Problematic Spidola 231
Hello,
I received a Spidola 231 in the mail yesterday, and I'm pretty sure I bought it for the Young Octobrist pins the seller put in the box.
This one seems different than my other Soviet radios. The turret tuner is present, but a different design than one would find in a VEF 206 or Selena 2XX series. The contacts on the small boards in the turret are flat, and they're swept through two metal contacts that meet in a V in the center. The bands are LW, MW, 52M, 49M, 41M, 31M, and 25M. There is space on the turret for two additional boards. Seems some of these came with VHF, but not this one.
Cosmetically, it's decent. Sadly, I had to break the factory seal on the back to get into it. Someone left batteries in it to leak at some point, and the sponge was deteriorated and left dust everywhere.
I'm going to take the battery terminals out and let them soak in rust remover. I tried to sand the rust off, and while that helped, it wasn't a cure.
Of course, I've had to see if I could make it work, so I put six good D cells in and switched it on. The speaker popped, but that was it. No reception. I've since taken each one of the boards off the turret and carefully used Tarnite metal polish on the terminals. They may not be perfectly clean, but they're a whole lot better than they were. Some of them were completely black before I used the polish.
After doing that, I had another go, but got the same response. There's a transformer down near the battery box that gets hot to the touch, and I wonder if it's having a problem. I really expected the terminal cleaning to make a change. Also, nothing happens when I turn what I think is the volume control. No crackles, static, more hissing...
Sadly, it seems there's precious little information about these out there. I would like to get it going if at all possible. Any assistance would be appreciated.
Thank you,
-William
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