Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

More and more, I am coming to this conclusion!:-[ In the 1950s, lots of my school friends (including myself) were very much involved in practical wireless projects, often dealing with 250V AC mains and I really can't remember anyone coming to serious harm, despite receiving a few "belts" along the way>((
I can't help feeling that the hobby of vintage radio will be dying out in the next few years because of this attitude. Also, I feel that the present generation of schoolchildren are generally faced with far greater dangers than 250 Volts or so!
Bob

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Lets all stay cheerful and use an isolation transformer.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I think the hobby could die out not because of the 'dangers', but lack of interest from the younger generation.
Most of us are of an age that remember vintage equipment in daily use, or maybe repaired it.

Today's youth consider tech like minidisc, video recorders and CRT TV's to be ancient!

In my case, I grew up watching 405 line TV, and loved tinkering with what was then 'old junk'. That was back in the 70's :-[
It is still my favourite hobby now.
:beer:
Mark

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

In my teens I made, from a discarded TV, a giant Oscilloscope and used to feed the audio output from a Ferguson radio into the tube base and admire the waveforms displayed!
No isolation transformers - just careful!!

Alan

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Classic cars and steam trains all seem to have a following that consists mainly of people of a 'certain age'.

A lot of this interest springs from the heyday of vintage items being within living memory or of that of the generation before. Younger people will take up the interest - some quite young chaps drive steam strains on the heritage lines - but interest probably won't be as widespread once we're gone.

The snag is for youngsters is that whilst they might reminisce wistfully over an original iPod in years to come, most modern stuff, unlike our vintage sets, is unserviceable.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Things like vintage radio and classic cars will all live on, there are younger people interested in most historic artefacts and their preservation, the trick is to encourage it in people.
I definitely don't think there will be quite as many people involved in years to come though. I am a member of a forum for young classic car enthusiasts- we are a dedicated bunch but are well aware we are in a minority compared to older enthusiasts. I try to do my bit by demonstrating radios and TVs to my friends and they all take an interest, a friend of mine I went to school with now has a valve amplifier in his Hi-Fi set up. As has been said most people who are into old radios, TVs or cars are so because they remember them from the first time round. Most of the young people I know who are into such things also like them because they evoke the era in which they were made and conjure up romanticized images of what life may have been like back then, a form of escapism perhaps. Then there are of course those who like objects for their aesthetic qualities and the fashion for the 'vintage' look could inspire more younger collectors.

It is imperative though that knowledge is passed down. Everything I have learnt about radio repair has come from other (older/more experienced) restorers who have spent their life working with this technology.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I recall a "Beginners Constructional Course" in Practical Wireless 50 years or so ago. It started with a baking tin as a chassis and initially had an SP61 pentode with a PA2 coil. But what I remember most was that is was live chassis with a live metal rectifier mounted on top of the chassis in the back right hand corner. 8-o Horribly dangerous by today's standards, I suppose, but quite a few of my friends built them - happy memories! Also remember drawing a spark off the EHT cap of a CRT with an insulated screwdriver!???
Bob

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

It's no more dangerous than it ever was- just the perception of the level of risk has changed.

In comparative terms, I doubt any vintage electronics is inherently more dangerous than riding a motor bike which plenty of people are quite happy to do.

There's also plenty of equally dangerous modern stuff with similar voltages to play with.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Exactly. Society has become indoctrinated with/by H&S, not helped by the many scare stories, on every possible issue, brought to immediate media attention via twitter, facebook et al.

Anyone would think the world had become a more dangerous place but this is far from the truth - it's probably never been safer. It's quite possible the safety factor has been overdone to the extent that people now don't recognise risk and therefore leave themselves open to it! After all, where there's blame there's a claim.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I was in the trade for 50 years from the days of mains EHT, I must have had thousands of shocks - I'm 75 now.8-)

Peter

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Dangerous appliances are still alive and well, all you have to do is look at all the product recalls issued by manufacturers for everything from hairdryers to fridges etc. Appliances exploding, burning down houses, setting themselves alight, it's a common occurrence.
I'd be happier trusting a well sorted valve radio unattended than some of the wall warts out there!

