I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??

It seems so hard to imagine.

After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..

Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?

Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
Pilot lamps????

Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?

Peter

You have a good question. When I was in high school tubes and electrolytic caps were what failed most often. Don't know why tubes had high failure rates. Maybe the unreliable ones have been sorted out in the radios we now have?

Norm

:I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
: So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
:...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??
:
:It seems so hard to imagine.
:
:After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..
:
:Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?
:
:Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
:So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
:Pilot lamps????
:
:Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?
:

Norm,
I suspect one reason is that we don't operate tube sets as we once did - sure, we fire up an old set every now and again for nostalgia's sake or to impress friends - but not for hours on end like we did when they were the only source of entertainment going. Collectors with dozens of old radios probably aren't a good source for reliability of a set or its components since no one set likely gets a good workout these days.

As for old radio shops - the guy in my hometown (population 2500) during the late 50's and 60's - ran the shop a few hours during the day and drove a film truck at night to make ends meet. He sold a few 45's and LP's in the front of the store - and apparently did okay on antennas and installations. I talked my Dad into bringing in my Grandmother's old Philco console - and he said it was obsolete and "can't get parts for it" - he probably just didn't want to fool with it. I suspect he was an early convert to the church of "Replace the Board and Pass the Bill".....

Here are a few theories.

In the 1930's, I think many radio repairmen also sold new radios? Today, we recap the whole set - but back then, they probably just replaced the one cap that kept the set from working.

Also, in the '30s, they were probably still working on a few '20s TRFs, etc. - which are pretty simple, but a bit temperamental.

In the first half of the '40s decade, most radio repairmen were in the navy or other branch, unless they were too old. Those remaining at home were busy patching together older sets while the government ordered new set manufacture stopped.

After the war, there was a backlog of sets to be repaired. Soon, tube-type TVs, which were quite temperamental, came into the picture. Some repair shops sold and installed new TVs, which in my area required outside antennas mounted on a mast, possibly with an antenna rotor.

So, maybe a repairman could be kept reasonably busy 1930-65, or so.
Doug

:Peter
:
: You have a good question. When I was in high school tubes and electrolytic caps were what failed most often. Don't know why tubes had high failure rates. Maybe the unreliable ones have been sorted out in the radios we now have?
:
:Norm
:
:
::I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
:: So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
::...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??
::
::It seems so hard to imagine.
::
::After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..
::
::Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?
::
::Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
::So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
::Pilot lamps????
::
::Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?
::

I must agree on the tubes aspect. They do wear out if run a lot....though I have received some from guitar enthusiasts who claimed that they were weak, and they tested out fine and still work well. Guitar players use their amplifiers heavily sometimes, though probably not as much as someone would use a radio back when radio was supreme.

My Crosley 1117 had most of its original tubes in place, and was a heavily used radio, and most of them were weak, though only the output tubes and the rectifier need replacing. The other tubes worked fine as-is. Most of my other radios have already had the problematic tubes replaced, so I can't say for sure. The ones that usually keep going no matter what are the RF and 1st audio tubes. They don't use much power, so they can be a bit weak before trouble occurs.

If anything shows how quickly a tube ages, it would be the eye tube, though that's more of a phosphor issue, because the tubes usually still test out fine, but won't glow properly. I still don't understand why eye tubes wear out so quickly, and vacuum fluorescent displays in microwaves, vcrs, and cars last so long.

I must say that some of my radios I used quite heavily until recently, when radio stations have gone sour. My Silvertone phonograph, when it's fitted with a needle, I can use for hours a day. It has most of its original tubes, and they all test out good. I probably use the thing more than it was originally used. I REALLY use it. ....Well, actually the original rectifier is marginally good, so that tube did wear out, and the eye tube was dim so I replaced it. I still have both tubes, but don't use either. The rectifier makes the audio ever so slightly weaker, so I stick to a fresh one.

I guess it depends on the quality of the tubes, what circuits they are used in, and things like that.

T.

Peter,
I can vouch for my brother, who graduated from DeForest Radio School after home study. He never made a dime that didn't cost him another dime. Store fronts with SALES and service were probably profitable, and a slick salesman would quote "cost more to repair than a new one", and they're still out there too, hawking snake oil cure all. I was too young and disinterested to gather any type of info on failures. In thinking back to those simpler times, great American made products, lightning (back east)may have destroyed more appliances than normal mortality. That is until the Japanese invaded the market in the 50's, but they learned their lesson well. I retrieved a few radios etc from the unheated/uncooled attic that served as a shop, but much remains there as a 70 yr old house falls down around it.

marv

:I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
: So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
:...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??
:
:It seems so hard to imagine.
:
:After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..
:
:Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?
:
:Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
:So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
:Pilot lamps????
:
:Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?
:

I have some ideas:

1) I beleive that in the old days the power system was more vunerable to bad power than today. These surges caused more damages.

