Here are pictures of my Panasonic Model R-140 Six Transistor AM Radio. The top picture was taken before I started the restoration process and the bottom picture was taken after the restoration of this vintage transistor radio was complete. This blog is dedicated to the restoration of this beautiful depiction of cutting edge technology from the 1960s.

I acquired this radio from a local yard sale. It was covered in years of dust and white paint flecks and was subjugated to the dollar "bargain" bin as the battery tray was missing and you could hear loose parts bounce around inside the enclosure when you picked it up. Still, I saw that this R-140 had great potential.

As mentioned, the battery tray that held the four AA batteries that powered this radio was missing. The only thing left were two wires dangling in the rear battery tray compartment, see below:

The Ferrite core of the internal loop antenna had somehow snapped in two, possibly from the G force of a significant fall. This is the loose part heard inside the radio's case, see below:

The speaker grill, Panasonic logo, and dial indicator, had all once been emblazoned with silver paint. The paint accents had worn away due to years of wear and tear, see below:

In addition, there was paint flecks and smears on the fine leather case (see below). This radio was probably used as a "work radio" toward the end of its life to provide entertainment while doing chores like painting the house.

As with any radio restoration project, the first step is to disassemble the radio to ascertain damage and determine the steps required in the restoration process. The first step in the disassembly process of this radio was to remove is the tuning knob. It has one ornamental philips screw, circled in red, in the center that holds it to a variable air capacitor. The tuning knob pulls straight off once the screw is removed. See below: 

Below is a picture of the front panel with the tuning knob removed.  You can see the variable air capacitor shaft inside the radio. 

Open the back cover of the radio and remove the internal cover that separates the battery tray from the electronics. Three screws, circled in red, hold the printed circuit board in place.  See below:

You can pivot the printed circuit board exposing the speaker once the three mounting screws have been removed, see below:

Time to do some initial testing on this radio, I used my trusty bench power supply and some alligator clips to provide the required 6 Volts to the wires that used to connect to the battery holder. The only issue was determining polarity. In this case it was fairly easy as the battery holder wires were red and blue in color. The red being the positive connection and the blue being the negative. Success! You could immediately hear atmospheric noise coming from the speaker once the volume control was rotated to the "On" position. I could hear several AM radio stations with a few twists of the tuning capacitor's shaft. It looks like this radio will not require much in the way of electronic repair.

One thing I noticed was the volume control was a little "staticky" when changing volume levels. First, I had to remove the small bolt that holds the volume knob in place. See area circled in red below:

Spaying contact cleaner on where the wiper arm of the volume potentiometer contacts the carbon resistive element cleared it right up. I sprayed a little contact cleaner where the wiper arm meets the carbon resistive element then twisted the wiper back and forth through it's complete motion working the contact cleaner in.

I decided to completely liberate the printed circuit board from the cabinet to make detailing of the case exterior easier. I started by desoldering the speaker wires, circled in red below, that connect to the external earphone jack and internal speaker. 

The black wire, circled below, must also be desoldered as well. It is the negative lead to external power supply jack. 

Finally the external antenna wire, circled below, must be desoldered.

I soldered the wires of a small 8 Ohm speaker I had lying around to the proper points on the printed circuit board to aid in further testing. Otherwise, I would need to use alligator clips to connect the speaker in the case to proper points on the printed circuit board when testing.

As mentioned, the electronics of this vintage Panasonic R-140 AM Radio are functional. I can pickup multiple AM radio stations. As a preventative measure, I replaced all electrolytic capacitors in this radio. As electrolytic capacitors age, their electrolyte dries up causing their electrical capacity to drop and leakage current to increase. It is definitely a good idea to replace electrolytic capacitors that are over 50 years old!

Electrolytic capacitors are relatively cheap these days. $3 worth of replacement electrolytic capacitors will ensure this radio will continue function for many more years.

Electrolytic capacitors should be replaced with one of the same or slightly greater capacitance and working voltage rating. For example, in most cases, it is perfectly acceptable to replace a vintage 3uF 12Volt electrolytic capacitor with a  new 3.3uF 50Volt one. You will find non-standard electrolytic capacitors values in electronic equipment that were built before the electronic industry instituted standardized values.

I replaced a total of five electrolytic capacitors on the radio's printed circuit board. The ones replaced are circled in red in the picture below:

I recommend picking replacement electrolytic capacitors that have the same size and color as the original. In this case, I compromised as I just had electrolytic capacitors of the same size but not color. The top electrolytic capacitor is the original and the bottom is its replacement. 

As mentioned, the Ferrite core inside the loop antenna broke into two pieces. One piece was jiggling around loosely inside the case of the radio. 

I used Krazy glue to adhere the Ferrite core pieces back together.

Gluing the two pieces of Ferrite core should not affect the magnetic properties of the Ferrite Core.  The "Core" is just made up of iron oxide suspended in a ceramic compound. 

I could not tell the difference in this radio's performance between when only half the Ferrite core was in place versus the fully repaired Ferrite Core. The R-140 Radio is a great performer in either case.

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Windex and an old toothbrush worked great for cleaning the speaker grill area and textured front panel of this radio. 

