A cold war era reel-to-reel

Tesla B115 teardown, cleaning and repair

By AP, January 2, 2017

This old reel-to-reel was the joy of my teenager days, Back in eighties I was listening to VOA and Radio Kuweit and I was recording mostly on east-german OR-WO tapes (that were quite decent) because the BASF and Agfa were in shortage. Western music reached the black market usually by pilots that were operating civil aircrafts and were smuggling tons of vinyls; later on, especially during the peak of casette era, there was an entire underground industry for music multiplication.

This is a project that will take some time: a proper reconditioning of this Tesla B115 reel-to-reel, a superb machine for its simplicity. I am constantly amazed by what engineers were designing during those days just using paper and pencil and – maybe – a pocket calculator.

Previous and next posts

Năsăud Cup, 2017

By AP, August 5, 2017

There is nothing better than marrying several hobbies and have fun from it. I have had the intention to be part of this expedition at least since I heard about this contest for the first time. My good friends from Năsăud planned this thoroughly. All our equipment was carried by three 4×4, manned by a […]

Ferrite beads

By AP, November 16, 2016

I ordered some ferrite beads for a RF circulator project I currently work on but these might also be very handy for the SWR bridge project. These are extremely efficient for RF supression, or at least this is what they say.

Repair of a cassette deck

By AP, October 25, 2017

casette | cleaning | repair | SONY | teardown

I twenty dollars for this superb cassette deck. The playback and recording heads were in excellent shape and I used this deck for some years, playing and recording on NOS (new old stock) tapes, mostly chrome type II and metal – type IV, that I purchased on eBay. However, one day the entire head block […]

Cleaning my old Panasonic phone

By AP, October 10, 2016

cleaning | tear apart

Today: I am cleaning my old and very dirty Panasonic corded phone. I kept this relic because, being powered from the provider, it does not need batteries and it very reliable. I also own an older rotary phone (kept for the very same reasons).

A Weekend Project

By AP, March 12, 2016

cleaning

Not much to say today. For some time I wanted to tear down and clean my old Panasonic radio casette player. I am very fond of this device. A small and relaxing weekend project.