LATE MODEL virgin TA-600.....Nudies inside....

Got a 600-TA today from another AK'er. Some tubes missing, but not a problem. Popped the Cherry on the bottom lid. STILL VIRGIN! Lot's of "DOGTURDS" 5 Frako lytics, and 3 Multiple can caps. Rather than start a new thread on the restoration, I'll just add that in here.

The Front plate is PRISTINE, the actions are very smooth for the pots, and crisp and positive for the slide switches.

Gonna pull the tubes, test them, and clean the chassis with Scrubbing bubbles, then 91% Isopropyl.

Have to order caps, a 5AR4 Rectumfrier.

I've got a mixed quad of 7189's that are matched gm per side and 250gm between the sides. Minimum on my Philco 9100 is 7500 and these tubes run a pair 11,500 (Russian & Fisher) and 11,750 (Russian and RCA).

Does anyone think I should do a 1980 OLYMPICS HOCKEY Here(How many remember that without having seen the movie?). Russian tubes on one channel and USA Tubes on the other?

Gonna be a into Late Fall project. And it will have a permanent home inside of my CORONET II Console Cabinet. (Now to make a new faceplate unless DEREKVA still has one).

PICS! Shot in my 18ft Travel Trailer. That's why it looks like it's stuck up (the pole in 4th pic!).

Beautiful gear Larry!!!

Contrats!!!!

Thanks Luis. The chassis is real dull, combination of the cadmium plating and baked in 53 year old dust. Hopefully the scrubbling bubbles will take most of it off.

I put a thread up in the TUBE FORUM asking about the 5AR4 tube and possible substitues.

Larry

Never seen that style front panel in good condition like that before.
Great catch.

Great looking receiver! I've heard these sound good as well. Does the Scrubbing Bubbles followed by the 91% Iso Alc. solution leave the lettering intact? (My 800C letters want to flake off if I even touch them).

I just now ran the Alcohol Bath, along with DeOxit D-5 in the controls, followed by Faderlube F5. The scrubbing bubbles won't take the lettering off. neither will the Alcohol. But if you've got one of those units with sensitive lettering, Just clean around them. a clear coat when dry will act as a fixative. Use a matte clear coat as the finish is originally dull looking.

Larry

That is one sweet receiver. I just rebuilt a Fisher 101 Control Amplifier. It sounds great. I liked the rectifier tube too.

1st order of business was to fix the AM antenna. It's a non movable phenolic piece, riveted to a piece of sheet metal and angled at 45*. Someone in the past either didn't heed the "DO NOT USE THIS AS A HANDLE Warning or pushed it up against a wall and snapped it off at the end of the metal. Also the wires had been broken off at the terminal strip and the mount terminals.

Got some 30 minute MARINE epoxy. Scraped Clean the ends that had been glued, and epoxied the ends together. I took a 2"x2" Ratshack perfboard and clipped it into smaller pieces to bridge the phenolic from the bottom to the top. Epoxied these to the mount and let it sit overnight. Installed and soldered the wires back on.

Yeah, I could have removed the original stub left on the metal, drilled two holes in the remainder, and mounted the remainder with rivets. But I'd rather have the epoxied joint let go rather than risk the remainder of the 55 year old phenolic. And it gets the antenna further away from the heat of the 7189's this way and possibly some interference.

The black line denotes where the phenolic broke just at the top of the metal.


Another view from the side

These two show just how clean/minimally discolored the Front piece is and the cadmium plating on this chassis. Lot's of DIAGONAL Striations in the plating that don't show real well outside. If I was really ANAL I'd hit it again with the Scrubbing bubbles and a STIFF Brush especially around the 6AQ8/6DJ8 and the Center 12ax7 pair.

BUT as it's going into a console I'm not gonna worry about it. It's clean enough for a console.

I hadn't noticed before but it's got 4 shorting plugs in the "B" Channel AUX, MPX, Tape Head, Phono inputs. Guess to keep the one channel from humming while listening to a MONO Source.