The front panel is now ready for paint prep and masking.

I wanted to repaint the speaker grill silver like it was when the radio was new. I started by masking off the area that I didn't want painted silver. I used Frog Tape cut in thin ribbons using an X-Acto knife to mask the grill area. Larger Frog Tape pieces were used to mask off the area under the tuning dial. See picture below:

Finally, the masking job was complete. I extended the Frog Tape over the sides of the panel so as to prevent overspray from getting on the leather case. See below:
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I sprayed Dupli-Color Silver Wheel Rim paint on the exposed grill section. I had this spray paint lying around to touch up a scuff on the rim on my Buick when I "curbed" it last year.

The Dupli-Color Silver Rim Paint really makes this radio's speaker grill stand out! See below:

Not done painting yet, I still needed to paint the border around the front panel and the dial indicator pointer. I first had to mask off the painted areas with Frog Tape.

Now to spray these exposed areas with Dupli-Color Silver Rim Paint.

I sprayed Dupli-Color Silver Rim Paint into the lid of the can then applied it to the Panasonic lettering with a fine paint brush. 

Below is a picture of the finished product. The paint job far exceeded my expectations and really brings life back into this vintage radio.

Automotive Silver Rim Paint works great for touching up painted or pitted chrome parts on vintage radios.

I tried different cleaners and solvents to remove the paint flecks on the leather parts of the case. In the end I decided to leave it be as the cleaners and solvents were leaching the brown dye from the leather.

I used a liberal coating of Meguiar's Leather Cleaner and Conditioner to bring back the luster of the leather parts of the radio's case.  You will find I use many automotive cleaning and waxing products during my radio restoration projects as I have them on hand for detailing my cars.

Meguiar's PLASTX Plastic Cleaner and Polish really brought the luster back to the dial tuning and volume control knobs. 

These products are intended for automotive use but also work great on the plastics used in vintage transistor radios.

I found the perfect battery holder replacement on Amazon!  The R-140 radio requires a battery holder that can contain four AA batteries. The four batteries must be two inline on both sides, so that it will fit in the slim battery compartment at the bottom of the radio's case. The leads of the battery holder I purchased were long enough so that it allowed me to wire it directly into the printed circuit board. This made the repair look very professional as I did not have to splice into the wiring of the original battery holder. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the battery holder install before final assembly.

Follow sections  "Disassembly Part 2" then "Disassembly", both in reverse order, to reassemble the R-140 radio. Here is a picture of the inside of the case when the assembly process was completed.

Below is a picture when the internal cover is in place. The internal cover separates the electronics from the battery holder.

The front panel of the R-140 radio with tuning knob installed.

Here is a picture of the back panel of the R-140 radio, it flips up to expose the battery holder. The back panel is held close by two snaps.

Below is a video of the newly restored Panasonic R-140 AM Radio in Action!

I paid $5 at a garage sale for this vintage Sears Silvertone Model 8020 AM/FM Tube Radio. I don't think any other "garage sale enthusiast" wanted to touch it because:

1. There was physical damage to the volume control shaft and the volume control knob was missing. Most collectors know how hard it is to find matching knobs.

2. The cord was cut off so there was no way to test it. 

3. It had some sort of brown syrupy substance on it that dried rock hard. I assume this substance to be dried varnish or wood stain. 

4. The radio case is very unattractive. It first appeared to be just a painted metal case but after further investigation if turned out to be painted Bakelite.

I have a feeling that at one time this radio graced a table in the living room but toward the end of its life it was disposed to "garage duty" where things like paint, varnish, and other home repair substances were splattered on it.  Finally, it failed to play music anymore and was placed in a dark corner of a garage or attic for many years.  Then it made it to a garage sale as the owner was doing a through cleaning before "downsizing" for life in a condo community. 

The Sears Silvertone Model 8020 (Chassis Number 132.841) was offered in the 1948 and 1949 Sears Catalog for a modest price of $47.50. As mentioned, it covers the AM/FM broadcast bands. The Model 8020 was sold as a mid market AM/FM radio as Sears offered other high and low models to compliment the Silvertone product line.  

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The Model 8020 employs a "transformerless" design and employs a Selium rectifier to convert the incoming line current from AC to DC. The tube filaments are connected in series and are powered directly from the AC line as in most "All American Five" style radios of the time. 

To reduce cost, the 12BE6 Converter Tube, 12BA6 IF Amplifier Tube, and the 50L6GT Audio Output Tube are used for both AM and FM reception. A multi-deck switch is used to switch the many components into the AM or FM mode circuits. 

The power switch is on the Neutral leg of the power connection which makes this radio dangerous to work on when removed from the insulated cabinet. Turning the radio off still leaves the chassis energized! 

Notice the missing power cord?

Notice the white paint flecks. I am not sure what the black substance is, could be motor oil. I am fairly certain that the substance dripped on the lower right hand corner is varnish.  

Stay tuned boys and girls as I will be writing further blogs on bringing this Sears Silvertone Model 8020 back to life!

I am big on the three "Rs" or Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. In this blog I am going to show you how I met the second "R" by repurposing my old first generation iMac G3 and gave it a new use in my Radio Shack.

