Sony ICF-6500W sw radio receiver

[22codfish]

The three short wave bands are:
SW1 3.9 - 10 MHz
SW2 117 - 20 MHz
SW3 20 - 28 MHz
It has both a LCD & electrical/mechanical fast/ fine tuning displays; also FM & MW bands.
This radio receiver is both 5 x c battery/120 volt powered, which we used during power shortages and a few times in the backyard.

During the last power outage, I took this radio out of long-term storage, but the tuner wouldn't work properly with either battery or 120 volt house-power. The tuner electronic display would not agree with the mechanical scale reading.

I opened the back and saw a lot of wax on the electronics board, so I took it to Bligh TV Repair in Dartmouth. They kindly advised condensers leak wax after years and only used parts are available, and only from the internet; but kept the radio for a quick check-over. Afterwards they confirmed it was not worth fixing and it looked like the tuner also had issues.

Instead of committing my cherished SW receiver to their trash bin; I took it home hoping for a miracle from someone familiar with repair parts for short wave radio and how to fix them.

Suggestions to help get my old radio get fixed will be appreciated. If it can't be fixed, would the parts of any use to someone? After forty years, it's still such a nice solid looking radio, I would hate to trash it.

 

[mikewazowski]

Thread moved.

 

[Boombox]

First of all: does the radio work otherwise? Is the only problem the electronic tuner readout? It's not clear from your post.

If I were you, at the very least I would just use the radio and depend on the analog tuning dial, and ignore the digital readout.

First thing that came to mind from reading your post is that electrolytic capacitors from that era (late 1970's -- early 80's) generally don't fry or leak on transistor radios, especially in radios that are primarily battery powered. Even electrolytic problems on 80's era boomboxes are fairly rare.

I have radios much older than your 6500W and have yet to see an electrolytic fry or leak, unless there was some externally induced damage (example: I have a Superadio III that got sprayed by some salt water, that got inside the bottom of the radio, and it rusted away the bottom half of two electrolytics, which I had to replace -- the rest of the electrolytics are in perfect condition).

I have had some old, cheaply built transistor radios that have noise issues, which could be bad electrolytics or bad transistors -- but other old ones that were higher (or even cheaper) build quality work perfectly.

Sony usually made high quality radios. The main deficit of Sonys of that era is some bandswitch mechanisms could go funky, depending on the design. I had a 5900W that only worked on MW and FM because of that. But that radio was built in the 70's, not the 80's.

The presence of "wax" in your radio may be part of the manufacturing process. The inside of my ICF5900W had wax on the PCB in places, to hold things in place. There apparently was a wax like coating that Sony used on its PCBs of that era. That's what a radio restorer guy on another forum said.

Sometimes the biggest problems radios have are the simplest ones: Oxidation in switches and controls. A bandswitch that has oxidation on the points somewhere may not function properly, and there may be many points on the switch to control the radio circuits as well as the tuner circuitry. I would exercise all the switches repeatedly and see if that may clear up the problem.

A radio that sits will eventually develop a little oxidation on switch points. So exercise the switches, see if that changes anything. Exercise the tuner a little, also.

Otherwise, it's possible it could be a solder joint went bad. That can happen.

At any rate, if you can still use the radio with the analog dial, that's what I would do in your situation, rather than junk it.

If someone else here doesn't have any better answers for you, there is a fine radio repair forum (Antique Radio Forum) that has lots of guys who repair transistor radios (I think one of the guys hangs out here, too), and could give you an idea of what the problem may be. A couple of them repair Panasonics, GEs, and Sonys from the 70's and 80's.

Good luck, and hope this helps some.

 

[jackj]

Radios that use discrete components in the front-end will often be troubled by microphonics. To reduce this problem, manufactures will pour a soft wax-like substance over the parts to stablize them. It didn't come from leaking capacitors so I wouldn't worry about it. Also, if the tech didn't already know that then I wouldn't take anything back to them for repair.

 

[Boombox]

Curious to see if the OP's 6500W is working o.k. or not.

From what I've read, it's a decent MW DX radio.