Gonna re-open the underside and make a list of the lytics, and those "dogturd" mylars. Figure either Mallory or CDE Axials for everything but the outputs and OD's for the output caps. Nichicon's for the Frako's and I may stuff the can's. Mostly 40's, 30's, 20's, and 10's. Then again maybe 40's for everything in the can caps (C37 is 40/450, 40/400, 20/300x2; C39 is 40/300, 40/250, 40/250 ; C80 is 10/200x2 and 30/300x2)

C37A is 1st off the 5AR4 and C39A is 1st off the 6V4. Or I can go AES and see if I can find anything close, or get Tom @ Hayseed to build me some to spec or a little above.

And find me some Tube Shields for the 12ax7's, 6AQ8,6DJ8, 7247's. 8 total.

Larry

Very nice TA-600. I've owned mine for about five years. I replaced all the caps, multi section electrolytics, a couple of resistors. After the resto the TA is an amazing sounding receiver. I also prefer the color of the older faceplates compared to the later receivers. The mono FM even sounds really nice. If I had to part with any of my Fisher gear, the TA would be the last to go.

You scored a pristine example!

Raining all morning so with a lack of anything else to do, I inventoried stock and found about 1/2 of the film caps I needed, plus some UF4007's. SO I opened her up and started with the seriesed DIODE's at the 5ar4 Rectifier tube. Installed a 3 terminal strip about an inch from the tube and removed the wires from pins 4 & 6 being careful to put them in the same orientation as before on the terminal strip. Then I added a diode (band to the tube) from each terminal to pins 5 and 7. Then another diode from 7 to 6 (band side) and another from 5 to 4(band side)

Diodes Start


Diodes 1/2way there I put the 2nd diodes on the bottom hole and the 1st on the top hole


Diodes finished. I did tuck the transformer leads back in the pack away from the 220oHm 5W resistors.



After that I replaced all the .002 200v black pyramid caps on V13 and V19 with .0022 630V DME's(4). And the .01 250V "light brown Dogturds" with .01 630V DME's The only thing left in that area are a couple of .047's and .022's.(on order).

And found 4 CDE MMP's .1uf 630v that I had in the 800C for a while. So in they went.

Caps @ V13


Caps @ V19


Overall shot for the day The left most coupling cap lead is 3/8 to 1/2" above the stud/nut it just looks like it's about touching.


Note that this particular 600 only has TWO coupling caps between the drivers and the outputs. In earlier 10001 to 49999 serial units the drivers were 7199's with 3 coupling caps. In the 50001-59999 serial units the drivers are 7247/12DW7's. So the circuit changed accordingly. Specifically C-122 and 125 were changed from Mylar .1uf 400V to 2pf 1000V ceramics and now do a different job


See pictures in post #13


As soon as the mouser order comes in and it rains again, I'll finish up the films, and change the FRAKO lytics for Nichicons. Boy are they BURIED in the 600-TA!!! In case anyone is wondering, no I have NOT plugged it in yet. And dont plan to until the recap/initial testing (ohmmeter) is done.

The only thing after that is the Filter caps. It's a toss up either stuff them or get a trio from Tom @ Hayseed. $$$ there is no contest, but I do like Tom's can caps.

Larry

Dad was up on the Sub today(We both volunteer on the Museum boat in Baltimore, and he's the Electronics Dept.) and looked thru the inventory for 5AR4's and struck out. So I'm gonna have to cough up some $$$ for 2. I'm gonna get a SOVTEK from Jim McShane right now and later see if I can scarf a Mullard built cheap.

Didn't have any 25uf lytics to replace the Frako's next to the output couplers so I used some Nichicon UKL 33uf 50V.

Here's the pics I couldn't load in post #11.

They detail the changes from 3 coupling caps to 2 coupling caps from the Earlier 10001-19999, 20001-29999, 400001-49999 series (ALL USED 7199's for Driver/phase Inverter tubes) and the late 50001-59999 series that had 2 coupling caps and used the 7247 /12DW7 tube as the Driver/phase Inverter.

