Radio News 04-1948 (First Episode)

JOHN T. FRYE

Born 1910, near Weiner, Arkansas, moved to

Logansport, Indiana in 1924, attended Logansport
High School, continued his studies at Indiana,
Chicago, and Columbia Universities. Has been in
radio servicing since 1928. Started with a battery
tester, a soldering iron, and a confident look.
Secured amateur license W9EGV in 1932 and radio
has since remained an avocation as well as a
vocation.

MAC HIRES A HELPER

MAC was pleased to find his brand-new assistant waiting at the door of the shop when he came down to
open up. The kid greeted him with a shy smile, his curly red hair looking like a torch in the bright rays of the
Spring sun.

"Right on time, eh Barney?" Mac said as he unlocked the door of the radio shop and motioned the youth
inside.
"Yes, sir. Mom was so afraid that I might be late for work the very first day that she had me eating breakfast
at five-thirty."

Mac's leathery face wrinkled in a sympathetic grin as he shrugged his broad shoulders into his shop coat and
fastened the belt. He waved the boy w into a chair and leaned back against the desk in front of him.
Barney," he asked, "just how much do you know about radio service?"

"Not much that I'm really sure of, Mr. McGregor," Barney confessed. "I had a little radio theory in physics
in high school, and I picked up some more while I was studying to get my amateur license. My transmitter
and some of the other gear around the ham shack are home-built, but that was mostly a case of copying them
out of books and magazines. I think you had better just figure that I am plenty dumb about radio but that I
don't want to stay that way."

"Good! The less a fellow thinks he knows about anything the easier he learns. You will pick up a lot just
watching and listening, but that is not enough. If we are going to make a real serviceman out of you, you
must know the 'why' as well as the 'how' of fixing radios. I'll give you some books to read, and I want to hear
you corning up with lots of questions. If I can, I'll answer them; and if I can't we'll dig out the answers
together."

Barney nodded his head vigorously in approval of this program.

"Well," Mac said, picking up some cardboard tags from the desk, "we may as well start right now. Miss
Perkins usually takes care of things up front here, but she doesn't come to work until nine o'clock.
Incidentally, do not let her fool you. She likes to think that she is a sharp-tongued old sour-puss, while she
really has a heart as big and as soft as they come but don't ever let her know you know it."

Barney's blue eyes twinkled. "I think I understand, sir. Mom is a little like that."

"As I was saying," Mac went on, "there will be times, say during her lunch hour, when you will have to take
sets in. When you do, always fill out one of these cards and fasten it to the set."

He handed one of the numbered tags to Barney and continued. "Be sure to get down correctly the name,
address, and phone number of the customer. On that space on the back, write out the complaint with the set.
Is it dead? noisy? distorting? cutting out? How long has it been that way? If if cuts out, how long does it take
for It to do so after it has been turned on? Does it cut out entirely or just drop in volume? Does the dial lamp
go out? Does anything such as jarring the set or snapping on a light seem to bring it back? Does the trouble
occur at any particular time of day or on any particular station?"

Barney's eyes were beginning to look a little glazed, but Mac went on relentlessly. "Don't forget to ask the
customer if he can think of any little things he noticed wrong with the receiver before this last trouble
showed up, little things that did not warrant taking it to a repairman but which he would like to have
corrected while it is in the shop?"

"Are we just giving him a sales line, sir?" Barney asked.

The corners of Mac's mouth twitched at that "we," but he explained gravely, "Not at all! It is true that the
customer likes to have his troubles taken seriously, but those questions are to help us. Quite often a minute
spent in getting information on a set's behavior will save you an hour hunting trouble. Miss Perkins is a jim
dandy at collecting this information, and often the trouble with a set can be figured out just from reading
what she has down on the card. She is good."

"I suppose the fellow who reads the card has to know a little something, too," Barney ventured without a
trace of a smile.
"It helps," Mac agreed, looking at him sharply. "What do I do with the set after I "That depends on whether
or not it is an 'intermittent'. An intermittent is any set that has some trouble that shows up only part of the
time. The trouble may be cutting out, changes in volume, distortion, and so on; but if the condition comes
and goes, the set is an intermittent."

"What do I do with one of those?"

"Mostly nothing, except to carry it gently back into the shop. I want these sets disturbed just as little as
possible until I get a chance to hear them misbehave. They can tell you a lot about what ails them if you can
just hear them go through their routine once."

"What if the sets are not intermittent?"

"First, check to see if there is a way of knowing where the tubes belong, either in the form of a chart pasted
to the cabinet or chassis or by numbers stamped on or near the sockets. If not, draw up a little tube -position
chart before taking out the tubes."

"Do I check the tubes?"

"Not until I have shown you how I want it done. You just wipe them clean, using carbon-tetrachloride to
remove any gum, and place them in a cardboard box together with the tube - diagram and the tag number of
the set to which they belong. Come on back in the shop and I'll show you what you do then."

Barney followed Mac through the swinging-door back into the service shop. Mac went across the room and
opened the door of a small closet-like compartment. Inside was a short bench with a metal hood arrangement
that came down to within about eighteen inches of the top of the bench.

"Here is where you clean up the chassis and speaker of each set after you have taken them out of the
cabinet," Mac explained. He snapped a switch, and there was the whir of a powerful fan accompanied by the
throbbing of a small paint -spray compressor underneath the bench.

"You put the chassis on this bench and turn on that exhaust fan," Mac yelled above the noise. "Then you use
these brushes to brush off all the dust and lint you can. The fan will carry it off. The compressed-air jet here
will help a lot, too. Be sure and blow the dust out of the tuning condenser plates. If there is any gummy dirt
on the chassis -and there usually is around the transformer -use the car-bon-tet to loosen it and wipe it off.
Clean the speaker, too. The main point is that I want all the dirt off. I want every chassis and every speaker
to be shining clean before you set them on the service bench."

Mac turned off the switch and closed the door. From a cabinet he took out a little hand -type vacuum
cleaner.

"This," he explained, "is the gadget you use to clean out the cabinets, helping things along a bit in the
corners with a little brush. After the cabinet is all cleaned inside, you wipe off the outside with a damp cloth
and then go over it with furniture polish."

He stopped talking to find Barney grinning broadly.

"What's so funny?" Mac asked.

"I was just thinking that Mom was a little worried at first about my working in a radio shop. She was afraid I
might get electrocuted. When I go home tonight I am going to tell her that the worst she has to worry about
is that I'll be getting dishpan hands or housemaid's knee."
"I suppose it does sound a little that way now," Mac said, "but radio servicing is a lot more things than
watching a pattern on a scope. Good preparation is half of any job. All this asking questions and this
cleaning may not sound very glamorous, but they are part of the preparation. The questions tell you what to
look for and where to look. You will find, too, that there is something about a bright, clean radio that makes
you do your workmanlike best on it."

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Mr. McGregor," Barney said in quick seriousness. "I was just making
a little joke for Mom."

"I realize that, Barney; and what say we drop the `Mr. McGregor' business. I'll settle for 'Mac.'

"In a twinkling Barney's face was wreathed in its usual grin. "Okay, Mac," he said softly, "and you may as
well quit fighting it and start calling me `Red.' You know you want to!