Gosh, it seens to be my week for electrical mishaps.

First the the sensing electronics on the computer UPS goes haywire and permanently fails, then the electric toothbrush decides to totally discharge itself and won't recharge through the bathroom wall socket and, over the last two weeks, I have had a number of random electrical faults on the Fab - first an engine management light which appeared, stayed a couple of days and b*ggered-off and yesterday a monumental stutter (Engine shutdown) on the engine whilst driving, with all the needles suddenly dropping back to zero and bouncing back again -again with no apparent explanation.

Best of all was yesterday, on approaching a set of pedestrian crossing traffic lights on a residential back street, with no-one crossing and no-one in sight, the lights went to red ! Driver on opposite carrriageway, raised his hands in disbelief.

Usually when odd things electrical begin happening at this frequency across disparate systems, the usual suspects are solar/cosmic storms or strong local radio frequency interference.

Don't believe I heard anything to to substantiate a solar storm and the only recently introduced source of RFI locally, apart from the enduring over - powered transmissions of the *ffing mini-cabbers, is the runway debris detection radar they've intoduced at Heathrow, but that's eight miles away.

Anyway, to get to the point, and this morning I discovered that my radio-controlled alarm clock (Oregeon, upright, elliptical profile model) was failing to pick-up the radio signal. Opened it up and found that the ferrite rod core was broken - the rod had broken free from its adhesive bond to the circuit board. Unfortunately, supergluing the two parts of the core did not resore the signal !

Can you get replacement rods and windings ? I don't believe the standard Maplin offerings will, do as their Long Wave winding has a receiving band with a threshold which is higher than the Rugby signal (66 KHz) and the rod is twice as long.

Nick,

14/06/08

have you tried looking on some radio hobbyist type site??? cant be too hard to get or even fleabay, you never know!!

I have already looked.

Most of the rods advertised are 3 -5 inches long and are designed as replacement antennas for AM radios - the rod in the alarm has to fit inside a much narrower case and so is only 2.5 " long.

Also they are supplied with two separate windings for medium wave and long wave reception.

Some distributors just supply rods of the right diameter, without windings fitted, so there is the option of purchasing one of these, sliding the winding carrier/template off the broken rod and refitting it to a new one.

I don't fancy my chances of sliding the windings off the broken road intact as the carrier is made of thin card and is cemented to the rod !

Anyway, most of these replacement rods are too long and would have to be cut down to for the casing. The general advice on the web is don't cut the rods as the cutting action reduces the magnetic flux and therefore diminishes the sensitivity of the antenna.

Apparently,another option exists, you can simply withdraw the broken rod, leaving the coil windings in place, but this will have the effect of making the antenna directional.

So, I lost patience and have sorted it now. I just ripped out the wires connecting the antenna to the circuit board and removed the complete assembly - rod, carrier and windings. The clock alarm still works, it just has lost the ability to correct itself by reference to the atomic radio signal.

Nick.

is there any details on the circuit board of the company who made the electronics inside? maybe you could then source it from the little factory in tawian or other eastern country it was made in?

I'm holding my breath, but I think I've cracked it. Managed to source a UK supplier on the web who can provide an over-length rod, with the right profile i.e. with opposing flats to the circumference, which it is claimed can be cut to length - and all for £0.45 + P&P.

Now waiting on a response by their technical guys to a couple of E-mailed questions.

Nick.

so p&p more than the goods glad you got it sorted.

Postage shouldn't be more than £0.66. Repair seems easy to do and if it works, it will restore full functionality for 1/20 of the alternate strategy i.e. buying a new one. I don't like throwing things away if they can be mended, even if it means putting a micro-dent in some far eastern company's sales figures !

Nick