Asking for help from all you radio boffins out there!! I have an FM/AM/LW separates tuner that has been in a cupboard for some time and now only works for about 5 minutes before ceasing to play the music. Turn it off, leave it for a while then turn on again and it works for about 5 minutes and stops. Grrrrr.
I am currently in China long term and my wife took it to a chap who fixes electrical stuff and he said it wasn’t worth fixing as the part that is probably defective is very difficult to obtain. Direct literal translation of what he described the component as is “Radio Head” and I have spent quite some time searching in Chinese and English, reading too many articles about Radiohead and their albums on the way!!! Even the Chinese language results mention the rock band and not a radio component part, and anyway, I thought there was only antenna, tuner, amplifier, speaker in a simple radio!!!
If anyone has any bright ideas what on earth the man was talking about I would be grateful and my Google searches might be more productive.
Thanks. :):rolleyes:
Radio Head is a song by Talking Heads from the 1986 album True Stories, and that’s where the band Radiohead got their name from. Hope that helps.
Regarding your tuner - it sounds like a warm-up fault, where a faulty component stops working once the temperature rises (usually from self-heating). Normally I would suspect a power supply component, but if you’ve still got LEDs/display still lit up when the tuner dies then it’s probably something else, possibly one of the chips in the tuner section. Freezer spray can be useful to identify components that pack up at higher temperatures, though it has to be used judiciously as it tends to leave behind a layer of frost which then melts to dew that can affect circuit operation and/or cause corrosion.
If you can identify the faulty component it should be possible to google the part number written on the package to check availability. Whatever the part is, someone somewhere will have one, it just depends on how much trouble you’re willing to go to to fix your tuner. If it’s a microprocessor that’s faulty then you’re a bit stuffed as you’ll also need the firmware to program into it. Often it’s cheaper just to buy a new tuner.
Could also be a bad solder joint that is opening with warm up. Use a PLASTIC probe to poke around and see if poking any component is a temporary fix.