Hi Guys,
Well I've bought a few boomboxes lately but all have had various issues. Some easily fixed but others require major $$$s to get fully operational. It was getting a little frustrating to tell you the truth. I recently got my Hitachi 9140E going 100% which is great but it's too heavy to lug around to the park etc so I was looking for a smaller unit.
Enter my latest Ebay find: A National RX-C45 from January 1986 for $27.00! It was in Brisbane too so no shipping charges!! Before the end of the auction, I asked the seller if it was fully operational and the answer was yes!!!
Well, I go to pick it up and as soon as I saw it, I knew I was in trouble. This thing looked like it had been left on the deck of a ship for years with heaps of corrosion on the aerial, tweeter grills, pretty much every metal surface looked like crap!
On a positive note, it was complete and had no cracks etc to the case. The seller wasn't home but he'd left it out the front with a note so with no access to AC power, I just left the money and waited until I got home to power it up!! 
I get it home and yep, all controls were scratchy, the 5 band equaliser controls made little impact on the sound but the tape deck was operational. Very little sound from the right channel too. It wouldn't power up on battery power either. :'-(
I thought of cancelling the deal but chose to pull it down and see what I had. As you experts would be aware, these little units are super easy to work on. You simply remove the screws from the back, eject the tape cover, remove the balance knob and the front panel comes easily away revealing the tape belts, and all switches. After cleaning all the pots and sliders, all functionality has been restored! The balance control pot was the cause of the low right channel output. In the battery compartment, there was no sign of leaking cells but the terminals had surface corrosion like the rest of it. A little sand paper action and it's now a portable sound system! I pulled down the speaker boxes and found what looked like a rat nest inside one of them. The sound deadening was intact but was surrounded in crap!
The metal components came up around 90% with a good clean/polish and now look acceptable.
I had forgotten how great a decent 5 band graphic equaliser was to enable you to really tailor the sound. So much better than the old tone knob.
The build quality is high and it's still is a little weighty with 8 D cells on board. The sound quality of the unit really did surprise - it's absolutely fantastic! Deep base, nice crisp highs. You can really crank this one up too with no distortion until maybe 8/10 on the volume control. The 4 band tuner is super sensitive too. The soft touch deck sounds great. I'll probably replace the belts down the track but for now their working fine.
One thing I always hated about 3 piece boxes are the speaker wires hanging out the back. This one has a nice wireless speaker connection that works well.
This National is definately a keeper!!
Below are a few pics after around 3 hours of polishing & cleaning.....
A size comparision with a Sanyo 9994:
Wireless speaker connection:
Well I've bought a few boomboxes lately but all have had various issues. Some easily fixed but others require major $$$s to get fully operational. It was getting a little frustrating to tell you the truth. I recently got my Hitachi 9140E going 100% which is great but it's too heavy to lug around to the park etc so I was looking for a smaller unit.
Enter my latest Ebay find: A National RX-C45 from January 1986 for $27.00! It was in Brisbane too so no shipping charges!! Before the end of the auction, I asked the seller if it was fully operational and the answer was yes!!!
Well, I go to pick it up and as soon as I saw it, I knew I was in trouble. This thing looked like it had been left on the deck of a ship for years with heaps of corrosion on the aerial, tweeter grills, pretty much every metal surface looked like crap!
On a positive note, it was complete and had no cracks etc to the case. The seller wasn't home but he'd left it out the front with a note so with no access to AC power, I just left the money and waited until I got home to power it up!! I get it home and yep, all controls were scratchy, the 5 band equaliser controls made little impact on the sound but the tape deck was operational. Very little sound from the right channel too. It wouldn't power up on battery power either. :'-(
I thought of cancelling the deal but chose to pull it down and see what I had. As you experts would be aware, these little units are super easy to work on. You simply remove the screws from the back, eject the tape cover, remove the balance knob and the front panel comes easily away revealing the tape belts, and all switches. After cleaning all the pots and sliders, all functionality has been restored!
The balance control pot was the cause of the low right channel output. In the battery compartment, there was no sign of leaking cells but the terminals had surface corrosion like the rest of it. A little sand paper action and it's now a portable sound system! I pulled down the speaker boxes and found what looked like a rat nest inside one of them. The sound deadening was intact but was surrounded in crap!The metal components came up around 90% with a good clean/polish and now look acceptable.
I had forgotten how great a decent 5 band graphic equaliser was to enable you to really tailor the sound. So much better than the old tone knob.
The build quality is high and it's still is a little weighty with 8 D cells on board. The sound quality of the unit really did surprise - it's absolutely fantastic! Deep base, nice crisp highs. You can really crank this one up too with no distortion until maybe 8/10 on the volume control. The 4 band tuner is super sensitive too. The soft touch deck sounds great. I'll probably replace the belts down the track but for now their working fine.
One thing I always hated about 3 piece boxes are the speaker wires hanging out the back. This one has a nice wireless speaker connection that works well.
This National is definately a keeper!!
Below are a few pics after around 3 hours of polishing & cleaning.....
A size comparision with a Sanyo 9994:
Wireless speaker connection:
