RADIO REPAIR GUY
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Hacked Radios

Many radios have been hacked. What do we mean by that? Many older radios  are repair orphans, where a service guy attempted to fix it, abandoned the repair leaving failed components in place, wires disconnected, etc.; then closing up the radio and returning it to its owner - 70 years later a descendent, not knowing the history, sends it out for repair. This can be extremely expensive to recreate what was done to the radio. We are seeing many examples of this coming in for repair.

Or,  the radios have been "worked on" to the point that they  are not in conformance with the original schematic for that model. It can take many hours to decipher how the radio was "Tinkered" with as opposed to the original manufacturers specification. It can take many hours to decipher the remaining circuit and how that has been modified by someone. This is  true of all radio receivers, small table radios, and particularly true of low end Hallicrafters (S-38X), Hammarlund, National, etc.

Since this cannot determined from photos, but only after we have put the radio on our service bench, we will notify the owner that the radio has been "hacked" before we go deeply into the repair process. At that point we will

1. elect to not continue the repair.

2. elect to continue the repair, but with the owners understanding that there will be an extra hack charge between $25 to $100, beyond the normal service costs. If the owner being forewarned about the hack charge elects for us to continue, we will resume work on the radio. If the owner does not elect for us to continue, we will return the radio after receipt of calculated packing and shipping charge.

This is also a good place to re-iterate that we do not do cosmetic repair or restorations.

Radio Repair Guy