Photos submitted by triple j listeners.
(Source: RadioInfo via William Lee)
The topic of dirty radios cropped up on triple j yesterday, following a conversation between presenter Alex Dyson and listener Ryan from Wollongong.
[…]By the time Dyson and Ryn finished their chat, the triple j textline was bursting with pictures of filthy radios. And since most were from work sites, Joe from Whittlesea helpully pointed out that they’re actually TradieOs™: radios belonging to tradies.
Read more at: https://www.radioinfo.com.au/news/australias-filthiest-radio
I had a radio that, I believe, might have won this competition! It was a Grundig S350 that I used on site as I built my house. One of my sub contractors borrowed it to listen to music in the attic space as he worked up there. The following day, a crew arrived to install spray foam insulation between our rafters. The crew never noticed the radio until it was too late and the entire thing was covered in foam spray. I wish I would have snapped a photo of it. I scraped off all of the spray foam, but the radio was forever ugly–still worked great, though! I believe I eventually gave it to one of my subs.
Post readers: Care to share photos of your dirtiest radios? Please comment or contact me with photos. If I receive enough, I’ll make a separate feature post!
The 3rd radio I restored, about 35 years ago, was a shed find – an old Kriesler 11-4 “Beehive” that, as well as being buried and covered in about an inch of bird crap, did actually have native bees living inside.
Apart from the hive I had to dig out from under one half of the chassis it was remarkably clean inside, with no sign of the usual spiders/mice/etc and not a spot of rust. The outside cleaned up very nicely too, and it worked perfectly until I gave it away a few years later when I drifted out of the hobby. I wIsh I hadn’t now, because they’re quite sought after and expensive these days.
A hot bucket of soapy citrus and ammonia cleaner, a sponge and a bristle brush will go a long way. I cleaned up a Radio Shack DX-440 and it looks and works just fine
One summer, as a teen in the late 1970s, I got a job repairing two way radios. This was a shop that did commercial installations for many clients, including taxi cabs, delivery trucks, and the like. One day, a garbage truck pulled up to the shop. The radio wasn’t working. These were Motorola MOTRACs, which while they weren’t the fanciest solid state radios, were still serious work-horse radios of the time.
The radio was actually behind the bench seat in the cab. The control head was under the panel of the garbage truck. I checked the control head and all appeared to be okay. I suspected a loose A-Lead connection, so I looked at the radio behind the bench seat.
I shouldn’t have.
It was summer time and there was mold, and rotting things back there that I couldn’t identify. I guess that when you are working around garbage all day, that sort of thing wouldn’t bother you much. But I couldn’t handle it. I put on a pair of gloves, removed the radio and immediately swabbed it down with as much rubbing alcohol and paper towels as I could use to get most of the funk off of the radio.
Only then I did I look at it on the bench. It was fine. The problem turned out to be a blown fuse at the battery because the A-Lead had cut through the grommet in the firewall.
That’s when I learned to check the easier stuff first.
Great story with just enough – but not too much – of the graphic picture : )