2) I beleive that tubes do wear out if run too often or are run overstressed. I heard that one of the worst offenders in history was the ENIAC computer, which would blow a tube about every seven minutes of use!

3) I bet the culture was different. In the early days, electronics were expensive. In fact, I heard that most radios in the early days were financed because of the high cost! This meant that fixing one component was far cheaper than buying the new thing.

In this regard, I wish that we would still have localized repair shops for more modern digital devices that do component level repair today. Think of how much oil we are wasting transporting all repairs of devices back to the factory they are made, and often they replace entire boards or devices when one small component of them goes bad. This fills up our landfills!

:I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
: So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
:...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??
:
:It seems so hard to imagine.
:
:After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..
:
:Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?
:
:Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
:So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
:Pilot lamps????
:
:Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?
:

:I have some ideas:
:
:1) I beleive that in the old days the power system was more vunerable to bad power than today. These surges caused more damages.
:
:2) I beleive that tubes do wear out if run too often or are run overstressed. I heard that one of the worst offenders in history was the ENIAC computer, which would blow a tube about every seven minutes of use!
:
:3) I bet the culture was different. In the early days, electronics were expensive. In fact, I heard that most radios in the early days were financed because of the high cost! This meant that fixing one component was far cheaper than buying the new thing.
:
:
:In this regard, I wish that we would still have localized repair shops for more modern digital devices that do component level repair today. Think of how much oil we are wasting transporting all repairs of devices back to the factory they are made, and often they replace entire boards or devices when one small component of them goes bad. This fills up our landfills!
:

I believe component level repair went out back in the 60s/70s mostly because the labor/time/cost it takes to localize and replace an individual component is greater than the cost of the whole board.

Likely very true. I read somewhere that repairmen in the 30's, '40s, and maybe '50s, were expected to repair radios in an average of 10-15 minutes each? (I can't remember exactly the number of minutes per set.)

But, say four sets per hour, and $5 each for labor, plus parts (tubes, etc.) that also had a markup. Sets that took too much more time were perhaps returned as "unrepairable" - and maybe the customer told the repairman, "Oh heck, just keep the set." Thus, free tubes, etc.
Doug

:
:I believe component level repair went out back in the 60s/70s mostly because the labor/time/cost it takes to localize and replace an individual component is greater than the cost of the whole board.

Consider this, before the television the radio was the thing you gathered around for your entertainment and news. Most American homes had radio....that is a lot of radios. I thing the shear volume of sets in a well populated area generated a lot of work. It was also advertised (I've seen the adds) that you should have your tubes checked often. Often not just the weak tube was replaced but all the tubes as a precaution. Reasoning was that one tube is weak or dead the others of the same age are soon to follow. I also agree that total recapping did not usually happen. Many of the sets I have repaired have had one or two caps replaced and of course the filters. So one set may have come into the shop for several repairs. Just some rambling

MRO

:Consider this, before the television the radio was the thing you gathered around for your entertainment and news. Most American homes had radio....that is a lot of radios. I thing the shear volume of sets in a well populated area generated a lot of work. It was also advertised (I've seen the adds) that you should have your tubes checked often. Often not just the weak tube was replaced but all the tubes as a precaution. Reasoning was that one tube is weak or dead the others of the same age are soon to follow. I also agree that total recapping did not usually happen. Many of the sets I have repaired have had one or two caps replaced and of course the filters. So one set may have come into the shop for several repairs. Just some rambling
:
:MRO

Great forum, just found it, and a great question. As a Jr High student during the early to mid 1960s, I worked part time for a Radio/TV repair shop in Allentown, Pa. I always hung around wanting to "help", so finally I was asked if I wanted to come in on a regular schedule. I would literally be asked to help the owner with most anything and everything. One of the sidelines the owner started to help bring in more business was "While You Wait Auto Radio Repair". As you might guess, the "While You Wait" part was pretty much to bring in the customers. One of the first jobs I was asked to do was pull a radio out of a 1950s era Caddy! Just the thought of that job today gives me the shakes! As long as the problem was quick and simple, like a bad Vibrator, the radio could be repaired while the driver waited, but in most cases, they drove away with a large hole in the dash. As others to the forum have mentioned, the shop I worked for also installed TV antennas. Living between Philadelphia & NYC, a rotor system was a must, and I went out with him on more than one call to fix either the rotor control box on the TV, or to help him drop the mast and replace a motor. Looking back it was great experience, and just thinking about it now, I can see all the TVs and radios lined up in his shop with his repair tickets hanging off them... Rod