10001-49999 series inclusive


50001-59999 series




And a picture of KPAXFAQ's 600-TA he did a couple years ago. Note the 6 .1uf caps in his older version vs. 4 in in my newer version. There are other differences between the 2 circuits, but this is the most glaring. Just so someone down the road doesn't think there is something wrong or missing with his unit.

Speaking of Fisher's faceplate dating, as you were in another thread, have you checked the back side of your TA-600's for its birthday? I'm curious since it has such a high serial number. I seem to recall mine was June 1959.

I have a sheet somewhere that lists all the changes made on late model TA-600s if that would be of interest. For the most part it is the replacement of discreet R/C networks with PECs. I did note yours lacks the enormous wirewound resistor used in the early models. Removing that certainly created a noticeable empty spot in an otherwise heavily populated neighborhood.

Red; No date stamps anywhere on the unit, faceplate, bottom plate. :tears:There is a stamp next to the 4 section can inside that is faint. It reads "114" with nothing else on it.

I'm thinking it's probably a late'61 model year, as the 500B and 800B came out in model year 62, replacing the the 600TA and 800TA IIRC. The highest serial numbered per the manuals is 59999 and this one is close (59303K). If that is correct with production numbers then it was probably made the last month or so they made them. Remember Apple Scruff said they made the units in lots of 1000 @ Milroy. Wonder if that was a Co wide policy. If so this is one of the last 1K made.

Definately interested in the change sheet. No rush tho. Thanks.

Larry

UNEXPECTED NEWS today! A friend of mine is mailing an IEC branded MULLARD GZ-34 coded f32 B5G1, GRATIS!!! As I don't know tube code from Morse code, I did some googling and came up with............. it's made at the BLACKBURN plant, and built 1st week of July either 1955, 1965, or 1975. He's letting me figure it out. I should get it by the end of the week. Mouser order and Hayseed Hamfest order are waiting on funds from the bank in the morning. FINALLY UNDERWAY by the weekend.

Larry

How did I miss this thread? What a great receiver. I am anxious to hear how it compares to the other Fishers when you get it up and running. I am a big fan of the 7189's, EL84's I have a set of Fisher 7189's in my 18 watt Marshal clone I built.

IIRC the quad I have in there are a mix of 2 Russian 6p14P-EV's, a Fisher Branded 7189 and an RCA Branded. On my Philco 9100, 2 of them show 11750 for gm , and the other two 11500 for gm. All show in the weak area for emissions. Life test showed fairly good for all 4 (drop heater voltage to 5v and watch the needle. none dropped more than 2 marks) That might be due to them not being run for a good while. They came out of my '64 Custom Electra VII.

I just ordered the can's from Hayseed, and the rest of the parts from Mouser. So I have something to do over the weekend, maybe.

Just ordered a quad of 6P14P-EV's from COMRADE Komir on ebay! Be here Mid-Late Sept.

The GZ-34 came in the Mail Friday. Put it in and fired it up on the variac and DBT over an 8 hour period. Voltages are Ok. But output on the "A" Channel is non existant except for some slight sound with the volume all the way up. "B" channel is 50%. I can loop the MPX in and OUT and get sound that is about 75%-80% of what I would expect from a 7189 unit. Haven't changed any of the lytics, etc. yet.

Critical to Serious condition. on Life support! Now to get the rest of the ordered parts.

FedEx has the Mouser order. Shipped Wednesday from Tx, thru Ky, and to within 50 miles from home (Hagerstown md.). From Hagerstown it should have come to Baltimore for delivery y'day. Instead it went to CHICAGO! WTF???? Where next?? Auckland N.Z. and Moscow via Johanessburg and Rekyavik???? SUPOSSEDLY Due here Tues or Wed! they got a NASTY PHONE CALL about idiots that work for FEDEX and their complete dependence on GPS, and lack of common navigational skills.......