At a recent hamfest, I ran across a Panasonic R-1045.
Seller wanted $5 for it, but I declined. -- Never had a chance to look inside.
The cover was on tight and the quarter I was using started to bend. -- Oh noes!

Several hours later, the seller approached me and asked if I was interested.
Yeah, but not at that price point. -- Besides, I never even got to look inside.
He said, "Hey, I don't want to take this home. Will you give me $2 for it?"
Sure... what the heck. -- Can't go wrong for the price of a cheeseburger.

Got it home and thought to open it up. -- But before I did, its evident that
Panasonic made pretty good stuff during that era. -- Nice hefty solid feel.


Had to use a screwdriver just a few inches shy of a pry-bar. -- What a mess inside !


Took out the leaky batteries in hopes there wasn't too much damage.


Ok. - Not bad, but not really good either.
Spent about an hour cleaning and scraping off the corrosion.
Fortunately, it was limited to the battery contacts.
Hardest part was carefully removing the circuit board and speaker.


Well, there's only three (3) capacitors. -- 220ufd, 10ufd and 1ufd.
All came out easily and the new ones went back in smoothly.


Whilst doing some Googling for a possible schematic, I found something interesting.
The Panasonic R-1028 and R-1045 appear to have identical chassis.
Here's a picture from a recent eBay listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PANASONIC-R-102 ... 1085040715


Another interesting observation. -- The speaker in my Panasonic was made in Taiwan,
and the speaker on the eBay listing made in Japan. -- Both radios were made in Japan.

Ernst Erb asked me to make a note of the transistor lineup. -- So here goes.
OSC = 829 - B5? (Plastic case)
1st IF = A105 (Metal)
2nd IF = C829 - C5? (Plastic case)
Audio Driver = 2SB175 (Metal)
Final Output Transistors (2) = 2SB175 (Metal)

Got it back together and it fired right up. -- Plenty of volume for such a small radio.
Sensitivity it top notch for a pocket radio. -- Almost as good as my daily driver.

Will try to log some stations tonite and tomorrow so you can appreciate the performance.

Oh yeah... here's what it looks like after a little bit of work.


~ Mitch ~

You did a great job cleaning it up, Mitch!


I think however, the burning question is...Where can you get a cheeseburger for $2 these days?

Did you use any chemical to clean/ neutralize the corrosion?
Good job on the cleaning. Was corrosion on the speaker, or
just dirt? More of these battery radios have found their
way to the trash can because of battery leakage than
any other reason.

You're right Fifties... can't find a cheeseburger for $2 anywhere except the dollar menu at McDs.

Hi Brownie - Could have used vinegar to neutralize the corrosion, but didn't.
Just pulled the battery contacts completely out of the case and brushed off the 'dust'.
Then I scraped with an exacto knife, wiped with isopropanol alcohol and finally
a wire brush on the Dremel tool. -- After all that, I doubt any battery leakage remains.
Unfortunately, a lot of the nickle plating is gone, leaving the copper exposed underneath.

BTW, the dirt you saw on the speaker was just that... dirt and dust.
Looks like it was stored upright for many years, which probably
saved the circuit board from getting the battery leakage.
I'd bet if the previous owner had been able to get the cover off and
look inside, it would have most likely ended up in the trash can.

Anyone notice the perforations on each side of the board?
Looks like the factory could stuff and solder 5 or 6 boards at one time,
then 'snap' them apart to have the speaker and battery contacts added.
Even the earphone jack and antenna solder on the board as one piece.
There are no screws holding the circuit board in the case, it just snaps in.
No little screw holding the volume control knob either... it just slides on. -- Neat !

~ Mitch ~

...I'd put that in the first half of the 1970s somewhere. Call it a 'transitional' radio, with its mix of germanium and silicon transistors (the two black plastic ones are 2SC829, NPN silicon; the rest, 2SA105 and 2SB175, are PNP germanium; i. e., beginning to transition away from germanium). It has 'printed' resistors on it (the black patches on the component side of the PCB), like the (in)famous R-72 'Toot-a-Loop' did, which began appearing around 1972. Also, the type style of the logo is post-1971. I wonder where this radio came from (the 'National Panasonic' name identifies it as a non-US model)...

