u/haru_reiuji05

Hello, this is a Soviet-made radio receiver from the 80s. Made by the Minsk Radio Works (Kalibr) factory in modern Belarus, then Belarus SSR within the USSR. Export version of the Soviet domestic market Okean 214 receiver. This device has 8 bands- FM (CCIR standard), LW,MW and 5 SW bands)

Here's everything that has been done to it-

-Full recap of all boards inside

-Deep cleaning of the front metal plate and the rear

-Polish of the front plastic tuning dial

-Clean-up of old battery leakage and resulting rust on the battery terminals

-Replacement of the foam on the battery cover that holds the batteries

Overall, this is a very healthy and nice sounding radio. It's not as sensitive in FM as the VEF 221, another Soviet 80s receiver, but I feel like this radio was made more for SW listening given the more bands present here

These are kind of rare here in Bulgaria, the model B-216 is a lot more common here (Same receiver, except with the OIRT FM band that was used in the former communist block until it's breakup)

On the left: Soviet Elektronika B3-14. Made in January 1981. A basic calculator that started being made in the late 70s. Uses a VFD display actually, powered by 3 AA batteries. Did a recap and cleaning on it

Right: Japanese Sharp EL-514. Also recapped but also deep cleaned. Made in the mid 80s. A nice scientific calculator, plan to use it a lot. Powered by 2 double As.

Both calculators have matching cases. Feel free to share your thoughts about these!

Basically, I know the subreddit needs you to give a name for your handheld. But yes, this is indeed just a phone with a controller

About my case: I personally really want a RP 6 or a Steam Deck, but can't afford either of these. Before someone says "get a job" I can't work currently because of mental health issues, and also in my part of the world either of these cost either a significant amount of the average person's monthly income or literally more than that.

As such, I came to the conclusion that the best course of action to get a handheld for cheap was to DIY one in a way. I had this phone as a spare since I upgraded to a S24 in late 2024, and it was sitting unused

So about the "brains of the operation": it's a Samsung Galaxy A53. A nice midrange phone from about a few years ago. It has enough power to play through a decent amount of PS2 and GC, albeit with hacks and at native resolution. I personally prefer to stream these systems from my PC, but I will elaborate a bit on that in a bit. It has a beautiful 120HZ FHD AMOLED display, definitely on par with something like a RP6. Additionally, unlike most new devices sold right now, it has an SD card slot, mad useful for retro gaming as you know

If I had to summarize the performance of the device itself:

8 and 16 bit systems:

No issues whatsoever. All games run great and with shades for extra visual candy. Haven't tried BFI, but should be okay, given that the display is quite bright and it's 120HZ

Early/mid 3D systems:

PS1: Perfect

N64: I haven't tested it much recently but I remember Mario 64 ran great two years ago when I still used this as my main phone

Dreamcast: No problems

Saturn: Haven't tested, I heard it can be demanding but I imagine it should have the capability to run a decent amount of games

The "Heavy" stuff

PS2: I tested it with my favorite game on this platform, Secret Weapons Over Normandy- a niche 3D arcade air combat game, kind of like Ace Combat if it was set in WW2. It ran...okay, but to get it playable I had to use speed hacks and play at native resolution. Speaking of Ace Combat, I tried 0 and...it barely ran. Yeah, maybe because it's one of these games that pushed the PS2 pretty hard. Maybe skip this system...or find an alternate way to play it on this device

GC: Mario Sunshine ran okay, I do imagine there will be at least a few games that can hang up though

Windows: The phone only has 6 GB of RAM so I imagine newer stuff can be problematic. But I imagine something from the 2000s could run okay

Native Android games:

Heavily depends on the game. