Fix-It success story: A 1937 radio passed through a family
Tracy La Vere was a teenager when she last heard music flow from her grandfather’s radio. A relic from 1937, the Philco 37-9X Console Radio sat unused for decades in their family home.
“It had been tucked into a corner and used as another horizontal space,” La Vere said.
The radio had been purchased secondhand and stayed in the family. It moved from Mississippi to Louisiana with La Vere's mother. La Vere inherited the radio and although it survived the journey up to Minnesota, it hadn’t been turned on in years. It no longer worked and the components that needed replacement were no longer manufactured.
La Vere heard about Ramsey County’s Fix-It Clinic program through connections at the Minnesota Tool Library. She showed up to last December’s clinic at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and was paired with a volunteer Fixer named Rod Basham and his grandson, Caleb Ihla.
A Fix-It Clinic volunteer for over a decade, Basham had been trained and employed in electronics since he was in high school. Now retired, he restores 1930s through 1960s tube radios. He’s teaching these skills to his grandson.
Basham heard the story of the radio from another volunteer who knew La Vere. He and his grandson showed up to the December Fix-It Clinic ready with tools, parts and diagrams. Basham explained that this project was, in his words “a get-it-running fix, not a restoration.”
They spent all three hours of the event carefully deconstructing the radio, testing all of the coils and transformers. They then began the long process of replacing old parts, including power supply parts and audio parts. When they checked their progress, the radio faintly received a station. Even though it was soft, it was the first time in a long time that sound came through.
Basham and Ihla agreed to return to the project at the next Fix-It Clinic.
At the January Fix-It Clinic at the Saint Paul Public Library in Hayden Heights, they spent all three hours working on the radio. They tested and replaced parts that had deteriorated in the 85 years. This time, the radio did not receive any stations.
"One section of the radio was not getting the proper voltage to detect the radio stations,” Basham said.
They gave La Vere “homework” to do after the Fix-It Clinic. Following the diagram, she followed the wires to try to find where the issue was.
The next Fix-It Clinic was at the end of February at the Ramsey County Library in Maplewood. La Vere had already decided that this was the last clinic she would bring the radio to.
“We had already spent so much time at other Fix-It Clinics and wanted to free up space for other people,” she said.
Basham and Ihla started by tracing the circuits to look for the missing connection to the “dead section” of the radio. They finally found the missing link after doing more wire tracing and rewired to a new part so that the voltage on that wire connected to the dead section.
In less than two hours, music erupted out of the old speakers, rising over the din of voices and tools. Cheers erupted from the other volunteers, with participants joining in soon after.
Victorious, La Vere rang the Fix-It bell to let everyone in the room know her item was successfully repaired. Everyone clapped and cheered one last time for La Vere, Basham, Ihla and the radio they didn’t give up on.
Do you have a broken household item or clothing that needs mending? Come to a Fix-It Clinic! This free program lets you work with skilled volunteers to fix your broken item and learn repair skills of your own.
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