Nice radio Mitch. As Brownie45 said"More of these battery radios have found their way to the trash can because of battery leakage than any other reason." How true! I find it's fairly common. I've picked up several nice with this issue. Some were really a mess! Anyway, is there anything that you're planning for the scratches on the metal front? That would put a nice touch on it. Ken

Not much I can do with the scratches. -- They only go through the clear coating.
I suppose if I was ambitious enough, I'd strip the clear coat and apply a new one.
Too much trouble for a $2 radio. -- Looks much better in person.
Besides, the camera flash really accents the imperfections.

~ Mitch ~

I have an RF-506 that also takes 2-AA cells. What a great radio. I use it all the time around the house. The batteries last forever. Don't know why so many other mfrs had ti use the 9V battery


Jay

The Transistor nine volt battery was the standard for a long time, although some of the earlier sets did use 4 AA's. It wasn't until -I'm guessing the '90's- that two double or triple A batteries became the norm. Just the improvement in technology, as time has gone by.

does it work ?
great 2 dollar radio

Ok Mitch,here's my 2$ National Panasonic R-1046 under the Bradford badge.Sorry bout the cheesy pics but if ya look at the shot of the bottom you can barely read the model number.Would this one have been next in productoin...seems a tad older board caps etc.
Still very neat the model numbers are so close and by the by its a dandy little performer sumtimes use it for latenight dxing but mostly headphone out on bench as signal generator I learned here Great tip

Here we go

neat. how you say using it for a signal generator ?

Well perhaps that aint the best terminology for it but all I'm doin is injecting the audio out and ground to the circuit under test in an attempt to see how far the audio can be heard down the circuit path.Sometimes with luck you can identify a defective component that should be passing AF(audio from radio).Very primitve but helps me when I got a fussy one on the bench...it's as high tech as I get.If I wanna fix sumthin I just read posts here at the forum.Almost every scenario has been bridged if not in one post maybe multiple.A true wealth of info here as well as oodles of skilled members both generous with material things and most importantly sharing they're knowledge.I say hats off to all you guys..with the help ya get here near anyone can attempt repair/restoration whatever.
Cheers and beers

Rather poor reply since I should add Take yer headphone output and connect to two wires shield and center core to a pair of alligator clips.Turn on yer little radio you got this wire thing plugged into turn up the volume fairly high say 3/4 or so now clip one alligator clip to a known ground on the chassis yer checkin and then probe away with the the other touching spots on the circuit path of the radio in test.If it is powered on and certain parts of the AF RF chain are working you will hear yer little audio generator radio's output down the line of the circuit path.They're are points where the AF will not pass but as you experiment more and more you learn what to expect ...besides injecting that wee MV signal into most of these transistor jobs aint gonna hurt a thing so try it and have fun That's what its all about

You can also use that Transistor set (or about any radio) as an audio amp.
One lead to ground, and one to the center lug of the volume control. Connected to a simple Diode signal tracer you can build, makes a decent complete signal tracer.

Troz - I'm impressed.
Never thought the 'next' number from Panasonic would be branded under a third party.

That will keep the guys at RM.org guessing,
~ Mitch ~

P.S. - Still logging all the stations I receive with this little guy.
I'll have a list posted before too long.

Good job Mitch---neat looking radio...

Panasonic made a lot of good radios through the years...

John

Well done! Isn't it fun and rewarding when the job is done? Looks like you'll have that thing a long time if you want it. I sadly missed a great huge lot of transistor radios from a local guy on Craigslist. Over 100 radios and they went for less than 180 I think he said and when he went to ship them they weighed 94 pounds! I did get his lot of 100 tube radios though, I posted pics in the Antique Radio Discussions.


ET