Repair Is Better than Tinker Toys
Image via iFixit user Bac’s fabulous Sony TR-63 Transistor Radio Teardown
For Ken Smith, electronics repair is a lifetime obsession. He was just six years old when he bought a radio for a quarter at Goodwill. It sounded funny, so he took it apart and discovered a bad switch, which he bypassed with a wire. The radio was fixed, and Ken sold it to his brother for $5—a hefty profit for a kindergartener.
Ken runs a vintage radio and electronics museum out of his home in Eugene, Oregon. He keeps hundreds of jukeboxes, phonographs, and televisions in working order. The Register-Guard has a great profile of Ken’s workshop and museum. From the article:
“New TVs and radios are not repairable,” Smith says, running his palm over the surface of the kitchen table in the jukebox room. “They will disintegrate if you try. They are impossible to service. RCA built some televisions that I swore would work for 100 years. They built sets that were just bulletproof. RCA said they were going to do away with TV repair people because they were so good. Technology was not more advanced then, but it was more durable. If you bought a radio from the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and had it repaired, it would last forever.”
“This bulb,” he says, pointing to a crystal clear tube on the table, “is 90 years old. And it works great.”
Despite the current culture of disposable rather than repairable electronics, Smith still has hope that the kind of technology he fell in love with as a 6-year-old is not lost.
Ken hasn’t stopped buying and fixing old radios and flipping them for a profit—but now his shop is online.
Comments
A short but inspiring article. I hate the pile of perfectly good smart phones and devices I have cluttering up my closet. I want to give them a useful second life but there is little hope for them. But I have 30 year old drill that still works great. Strange paradigm.
If it can’t be repaired, we should at least try to give the devices a new purpose somehow. I once saw someone who turned an old crt monitor into a catbed! She removed the screen, gutted the casing and lined it with cottonballs and an old bedsheet. Not only does it reduce ewaste, but it also keeps the cat off her new laptop ;)
@Chris M, wipe one of those smartphone and send it to me, I will put it to good use. I rock the old stuff.
typed on an ibook G4, OS X 10.5, in iCab.
The problem in our world is the economy. It is based on growth. And growth means: new, new, new – not repaired! Repairing things does not create new value. Nobody who has money to invest would invest into repair, as that money wouldn’t grow – so they would do anything to avoid repairability. Best example: the new iMac! Everything is glued and laminated. Why? … Do you really nead an answer!!!
well done, I agree fix something to reduce resourse cnsumption and leave more for next gerneragtions..
Electico and manufactured stuff has become almost a commodity.
The unit costs are very low for a million units and the next generation is a lot better.
Billions of people now have smart phones. I will buy whatever and whenever I want if I think it benefits me.
Nostalgic attachment to old junk is ok for me if I really like something, but I want a communcator that will get me a medivac even if I am unconscious.
The disposal is trivia since there is no shortage of garbage dumps.
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