First off: I am not an electrical techie, but am more than competent to take direction when it comes to basic repairs: I have done a bit of electrical work on vintage and late-model automobiles.

I purchased a Beomaster 3300 with tape and CD back in 1994 with 4 RL-45's.  The radio has NEVER had any reception, but since this was a bedroom setup initally and then in our sitting room, it always played CD"s anyway.  Now I will be putting it into my home office, and would like to get the radio working.

At first, I chauled it up to the lack of a decent antenna.  I purchased the proper system-matching clip-on antenna from ebay a number of years ago, and still no-go.  Neither the main dialo nor the individual pre-sets work: just static.  the statis fades in/out as the dials are rotated, and possibly some faint signal.

It is not the location or antenna, as I plugged the antenna into a newly-acquired Beosound 3200, in the same location, and the reception is perfect.

I have not opened up the cabinet.  Is there any direction someone could give me?  Is there a main, shared companent used by all of the tuners that could be repaired or replaced?

Thanks,

OK, could someone give me a starting point at least??

I'd be more than happy to give more detail if someone could lead me along on what other information to supply.

Hi

I am afraid that there is no simple answer to your problem.  You will definitely need some decent equipment to help investigate the situation and if you haven’t got that – you are stuck.  A four point program to fixing the unit might be as follows:

Become a silver member and access the schematics to find out just what you are up against.  I have a Beomaster 3300 and know that the service manual that is available here is fairly limited.  You might be able to get a better version elsewhere.

Taking the back off the unit is fairly straightforward and at that point, you get a good view of the main circuit board.  There you will get a general appreciation of what you are up against.

Since your amplifier and switching section seems to be working normally, I would find the two test points where the radio audio frequency signal leaves the decoder and goes into the switch section.  A test with a scope would quickly show whether you have a front end problem or a switching problem.

Thereafter, it is simply a case of delving into the appropriate section to find your problem.  Bear in mind that the nearer your problem is to the front end, the more sophisticated the equipment requirements are. 

I would seem that in your case, if you really want to get the BM3300 working properly, find a reputable service engineer to help you.  It would probably save you a lot of heartache.  On the positive side, give us a list of the type of equipment that you have access to and perhaps we can make a plan.

Regards

Geoff

Update:

I plugged in a set of headphones and inserted the antenna: I was able to make out some very slight stations coming in to tune, but extremely poor reception, and perhaps only 8 stations across the entire dial (I live within 20 miles of New York City, for reference: I am not in a rural area by any means).   So, I adjusted the dial in o order to tune to the strongest station I was able to locate.

I then decided to play around with the antenna connection: It has a solid connection, as it was brand new when initially installed.  There was no play in the connection, even when I rotated, and no difference.

I then unplugged the connection and there was absolutely NO difference in the reception on the station.  Thinking this coule possibly just be a loose connection to the antenna plug/junction, I laid out the unit on a towel, powered it off and carefully removed the back and bottom plates, removed the few screws attaching the circuit board above the antenna junction.  When I was unable to remove it, and realized that I would need a litte more guidance, re-assembled and pulled out the trusty laptop to post here.

I think you would be better off going in from above.

Martin

I'm going to bump this up to see if anyone can make a recommendation: if nothing else, perhaps a local independent repair reference, or someone in the area with the proper equipment to diagnose this?

Ends up the new home office is a bit small on the footprint, so the RL's & Cona are going to be hard to situate.

The two repair shops in NYC are Advisory and Technetron.  If you want to pay an arm and a leg use one of them, or do as I do:  Ship it to Atlantic Systems in Hanover, MA.  They're the official B&O Service Center in the Northeast and charge a more reasonable price.

I've actually been in touch with Atlantic for some parts.  Doug @ B&O in Boston put me in touch with them.  Thanks for the tip.

The tuner section is voltage controlled, with a Zener Diode to set the voltage.

On some models, the Zener is a Temperature-controlled ZTK type, on other models, it is a regular BZX type. If that Zener is faulty, you'll get exactly the symptoms you're having.

Bear in mind that Zener's do NOT fail willy-nilly, but from overstress - likely a bad capacitor close-by.

That would be the first place I'd look.

Menahem

Thanks for the tip, Menahem!