I was the only bidder on a lot of three radios, one of them is an Olympic model 860 AM transistor radio. This radio uses four AA cells for a total of 6 volts DC.
Overall the radio is in good condition – no chips or cracks. I powered it up and if I turned the volume to maximum and listened very close, I could barely hear a station when I tuned it. It was working, but the electrolytic capacitors were dead, letting almost no audio signal through.
I counted eight electrolytic capacitors, so I got them, they were common values, two 80 uF (used 100 uF), several 30 uF (used 33 uF) and a 3 uF (used 3.3 uF).
I got through replacing several capacitors; there were still a few left, but their leads were covered by the tuning dial. The screw that held the dial to the capacitor was covered by the plate that had the 5.5 to 16 kHz frequencies on it, so I didn’t want to damage it because it would be easily seen. It was glued down with tough contact cement so I had to spend a lot of time gently prying it up with a knife blade. The plate survived with minor bending, which I straightened out.
I got the rest of the capacitors replaced, and applied power to see if it worked. Success! But there were damaged wires and loose connections on the battery springs, which I had to resolder. I glued the dial plate and left it to dry for several hours. Later I reassembled the rest of the radio and tried it again to make sure it worked.
There are only three deficits, one from wear. The back snaps into place, and opens with a coin in a slot. The tabs that hold it in place are worn and the back comes off too easily. But this isn’t much of a problem because the radio comes withva leather case which holds the radio together. However the case was poorly designed and the radio is very difficult to remove or insert into the case. The strain on the case has caused the stitches to tear loose on the case. If the stitches are repaired, they will probably be torn open again because of the case design.
The other minor deficiency is the earphone jack. It’s a 2.5 mm jack, which is an odd size. Also there is an external power jack and it’s the same 2.5 mm jack as the earphone jack. Putting the plugs into the wrong jacks could damage the radio. The best solution would be to change the earphone jack to a 3.5 mm jack, which would solve both problems.
