clem was working on them, and are more likely to fail. Although it does not happen often, electrical failures can generate a lot of heat and result in a pyrotechnic display. Second, as Clem noted, when using a car battery, also ALWAYS, use a fuse in one lead. Car batteries, as any Fire Department can tell you, can discharge and amazing amount of energy. I replaced the Zenith folder and decided to explore this file. Clem had a file for each manufacturer and he had a series of notes, magazine articles and comments in each. I did not recognize all of the manufacturers names. A number of the hints would apply to other brands so I will list of few of the items I encountered.
One thing that I found interesting in this era of almost failure free components was the number of bad capacitors (condensers then) Clem, found. I was also struck by the number of times an open by-pass capacitor would cause whistles and howls. Even though the capacitor was located in the RF section, it would cause audio howls, even with the volume turned down or would cause the tone to shift with volume. I also noted that resistors changed value quite often, both up and down. I suppose the moral for the modern collector is: Don't rule out any component as a source of trouble, no matter how good it looks. My study was distracted by a cool blast of air in the window. The cool blast was followed by a clap of thunder and the sound of HARD rain on the roof. As many times as I have seen these Midwestern thunderstorms, I am always impressed by the volume of water that can fall in a short time. As I got up the close the windows, I remembered -- I HAD LEFT THE WINDOWS OPEN ON THE TRUCK!! The hints, by set, are from SERVICE HINTS, volume 3, published by Sylvania in 1943.
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