Day 214: Repairing vintage speakers and radios

It is not too difficult to restoreold audio equipment, as many pieces have only become very dusty, rusty or have scratches. It can be worth spending some effort on cleaning as there is a decent amount of customers for vintage radios and speakers.
With enough patience it should be possible to find an old radio or a set of speakers in a garage sale or somewhere else on the internet. I will look for something suitable on craigslist and check out some garage sales in the area.

If you are looking to find information about specific vintage speakers, you should check out vintage-speaker-review.com with reviews and tips on many different speakers (Acoustic Research, Fisher, JBL, and so on..)

So far, I have never worked with electronics and don´t have any deeper understanding of radios and speakers. I ordered three books in library to learn more about how to repair vintage electronics:
The first is the Antique Radio Restoration Guide by David Johnson, which is supposedly the best available literature for people who have not yet restored and repaired old radios.
The second is Old Time Radios! Restoration and Repair by Joseph Carr. I heard less positive things about this book, but I thought it might be wise to have more than one source, in case something appears to be unclear.
The last book is Troubleshooting and Repairing Audio Equipment (TAB Electronics Technician Library) by Homer Davidson. I ordered it, as it includes the diagnosis and repair of speakers, which is not content of the other two. According to customer reviews, this one might be rather for people with some prior understanding of electronics, but I will just try my best.

Day 76: A Dollar Saved Is A Dollar Earned

As you might have recognized I was forming letters out my cans. I had so many of them last week, that I really wanted to do something with them. I decided to write my slogan (and blog title) with cans on grass and it worked out pretty well, except that I forgot the V ... . What a desaster.

Enjoy the picture, I guess you have to click on the picture to see that the letters are really cans...










Besides forming letters out of cans, I had the luck to be forced to take 27 cans/bottles to my place.  My girlfriend and me attended the graduate student orientation as every semester, which offered many snacks and drinks.  In the end there were still many cookies, brownies and drinks and the professors urged us to take them... . What a success!  I won´t be able to instantly return all of them, but over the coming weeks I can return a few every now and then and receive some extra cents :).

Here a picture of what we were forced to take home: YUMMIE!

Day 67: Grafton Lakes State Park

Income: 29.77 $

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I spent a day at Grafton Lakes State Park.  The lake has a public beach and a nice trail around it. While the beach is quite clean, you can see some trash lying around on the trails along the lake and many people don´t throw their cans into the forest, but put them next to benches or small grill areas.

I took the chance and collected the cans along the trail. I filled up a whole bag and will return all the cans during the coming days. We only walked a third of the whole trail, I guess next time I´ll bring bigger bags. From now on I´ll put some  in my car, yesterday I had to borrow my girlfriends shoe bag which she generously donated (thank you).

Anyway, the park is a little cleaner, and I am a little closer to the 20000 cans that I need to win the challenge  :`( .

Afterwards we stopped at a café to drink some coffee and get some food and baaam, I´ve found 52 cents on a couch.  All in all a very successful day!  I´d be glad to have a few more followers, so if you read my blog every now and then, become a follower :)