My wife and I went to historic Harrodsburg Ky the other day and looked around here old stomping grounds. After having lunch at one of the smallest Lee's Famous Recipe restaurant's i think I have ever seen, we stopped into a flea market on our way home.
This place was medium sized compared to some of the usual large indoor thrift/flea markets Kentucky is known for. After some trouble navigating around the maze of wares we stumbled across a couple of old radio's. The first radio spotted was a crystal scanner manufactured in the mid 70's for Radio Shack, A Patrollman Pro-16a which I will not be including pictures of here.
It's a clunky but well preserved crystal controlled uhf/vhf scanner that for the life of me I just cannot imagine being mounted in a car these days but in the 70's cars, trucks and vans were much bigger. Perhaps this would have worked in a truck or van if you were on the volunteer fire department or servaillence team. Other wise, just too darned big.
Makes a nice desktop scanner though as it does have an AC cord.
And the second purchase was an AM/FM Table or Shelf type Stereo made again in the 70's by LLOYDS. Very nice cabinet with very little scuffing except for a name lable below the bass control. I can live with that. Does it work?
Well, sort of. I can tell right off this thing needs some tuner spray and new capacitors as there is a slight hum and AM mode does nothing. FM Stereo does work but it is lacking in sensitivity, i could hear a couple local FM's but they would not light the stereo indicator.
So it is safe to say she needs some TLC, the controls are as follows:
ON/OFF switch is a black rocker type.
Stereo indicator light is orange.
Stereo/Mono switch
Radio/Phono switch
Bass
Treble
Volume
Balance
Mode Selector AM FM FM AFC
Tuning
The back of the radio offers a power cord, fm antenna which is just a wire and a left/right rca jack for phono or tape. I did try that feature and was hearing the radio play over top of the music I was feeding into the phono jack, that needs some cleaner sprayed into the switch. Is this a lost cause? Naw, this gives me something to fiddle with of those days when going outside is not an option.
If nothing else, it's a nice piece of history and a conversation starter.
Pictures included.
The Lloyds has a great look!
The bass, treble, AM FM, line in switch, etc just needs a good cleaning with contact cleaner but not getting proper reception is the biggest problem. The AM not working after cleaning the selector switch.....don't bother with it. but if the radio works but not good you could try an alignment if there are adjustable RF and IF transformers and the RF is on the tuning cap.
LLoyds wasn't exactly a better make in electronics but the tuner should be better than it works now.
I was thinking that maybe an external AM loop antenna part was lost, but there is no attachment for it on the back of the radio so probably not.
I WOULD NOT do an alignment. There is no reason to belive that the slugs in the coil have somehow come un-aligned. Radio/TV Repair 101 LOL!
I agree with that advice.
Probably caps and stuff need replacement.
Hey, maybe a bad solder.
It's coming into my mind's eye right now... something wrong with the loop antenna wires!
I would start by replacing all the electrolytic caps, second any paper or wax caps. See how it does then. Mica and ceramic caps rarely fail so you probably won't have to replace those.
Do a search for Beitman Manuals for the Lloyd's model number. I have been able to find schematics etc. for a lot of older radios this way. Very helpful for troubleshooting.
Neil
Neil thanks for that bit of info, I will look into that.
A bit of oddness happened while setting up the Sstran AMT3000 for broadcasting on 1200 AM, I thought since the transmitter was so close to the LLoyd's receiver that maybe it would give me some reception.
Nope, nothing nada zilch.
BUT, I switched the radio from AM to FM and heard a distorted version of 1200 AM all over the FM band. Hmm too close? The radio is in the same room just a few feet from the transmitter but the FM receiver shouldn't be hearing this signal.
Just to be sure the SStran isn't malfunctioning, I checked other FM radio's and there was no hint of 1200 AM on those radio's, this tells me the LLOYD's radio is in worse shape than i previously thought.
Thats a short update, I am going to post this and go search for the manuals that Neil mentioned.
Happy Listening
Barry