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I would agree with all of the above, but more and more, I am being told how dangerous it is messing about with such things, even when only using a few small 9 Volts batteries in series. I have got to the stage where I no longer dare putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard:-D) to write articles or documents on such things. I am now 70 and can't really understand why violent computer games are the norm (no personal risk involved), but the slightest physical risk in the real world is met with shock and horror!
Bob

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

There are risks all around.

We do things with objects using electricity, most not meeting current safety standards
Car hobbyists fix their own cars. Brakes and steering included, and the cars don't meet current safety standards.
Campers keep thin tin can gas cylinders around their place.
Rock climbers have safety standards for their equipment but none for the mountains.
I hurtle round on horses. enough said!

It all needs to be see in proportion. Society is getting more risk averse, but the perception of the different risks is uneven.

With reasonable knowledge and reasonable care, playing with radios ought to be perfectly safe. Mountains and horses will always have uncontrollable factors.

Where it gets dodgy is when a restored radio gets into the hands of someone unaware of the appropriate handling. So your relatives are visiting and their kids are playing. They break one of the KT66s on your QuadII which was on at the time. Someone pulls a knob off a live-chassis radio...

Just to put things in proportion Rospa rated horse riding as the second most dangerous sport/pastime in terms of deaths and major injuries related to numbers participating. This forces an inevitable question, to which the answer is 'Cave Diving'. I think vintage electronics is an awful lot further down the scale.

The concern has to be to keep non-participants safe.

David

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I do both. Help me!

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I gave up bikes years but I still repair my own cars.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I'd like to think that most people here had a reasonably grounded :D attitude to risk, and that a great many of those in the outside world also did- but nowadays there is always the looming fear of litigation, brought for irrational reasons by the unreasonable. Personal irresponsibility- blame someone else! And there'll always be a solicitor keen to do business. It's had a bit of a corrosive effect, some people become unreasonably timid and constrained about anything.

Thankfully, it's a good few decades since we, or anyone we knew, routinely had to live with the random brutality of air raids and total war- the coping strategy for that was black humour and a "shut up and get on with it" mentality that lingered for a long time in the minds of some- whether it was clearing asbestos on a demolition site or bodging a live-chassis radio. The "safety culture" is the pendulum swinging in the other direction and it's finding the happy medium that's important.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Thinking about it further, there is the forgotten common knowledge factor. At one time everyone, or at least most people, knew that radios and TV's had live chassis's and high internal voltages, so, you didn't mess, unless you knew what you were doing. Present day, people generally have minimal, if any, practical knowledge about anything. Even supposedly skilled people in a particular field have surprising boundaries to their knowledge. For example, many car mechanics have almost no ability with car electrics and will routinely call in a car "electrician" to sort out anything beyond replacing a bulb!
I recall an incident during my restoration of a '69 Triumph Bonneville. I was casually making up a new wiring harness in situ, incorporating a fuse box, relays and silicon bridge rectifier. A friend dropped in to the garage for a natter and a cuppa, and expressed shock and amazement that I had the temerity to rewire and modify the electrics on a bike! He commented that it would never work as it needed an 'expert' to do such things and if relays, fuses etc had been necessary Triumph would surely have incorporated them!
He had a bit of a struggle with his own perception next time he visited to witness the modified and fully functional electrical system.
I know someone else who is convinced that a fatal shock can be had from a 12 volt car battery, despite me demonstrating by holding the terminals and surviving that you don't!

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

Young people are shockingly disinterested in how the technology they use actually works. I think there is a perception that we ditched engineering along with heavy industry. Getting your hands dirty on components is seriously infra dignitatum these days.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I suppose this comes down to the fact that modern technology either does or doesn't work and if it's the latter all you can do is put it in the skip and so there's no incentive to see if you can fix anything or get your curiosity going.

Plus we live in a disposable item society in which even if an item can be fixed it is generally not an economic proposition to do so.

I think I keep old things going for the hell of it whereas a 'normal' person would simply buy a new one.

Re: Is Practical Vintage Radio Too Dangerous For The 21st Century?
 

I am the only one in my street that works on their car.
I don't want some teenager working on my brakes.

If you look on youtube you will find plenty of videos of people messing with kilovolts, rocket engines and skateboards. A small percentage of the population is attracted by danger and a challenge. I wonder how long it will be before the 'do gooders' and accountants will put a stop to it.