Bench: Zenith Royal 500H, 1962

Tue 3 Nov. Mercer Street. Zenith Royal 500H, 1962, leather case, brought in by a woman from Bayonne who found it in her father's garage.

Fault: loud crackle whenever the volume moves. AM dead below about 800 kHz. Above that, fine.

Fix: volume pot cleaned and worked fifty turns until the crackle stopped. Two electrolytics replaced, 10 µF and 100 µF, both bulged. The low end was the oscillator coil: the ferrite slug had cracked in half and would not track. Mr. Delacroix keeps a coffee can labeled ROYALS. There was a good coil in it. Realigned with the signal generator, 15:10 to 15:35.

After: a soft click on the switch, a hiss that rises with the volume and then sits down, and WOR on 710, clear on the first sweep. Then the traffic report.

Mr. Delacroix listened for ten seconds and said the radio was fine, it was the traffic that was broken. The owner picks it up Thursday. The bench recording is 6:12 and goes in the Night archive.