RADIO REPAIR GUY
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About Our Repair Service

Things to Remember...

About Repair Requests

Many times people request that I just repair their radio with minimizing costs in the process. Older radios and amplifiers can be "just repaired" but they are sure to fail in a relatively short time.

After we have replaced the electrolytics in a radio, and located any current malfunction, the radio now powers up with reinvigorated high voltages. These high voltages are applied within the radio to other components that are sometimes 70+ years of age. This will invariably cause these components to fail and you will have a dead unit and face the expense and trouble of sending the unit back.

Thus, I will "just repair" but I will not return the radio without replacing these other 70+ old components [ usually capacitors] with their associated costs. It is extremely frustrating to our customers to face returning the unit shortly after they get it back. These additional component costs can be trivial or major depending on the radio. This is why we insist on restoration in certain classes of radios. A full restoration is always safer but we can try to weed out high failure probability components during the process of repairing the radio at additional cost. This is not a "restoration" but prudent replacement of those items that represent little time bombs ready to go off.

To reiterate, any radio that is submitted to us for repair, will have ALL items that are prone to possible short term failure , - replaced. That means, we not only fix the initial reason for non-performance, but replace those items, that would likely fail in the short term. This will add to the cost of "repair", but is usually substantially less than shipping charges to send the radio back and return it.

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

Radio Repair Guy

DIAL STRINGING RADIOS

One of the most difficult parts of radio repair is re-stringing dial cord used to tune the radio. We have actually run into older un-documented radios (1932 or older) where we could not successfully restring the radio. Without dial stringing documentation, some radios are simply impossible to restring.

DIAL CORD RESTRINGING  Any radio or repair that requires restringing the tuning dial cord, costs  at least $45.00 to restring and in some cases $75.00. If you have never tried to do this then you cannot appreciate how frustrating and time consuming it is. If you think the price is too high - be my guest and do it yourself. Restringing can involve multiple hours and delays due to research [ Many radio documentation sets do not have adequate dial string diagrams.]

Radio Repair Guy

 

About Drop Offs and Pick Ups

I really enjoy (prefer) working on radios for people local to my workshop. However it seems a lot of people make an appointment to drop off a radio on a particular day, then never show if something more important comes up, leaving me or my wife sitting here waiting for their arrival. With that in mind I am, as a guideline setting aside Several days of the week for pick-up and drop off.

 

Tuesdays 1 PM - 5PM Drop Off

Thursdays 2PM - 5PM Pick-Up

Radio Repair Guy

 

GERMAN OR EUROPEAN RADIOS

The class of radios represented by Grundig, Telefunken, Saba, etc. are a special case of repair costs and value. These radios, which are generally very large table units, produce incredible sound through multiple speakers, large enclosures and just plain high quality. The components used in them are usually first class and wear well with time. They are, however, subject to failure in some components, dial string failures, etc. Though we have successfully repaired many Grundig, Telefunken, Saba, etc. radios,  they do represent unique challenges in repair such as:

1. DOCUMENTATION

It is sometimes difficult, or impossible, to acquire schematics and documentation on these radios. And if available, the documentation generally costs $15.00 to $25.00. [American radio documentation is basically free on the web except for unusual cases]

2. WEIGHT

They are simply a "bear" to handle in my shop. The radios, set up for repair, have to be outside the cabinet, but in close proximity to the cabinet, to repair.

3. SHIPPING WEIGHTS

The cabinets require (most of the time) a maximum size UPS box for shipping. This leads to very high shipping and packing charges because of dimensional weight and insurance concerns. Most of these radios cost between $135.00 to $170.00 to pack and ship UPS ground. UPS will not ship them in smaller boxes and stand behind the insurance. [See my notes on shipping].

As a result, when we accept one of these radios for repair, because of the issues above, we request an initial payment of $235.00 against possible repairs and return shipping. We have gotten burned too many times by under-estimating the shipping charges and being ignored when we submit a bill for the underpayment on shipping. When the final bill is tallied, the pack/ship will be estimated at $165.00. If the actual is under that amount we will refund the difference.

Radio Repair Guy