[Miguel Lopez]

A new challenge.

Well, an uncle of mine has a Siboney radio. This is a Cuban copy of the Soviet Spidola 231. It is the worst Soviet radio among those who were sold in Cuba during the Soviet period, but it works. Problem is that my uncle love to hear baseball on it. In Cuba, baseball is passion, and my uncle is very passionate. From time to time the old Siboney stops talking (due to bad contacts on the turret or pot slider), and my uncle, lacking patience, hit the radio to make it talk again (similar to a Gestapo agent).

Results: The radio is in very bad condition (simlar to a prisoner of Gestapo). I fix it from time to time, when the damage is very huge (mechanical damage mostly), but the last time I suggested him to find an old VEF 206 radio that a friend of him would have abandoned in a remote corner (there are a lot of VEF-206 on such status in Cuba, I can assure) in order to restore it and replace the Siboney. I have some experience with the VEF, but almost nothing on the Siboney (pendant homework). I also have some parts for the VEF but I'm not sure for the Siboney, which is more complex.

My uncle found a VEF very quickly, cause as I said, there are a lot of them in Cuba. The set is in bad condition too, but it is in one piece (except for the handle). The speaker has several holes, because Cuban cockroachs love the paper from Soviet speakers and they eat it, openning holes. The PCB had a potter wasp nest on it

I think I can restore this set to an acceptable working condition and then retire the battered Siboney.

Here some pictures of the VEF-206 set