:I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
: So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
:...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??
:
:It seems so hard to imagine.
:
:After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..
:
:Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?
:
:Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
:So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
:Pilot lamps????
:
:Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?
:
Hi, In the forties I hung about 'The Radio Shop' until the owner finally gave me a part time job. My full time job was High School. I still recall the atmosphere of that small narrow room lined with shelves of repaired and awaiting repair of all manner of sets. There was a Jackson tube checker in a blond wood case just to the left of the door. We took it's good-bad scale as gospel and it sold a lot of tubes. The door of the shop opened off the sidewalk of our little town and was open in summer for walk in customers. The sidewalk thronged with people especially on Sat. nights. The shop owner was particularily adept at repairs as you watch. Most folks had no idea of how radio worked and took his manipulations of tubes, coils, capacitors and such as sheer magic. (I still do) One repair I remember was a Sentinal barn radio that had 'quit talking.' When on the bench it's chassis was withdrawn, it sported a mouse nest complete with a handfull of pink babies. They had gnawn most of the coverings off the paper capicitors and through the oscillator coil. We fixed it up with spares from junked sets, charged him two dollars and returned the baby mice to the happy owner.

::I've often marveled at how well designed these old radios of the 30s and 40s are. Just replace the crappy electrolytics and paper caps and everything is usually fine!.. For the most part at least..right?
:: So what was it that the average radio owner of the 1940's needed fixed most often when these radios were only a few years old??
;;;;:::...and just what failures kept the radio repair shops busy??
::
::It seems so hard to imagine.
::
::After all ...the vacuum tubes from back then are STILL cooking along and going strong... even today.. save a few filament failures or weak rectifiers and a few that have lower gain now... but big deal. Tubes are quite tough!. I almost never have to replace one on the 100 or more restorations I've done in the last cpl years..
::
::Oh..I'm sure the repair shops really pushed tube replacements as a great money maker for them... but the radio still had to fail for some reason first to be brought into the shop for testing anyway right?
::
::Now electrolytics were certainly poorly made and papercaps not much better... but they were only a few years old back then and I can't see wholesale failures of relatively new caps.. especially since I still often see 70 year old paper caps still running nicely here and there today.
::So I wonder just what it was that the radio repair guy made his living doing in 1947?
::Pilot lamps????
::
::Are there any of you old timers still around who worked in the radio shops back then to give us a clue?
::
:Hi, In the forties I hung about 'The Radio Shop' until the owner finally gave me a part time job. My full time job was High School. I still recall the atmosphere of that small narrow room lined with shelves of repaired and awaiting repair of all manner of sets. There was a Jackson tube checker in a blond wood case just to the left of the door. We took it's good-bad scale as gospel and it sold a lot of tubes. The door of the shop opened off the sidewalk of our little town and was open in summer for walk in customers. The sidewalk thronged with people especially on Sat. nights. The shop owner was particularily adept at repairs as you watch. Most folks had no idea of how radio worked and took his manipulations of tubes, coils, capacitors and such as sheer magic. (I still do) One repair I remember was a Sentinal barn radio that had 'quit talking.' When on the bench it's chassis was withdrawn, it sported a mouse nest complete with a handfull of pink babies. They had gnawn most of the coverings off the paper capicitors and through the oscillator coil. We fixed it up with spares from junked sets, charged him two dollars and returned the baby mice to the happy owner.

.:: Most of the time it's small,simple stuff like noisy volume controls,rattling speakers,hum,broken dial strings and line cords,poor connections and poor solder joints, many times it was 99% time to find the problem and 1% to fix the problem. Not to say that there weren't tough dogs and call backs. Intermittant problems can be the toughest,the radio would play for days without problems after the bumpy trip to the shop.Auto radios had a hard life with the vibration and being exposed to the elements. Phonographs and tape players had mechanical issues with rubber belts and tires stretched,worn or hardened. also needle sales were good. Household dust and ,tobacco tar were problems as were customers who tried their own repairs by spraying it down with wd-40. The metal recording tape rapidly wore a goove in the tape head. Sometimes customers would pry out a stuck cassete when the best thing would have been to let me gently remove it. Many auto tape players got splashed with soda,coffee and children loved to play 'jukebox' and put coins into the tape slot.

While we are talking about how techs made money. The hay day for making money was when the department stores started selling radios with cassette players to the kids so they could install them theirselves. They would replace an expensive Delco with a 12 watt output with a Pioneer or Kraco with a 6 watt output. Figure that out! I can't recall how many output chips I replaced because they hooked up the speakers wrong. $25.00 labor and $12.00 profit on parts. Average 15 minutes to fix. Also kept lots of cassette and 8 track belts. Cleaned lots of 8track and cassette heads with head cleaner and a Q tip while the customer looked on and gladly forked over five bucks.