Last year I bought a vintage AM/FM tuner that matched my Yamaha amplifier. Seller of course said everything was working fine, and indeed it was—if you kept it turned on 24/7. Otherwise if you turned it off it would forget all it’s settings and memorized stations. Irritating, to say the least.
Now listen, Phoenix is a radio wasteland bearing little resemblance to the smorgasbord it was in the 70s and 80s (as I suppose most locations are these days). Still, I like to have a tuner around for the classical and the NPR/Jazz station. Six months ago the NPR/Jazz station announced they were dropping the Jazz altogether in favor or talking/babbling heads 24/7. They’d already cut back on the music to three nights a week from 8 pm to midnight, so this didn’t come as a compete shock…and they did still offer Jazz 24/7 on their HD2 station. (I can receive this in my car, thankfully.)
Apparently all Yamaha tuners of the period (mid 80s) have developed an issue with the “super capacitor” that keeps power trickling to the memory chip that retains all the settings when the unit is turned off. From what I read, swapping it out with a new one was a fairly simple procedure, but based on my track record of working with electronics—not to mention the amount of disassembly required to get to it and unsolder the thing from the back of the circuit board—it wasn’t something I was in any rush to tackle. So I disconnected it from the system altogether and put it away in a closet.
Well, bored out of my mind, I pulled it back out a couple days ago and did a run through of the disassembly and realized it wasn’t all that bad. So I ordered the necessary capacitor (actually two different physical designs to guarantee proper fit since the original was no longer readily available).
The new caps arrived today and after doing a test fit to make sure the legs lined up with the holes in the board, I desoldered the old one and soldered the new cap in place.
I put everything back together to a degree that I could test it, plugged it in, turned it on, and…no puff of smoke! Success! Everything seemed to work, and it was actually retaining stored stations again if you turned if off.
My only disappointment is that radio reception itself in this house is horrific and the standard wire ribbon antenna has never cut it…so I’m still a little disappointed. But I’m ecstatic that I fixed it.
But wait! There’s more to this story. Now that it’s working I’m actually going to turn around and sell it.
Why? Because I found a beauty—while a year or two older than my amp—that complements its design wonderfully. It’s old school with a motorized analog dial and while it has the option to store 5 stations in a memory chip on board, it’s got a battery backup (hard to tell from the pictures I’ve found, but apparently just a standard double-A cell) that will store the info for up to two months if the unit is unplugged.
I spotted it on eBay the other day, but got sniped in the last fifteen seconds by another bidder who was willing to pay way more than I was. But wouldn’t you know, I found another unit on Reverb for less than my maximum bid on the eBay unit. I turned around and then offered the seller $25 less than that and he took the offer and threw in free shipping. It should be here next week.
Try the app “Radio Garden” — radio stations from around the world including Jazz. And so much more. I play it in the car and using a Blue tooth speaker at home. (I am not an audiophile like you but I do enjoy certain genres of music).