Today's yard sale find: Sears LXI series receiver [album]

i_have_a_name · 2012-05-26T04:36:56.433387+00:00

Putting the turntable on top of the receiver is OK if there aren't any vents on the top of receiver. Heat is not going to escape (much) through the top of one of those 70's-era wood cabinets.

If there are vents, rig up something to hold the turntable a few inches above the top of the receiver and you'll be fine. I ran a receiver/turntable like that back in the 70's/early-80's for a number of years with no problems. A couple of 1x2's under the turntable feet on the left and right work pretty good to elevate the turntable and provide enough ventilation above the receiver (bonus points if you stain/paint them them first).

The turntable (a Pioneer PL-510S) still works fine today; the receiver (a Scott model similar to this) worked fine until I gave it to my brother and he spilled a Coke inside it (long story).

TubePincher · 2012-05-26T04:04:49.177108+00:00

The trick is to get air moving through -- and keep in mind you can't fight the wind. Put one fan blowing in on the side where the wind is blowing toward. Put a second fan on the opposite side blowing out.

If there's no wind or you can't achieve a flow-through due to the layout of your home, then blowing in is the way to go.

PrettyBoyFloyd · 1 day

they started cable reaching the majority by saying that it didn't have adverts

Nope. In the US, the only ad-free cable channels have been premium movie channels and a (very) few others like TCM and AMC (yes, at one time AMC was commercial free).

All the other non-premium channels (going back to cable's early days in the late 70's / early 80's) have always had commercials. They were less frequent (since the number of viewers was a lot lower), but they were there, nonetheless.

HaMMeRxxTiME · 4 days

Correct. This worked best with a two-record album (or a single album that folded open like two-record album). Pick out the seeds over the album. Then incline it at a slight angle and gently tap the underside; the seeds rolled out down the fold between the two halves as if by magic. An ashtray (or a frisbee in a pinch) was used to catch the seeds.

tharosbr0 · 9 days

You have it hooked up to the correct terminals.

Is that antenna good enough or should I replace it for something better?

It depends on how far away the stations are that you're trying to receive. If they're within 15-20 miles or so, that may work OK.

How can I know if the impedance is correct? I'm assuming it is since that's how it was plugged in the store and I kinda trust them.

A twinlead antenna like that is 300 ohm. The 75 ohm connector is for using coax (like with cable TV). It's a pain to hook up coax to that style of connector (because you have to strip it to get the center conductor connected to one screw and the shield/braid connected to the other). If you have 75 ohm coax for your antenna, it's generally easier to use a balun (it has a coax connector on one side and two wires on the other side) with the 300 ohm connector.

Is it better if the cable is vertical or horizontal?

When the cable splits in a Y, should I spread both cables or leave them together?

You want the legs of the Y to be horizontal and spread out as much as possible like this:

----------+----------
          |
          |
          |

    (to receiver)

Ideally you want them as high up as you can possibly get them -- and you want the legs to be perpendicular to where the station(s) are transmitting from. Unfortunately, this may not always line up with a wall in your home.

Face where the stations are transmitting from and spread your arms straight out; that's the ideal angle for the two legs of the antenna. If it's on a weird angle in the room where the receiver is, you might be able to get away with tacking it to the ceiling on that angle.

Is it ok to connect it to something else in the house? (like... a window frame)? Will it receive better if I do that

Sure. You may get better reception that way. If you want to put it fairly far from the receiver, it would be better to use coax from the antenna to the receiver (although then you'll need two baluns -- one near the antenna -- then a long run of coax -- then a second balun at the receiver to (easily) connect the coax to the 300 ohm terminals on the receiver).

Do not splice the two leads going to the receiver to each other. If you need to extend the wire going to the receiver a short distance (say less than 10 feet), you can sometimes get away with just splicing some speaker wire to each of the leads.

If you have a TV antenna (not a cable TV hookup or satellite), you may get better results by putting in a splitter on that and running coax from the splitter to the receiver.

The FM reception shouldn't be affected by the fact that I don't have an AM antenna, right?

Nope; the AM antenna has no impact on FM.

Any general tips you can give me?

If you can't get the twinlead antenna to work, try a TV antenna (that handles VHF and FM). Something in your attic or (better) on your roof will work excellent for FM -- especially if the stations are > 25 miles away. If you use an outdoor antenna, make sure you ground it!

Failing that, I've had pretty good luck with TV rabbit ears as well with FM (they tend to work a little better than the twinlead).

You want the antenna as high as possible. If you're trying to do this in a basement with an indoor antenna, it's going to be tricky if not impossible to get it to work.

Keep moving the antenna around to different spots until you get the strongest signal; sometimes moving it only a foot or two makes a significant difference in reception.

imgonnaralph · 10 days

I assume there's no screw terminals for the speakers and that all of them require the plugs. This pic shows one with screw terminals for the A/B speakers but the manual shows plugs for all three.