My iMac G3 hardware was in perfect working condition. I just needed a newer OS (Operating System) as not many applications were being written or are supported on Mac OS 8.6. While I could have upgraded to a new Mac OS, as the PowerPC Processor was supported up to Mac OS 10.3.9 "Panther", I chose to install Linux ported for the PowerPC Processor as a lot of the applications I wanted to run were not ported for the Mac OS.
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Linux MintPPC is a Linux distribution for 32 and 64 bits PowerPC computers which is based on Linux Mint LXDE, ported to Debian/PPC. MintPPC offers a Desktop Manager, which runs fairy quickly and without lag, on older G3, G4, and G5 Mac computers with PowerPC processors.

MintPPC 8 is based on the stable release of the Debian codename "Lenny" Linux OS while MintPPC 9.3 is based on the stable release of Debian "Squeeze" OS. I choose to install MintPPC 11 which is based on the Debian "Wheezy" release. 

Due to issues described earlier with first generation "Tray Loader" IMac G3, I booted my iMac from a mini.iso which has just enough intelligence to boot then perform a network install of MintPPC. It is important to have a reliable and fast Internet connection to install MintPPC in this manner. 

By default, MintPPC tries to boot to the Linux Mint LXDE Desktop. If there is a problem with the LXDE Desktop you may need to boot to the CLI (Command Line Interface). Below is the step needed to accomplish this action:

1. While the iMac is booting to MintPPC, type Linux 1 at the boot: prompt to get into CLI then log in using the root password.

I was unable to connect to my local network after the install of MintPPC, I had to do the steps below to fix the issue. This procedure assumes you have a router or server on the local network that has the  DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) service running.

1. Boot into CLI.
2. cd /etc/network
3. Type nano interfaces
4. Add the following lines:

                auto eth0
                allow-hotplug eth0
                iface eth0 inet dhcp     
​      5. Ctrl-X then “Y” to save.
      6. Type shutdown -r now
      7.  Boot to CLI (Covered in the "How to boot to CLI" section of this blog)
      8. Type ifconfig you should see eth0 interface with a non-routable IP address.
      9. Type ping www.yahoo.com, you should be able to get ping replies.
      10. Ctrl+C to stop ping.

Other useful CLI commands:

1. ifconfig eth0 down - stops eth0 interface
2. ifconfig eth0 up - starts eth0 interface

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I got a black screen when booting into the Linux Mint LXDE Desktop until I did the following:

Note: You iMac must be able to access the Internet in order to perform the following steps.

1. Boot to CLI (Covered in the "How to boot to CLI" section of this blog)
2. Type cd /ect/X11
3. Type wget http://mac.linux.be/files/xorg/imac1.txt
4. Type cp imax1.txt xorg.conf
5. Type shutdown -r now
6. iMac should now boot into Linux Mint LXDE Desktop without issue.

I do not have any network connections in my Radio Shack and rely on a Laptop with wireless enabled in an other area of my basement to provide Internet access to my iMac using ICS or Internet Connection Sharing.

This steps are optional and would only be used of you don't have an Ethernet connection in close proximity to your iMac.

1. Make sure Windows 10 Laptop can access the Internet via Wireless connection.
2. Start | Settings | Network and Internet
3. Change Adapter Settings link.
4. Right-click on the Wireless Network Connection then choose Properties.
5. Click on the Sharing tab.
6. Select “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection”.
7. Click on the OK button, the word “Shared” should show up under to the Wireless Network Connection.
8. Connect Ethernet cable between the Ethernet port on the Windows 10 Laptop and the uplink port on a Ethernet Switch. Connect another Ethernet cable between a port on the Ethernet Switch and the Ethernet  port on the iMac.
9. Click to step 16 if you do not have Norton Internet Security install on your Laptop running Windows 10.
10. Click on the up arrow on the Taskbar of Windows 10, right-click on the Norton Internet Security icon then choose  Open Norton Internet Security.
11. Click on Settings then the Firewall Link.
12. Click on the Traffic Rules tab.
13. Create a new rule with the following properties:
    • Action: Allow
    • Connections: to and from other computers
    • Computers: Any computer on the local subnet
    • Communications: All types of communications
    • Advanced: Apply rule for NAT transversal, if Explicitly requested
    • Description: imac
14. Move the traffic rule to the top of the list then click on the Apply button.
15. Close Norton Internet Security
16. On the iMac boot to CLI, type the following to register new DHCP address: sudo dhclient -v eth0
17. Type ipconfig to verify new IP address.
18. Type ping www.yahoo.com to verify that you can ping an address on the Internet.
19. Type shutdown -r now

I currently use the IceWeasel Internet Browser on the LXDE Desktop to access the arrl.org website to use the callsign lookup function. In the future I also plan on using ARRL's "Logbook of The World" to document my contacts as well.  Another great application ported to Linux is Xlog which is also used for documenting contacts. Below is a link that will connect you to a Website listing many great Ham Radio applications ported to Linux.

Below is a picture of my iMac running MintPPC in my Radio Shack: