Fishing for Fisher advice....

My wife and I were bike riding on Saturday and came across a yard sale. I spied a Fisher 800-C tube receiver standing on one end under a picnic table. The guy wanted $1 for it, so...

$1 later, I took it home and plugged it into my crappy patio speakers. One channel kills but the other is barely audible. Can't get the FM to reveal any sound either but I didn't try too hard to get a signal. Heck, all the lights go on and the tubes appear to work (understand that I know NOTHING about tube equipment). My question for you tube-aholics is: what next? I'd love to get the thing working so I can use it in my office with my Sony NS500V SACD and mid-70's Polks. I've found a couple of sites that do restoration:

http://www.angelfire.com/biz/bizzyb/repair.html

and

http://fisherdoctor.com/fisherdoc.html

Suggestions? Recommendations? Did I pay too much?

Thanks for any advice!

 

Looks like you lucked out .I talked to the fellow at bizzy bee and the 800 C is a good model.I'll give you five bucks for it.Talk about making your money back.

 

Ha ha! Yea that's quite a ROI but I think I'll pass

 

If I'd found something like that, I'd do a few elementary things to see if something minor might bring it back to life.

I'd first clean all of the controls (the switches and potentiometers) with some kind of contact cleaner, since dust and oxidation can cause poor contact. Anything like a volume control, balance control or source selector could cause one channel to be weak or cut in and out. Finding a way to clean the input jacks may help too.

I'd also try swapping tubes between channels, for those that have pairs, or (carefully, with gloves on) try tapping or rocking the tubes a little in their sockets to see if there's a loose connection there. Even unseating and reseating the tubes may help...you might be looking at some oxidation there also.

I think others here have used fisherdoctor.com. Good find!

 

Where do you live?
I am sure that someone on the list can direct you towards a competent tech near you.
If you were to spend US$99 on repairs, you'd still have a honking $100 find. Jeff

 

I think Bizzy Bee charges something like $300 for a full restoration, which is something you might want to consider.
A fully restored Fisher like this will go for twice that on eBay, but you won't want to EVER sell that baby once you hear it working properly (with well matched speakers).
Geesh, just the headphone section alone smokes any new $300 unit!

You are one lucky lucky man. What a find!
Dan C