Classic Hifi Care

The little "Modulette 929" AM-FM-cassette receiver has been sitting on my kitchen floor for months now. Real life gets in the way, as usual. But now it's a lazy Saturday. Last week I worked on the mechanical latch bar for the cassette transport pushbutton mechanism. I used some solvent to remove grease and see if it would slide easily, and then some very light Mobil 1 that was at hand. It still had a mechanical hang-up. Just wouldn't return to position via the spring. Turns out one of the little latch points had been bent and was rubbing. Un-bent, it all worked just fine.

Earlier, I had flooded the "record" switch, one of those sliding devices on the PC board, with contact cleaner.

Today I put it back together, plugged in all 3 DIN connectors, and powered it up. The cassette deck works now--meter not pegged; plays back; meters are adjustable in the record mode.

This is not a high-end device to be sure, but now it's working and I am happy. And amused. It still bears the sticker Radio Shack used to warn me that it has vinyl imitation wood grain, just in case I did not notice. Thanks, Radio Shack.

Chris Campbell

The "little" items need love, too. Good that you rescued this one.

Most items like stereos, radios, scanners, etc from Radio Shack were built pretty well for the day,

Was Knight part of Radio Shack? For some reason that is stuck in my mind that it was?

Good job, Chris, saving something from the landfill. There should be more of that.

Bill

Knight and Knight-Kit was Allied Radio's brand, I have a bunch of their big catalogs from the '58 to '65 time period.
I used to send in a card to get Allied & Heathkit catalogs and built a Heathkit tube amp that was an Xmas present in 1964.
I lost interest for awhile in the later '60s when everything went to SS , coincidentaly girls & cars also entered the picture!

They're a great resource because they sold most of the major brands: Fisher, Scott, Dynaco, Sherwood, Pilot, even McIntosh as well as the big speaker brands: Altec, Klipsch, E-V, University &c and the various brands of turntables and R to Rs.
It's fun to look back and see how the product lines changed from year to year.

Thanks, Roger, for straightening out my old memory. I have a Knight stereo amp. PP6BQ5's, 5Y3, and four tubes in the preamp stage. It's on the list of things to restore one of these days.

I loved getting the catalogs from Heathkit and Knight, and many other companies. I wish I would have kept them.

Bill

Roger is right--those old Allied catalogs (and Lafayette too) were like a Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog for electronics folks. They carried all the big brands along with their own lines and their own kits.

My first kit build was a Knight-Kit Space Spanner regenerative broadcast-SW radio. Three tubes. One was the rectifier, the other the output amp, leaving one tube for all the RF duties. It's a dual-triode 12AT7, but half of it is audio amp. There's an interesting web page on the Space-Spanner here:

http://analogdial.com/SpaceSpanner/SpaceSpanner1.html

Heath's catalogs carried only their own stuff, plus a very limited range of things they didn't make (speakers and changers come to mind). I've built a lot more Heath kits than Knight kits. Heath engineered their products very well.

Chris Campbell

Chris, do you still have the Space-Spanner?

Bill

Yes, of course. Things come in the door but rarely go out. I did dump a bunch of stuff when I was moving and now regret several of the give-aways.

Chris Campbell

I know that feeling all to well.

Bill