... and experts excel in helping out provided you ask them in a polite way. Don’t go there if you are impatient or just wanting to “know what it’s worth”. In all other cases, go ahead and write letter-style. Sadly I did not see the “underground” power vested in the forums reflected or mentioned in great detail in the book, which is a pity.

First things first

Radio restorers are often typified by their chaotic workplaces on the one hand and their encyclopedic knowledge and extreme helpfulness on the other. Having seen a few such shacks on my Retronics journeys, I was delighted to find that Paul Hetrelezis managed to present the (vast) subject matter in an extremely well structured and didactic manner. His decision to start the book with workshop considerations, then proceed to spare parts and only then discuss the initial testing of your ”delightful purchase for just a fiver” underscores the hands-on approach that clearly dominates all chapters in the book. The few theoretical and analytic sections in some chapters I found slightly lacking in weight though by no means erroneous, and I am sure the author is just pointing the way to deeper knowledge from textbooks and other more formal publications. In other words: do your homework and look it up, it’s all part of the vintage repair experience!

Restoring vs. repairing

With a good bias towards hands-on working with all this old audio gear, the book is very much on “getting it to work again”, and does a good job in that respect, especially for beginners and those of you after quick results, or dare I say it, a quick sell-on. Those who want to proceed to the next higher thing, restoring and conservation, will find the book lacking in guidance and substance. That is mainly because cleaning is not covered too deeply, nor the cleaning agents and associated materials, which are a league in their own complete with fans, enemies and prophets (try: WD40, on the web).