Sony has on most of their 1980-90's shortwave radio models a warning label attached saying,
"Replace Batteries within 5 minutes".
I own quite a few of their radios from this era and everyone knows what happens if you leave
your radio with alkaline batteries in them for long periods of time.
Among the many problems that Sony had with these radios were the leaking Capacitor issues
that will destroy them even if the radios aren't used. They are all ticking time bombs for sure.
Well, the ICF-SW55 wouldn't turn-on and I decided to send it to a well-known radio restorer.
The capacitors were replaced, and I had an upgraded illumination light done too.
The radio returned and worked but I had an extremely strange issue.
This particular model has 25 "Pages" to store stations in. Each "Page" contains 5 stored stations.
Beyond this, Sony also added a feature where you could use Alphanumeric names to each of
the stored "Page" stations. This feature worked before I sent it out for repair. Upon its return
when I attempted to store individual titles to those saved stations, only the lead station in that
group of 5 saved stations would be accepted. What was worse, all the other stations in that "Page"
were given that title too! The same went for all the other "25 Pages".
I always used the specified Sony OEM A/C adaptor, " AC-E604" and that wasn't at issue.
The radio restorer claimed when you don't store these radios without any batteries kept in the
unit, it will wipe-out certain functions in the permanent OEM stored memory. He claimed the issue
I'm having was done due to not having the batteries in the set within the Sony warning label's herald.
I have searched the web on-line for what particular problems would occur during long storage
periods without any power source to back it up would cause. My searches came up with nothing
specific.
My question to anyone here is have heard of this situation before and specifically were there
any Sony Service Bulletins regarding this issue?? For such a dire warning, you would think there
would be some sort of documentation somewhere??
"Replace Batteries within 5 minutes".
I own quite a few of their radios from this era and everyone knows what happens if you leave
your radio with alkaline batteries in them for long periods of time.
Among the many problems that Sony had with these radios were the leaking Capacitor issues
that will destroy them even if the radios aren't used. They are all ticking time bombs for sure.
Well, the ICF-SW55 wouldn't turn-on and I decided to send it to a well-known radio restorer.
The capacitors were replaced, and I had an upgraded illumination light done too.
The radio returned and worked but I had an extremely strange issue.
This particular model has 25 "Pages" to store stations in. Each "Page" contains 5 stored stations.
Beyond this, Sony also added a feature where you could use Alphanumeric names to each of
the stored "Page" stations. This feature worked before I sent it out for repair. Upon its return
when I attempted to store individual titles to those saved stations, only the lead station in that
group of 5 saved stations would be accepted. What was worse, all the other stations in that "Page"
were given that title too! The same went for all the other "25 Pages".
I always used the specified Sony OEM A/C adaptor, " AC-E604" and that wasn't at issue.
The radio restorer claimed when you don't store these radios without any batteries kept in the
unit, it will wipe-out certain functions in the permanent OEM stored memory. He claimed the issue
I'm having was done due to not having the batteries in the set within the Sony warning label's herald.
I have searched the web on-line for what particular problems would occur during long storage
periods without any power source to back it up would cause. My searches came up with nothing
specific.
My question to anyone here is have heard of this situation before and specifically were there
any Sony Service Bulletins regarding this issue?? For such a dire warning, you would think there
would be some sort of documentation somewhere??
