AJAX COMMAND Radio is an Oldie but Goodie

If you are a certain age, it is hard to wrap your head around the fact that an old radio might have transistors — the old ones all had tubes, right? But a radio from the 1960s or 1970s is reaching the 60+ year mark and people are restoring old transistor sets. [Adam] picked up his first old radio, a 1970s vintage Ajax Command S-74.

He was fortunate. The only repair needed was to replace a corroded battery holder and clean up the mess from the batteries. You can hear the radio doing its thing in the video below.

As repairs go, it wasn’t very difficult, of course. But seeing the inside of this radio si bound to bring back some nostalgia if you are at the right age. The PCB looks like a typical mass-produced board of the era. You’ll quickly recognize the IF transformers and the loopstick antenna.

It was almost a shame that the radio worked so readily. These old sets were actually fun to troubleshoot using a signal injector or signal tracer. We recently covered a modern take on a signal tracer, in fact. Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to have one of these or even a premium one from Heathkit.