Another busy month so far.
I have finished repairing a badly "serviced" Pioneer PL-560. There were vital screws missing, other screws were badly misadjusted. However, the problem lay in the fact a piece of foam had rotted and needed to be replaced. It now works as new! The PL-560 is one complicated turntable with five electronic boards and a very complicated mechanical system. Way over the top. Not the sort of thing I would buy.
Another overly complicated piece of equipment is the Pioneer graphic equaliser I have in at the moment. It has multiple op-amps, and logic chips on each of its 12 bands per channel (24 all together). It one of the chips goes the whole thing stops working.
I've fixed a few radios along the way as well. Work on the Sony 550A is progressing currently stuck on the cassette take-up spool. It has plenty of torque and fast-forwards well, but doesn't spin fast enough in play mode.. The National Panasonic is also progressing slowly. The Hitachi 1040 Receiver was an easy fix in the end. Not the STK 0030 power amp modules. Simply two 100 ohm metal fuse resistors. It sounds awful, so stay tuned.
This weekend past we cleared a deceased estate shed near here. There was a lot of old gear. Some of was destroyed by borers, little insects that eat wood. This was especially bad on some console radios and some Ferrograph recorders from the 1950s. I of the Ferrographs was just salvageable, and someone else took the machanicals, the cabinet turned to dust as it was picked up.
The good items we catalogued and will be in the April Auction scheduled on 11 April 2026.
I nabbed four reel to reel tape recorders. A Sony TC-630 with a mystery light and switch (not wired to any thing) drilled in the front. A TC-230 without carry handle. An Akai 1722W identical to the one I have been working on. And a very nice stereo Philips from the early 1960s. All work, but all need work. The two Sony's need motor run capacitors that I have a stop of.