Make sure you're hooking your speakers up like this...

R-    L-
R+    L+

... and not trying to connect one speaker to the top two (i.e. using R- and L- to the same speaker).

It's hard to tell for sure tell which is +/-; R and L are clearly indicated but +/- is a guess.

In a pinch, you could probably get some crimp-on lugs (the flat kind, not the U shaped kind) at any hardware store or home center that would fit those connectors and make decent contact as well. Even jamming the wires in should work OK (for testing) if you don't push them in too far and short out something on the inside.

Also check that "pre & main" switch - make sure it's on "intercoupled". Flipping the switch back and forth a few times may help as well. If it still doesn't work, try switching it to "separated" and then run a pair of short cables connecting the "pre out" to the "main in".

Make sure both the tape monitor switches are off.

Ben702 · 11 days

Point taken - but - with a purchase price of $69,254 - $132,983 I don't think the average BMW 7 series buyer worries too much about repair costs.

kaede6 · 15 days

It's those pesky refried beans - don't eat anything with them on it and you probably won't have any problems.

Awkward_Hugs · 15 days

... and don't forget his cat-like reflexes at dodging shoes; that may have been the finest hour of his presidency.

khangwei · 16 days

bonnet?

...why?

I don't know, but I've watched so many Top Gear episodes on BBC America that "bonnet", "boot" and "gear lever" actually sound normal to me now.

idlesense · 17 days

... and it's ladies night tonight at the Palace Hotel Ballroom.

stopdancingbackward · 17 days

I have no idea -- I'm not an astronomer. I was just curious what the absolute maximum distance from a star might be for an 18 hour orbit.

Based on what I've read over the years, I doubt that any star exists that could produce enough gravity to hold something that big - moving that fast and at that great a distance - in orbit anyway.

stopdancingbackward · 17 days

Since it can't be moving faster than c, and assuming a circular orbit, the absolute maximum distance from the center of the star would be less than approximately 41.3AU (assuming 18 hours times c divided by pi).

I suspect it's not moving quite that fast, though.

LinuxUser4Life · 18 days

After the Bears won the NFC championship that season, the headline in the Sun-Times was "Crown Them".

minimumrockandroll · 23 days

I'm curious if something like diluted CLR would remove the lime without ruining the record.

grauenwolf · 23 days

Uh, based on that chart if I want to match the character range [x-y], I now have to use [a-f] in the new version!

avantir3 · 1 month

I'm 51, you've got no reason to complain.

Shadow_Jack · 1 month

a new series would likely end up being set in the rebooted Universe

Unless one of the 2009 movie sequels restores the original timeline (ideally involving a visit to the Guardian of Forever).

thethickness · 1 month

If this happens, I would hope that the NFL would swap St. Louis from the NFCW to the NFCN and put the new LA "Vikings" into the NFCW. It would be screwy to have an NFCN team way the hell out in LA.

Personally, I'd rather it didn't happen; I like the NFCN just the way it is.

Maetitahna · 1 month

30 seconds or so of just showing the thing running might have been more informative than all the fancy animated exploded views.

redditmoose · 1 month

Judging by the fact that the topmost one is an "IN" and both of the middle splitters are connected to the top one, I'd say that everything is being fed from a single source (probably cable TV).

The lines going out of the bottom splitters are probably down about -15dB from the source (assuming the VOIP gadget is hooked up to -3.5dB on the top splitter).

The splitter you mentioned isn't amplified so you'd probably only gain a dB or two over what they already have.

fff4me · 1 month

It's not "Lego" either - at least in the context that I normally see that used.

A counter made of LEGOS: Wrong!
A counter made of LEGO: Wrong!
A counter made of LEGO bricks: Correct!

If the LEGO trademark is used at all, it should always be used as an adjective, not as a noun..

tensegritydan · 1 month

Other than A Princess of Mars (1912), none of them are over 100 years old.

According to this out-of-date site these are public domain:

A Princess of Mars
The Gods of Mars
The Warlord of Mars
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
Chessmen of Mars
The Master Mind of Mars

The first five are on Project Gutenberg. The more recent (less old?) ones are on Amazon for the Kindle at around a buck each.

(Edit: It's been a (really) long time since I've read the entire series -- but I don't think all of them are told from John Carter's point of view and some them may only include him as a side character).

jms1225 · 1 month

If you find yourself taken hostage, assume you're probably going to die anyway and try to wrestle away whatever makeshift/smuggled weapon they're using. Then stab/pummel the shit out of them with it.

sidcool1234 · 1 month

Not everybody is a fan of the "white on black" look.

If you prefer a white background, you probably have your monitor adjusted so that it looks about the same brightness as a piece of paper. With a monitor adjusted this way, white/gray text on a black background can be rather difficult to read.

zed857

TROPHY CASE

zed857

TROPHY CASE

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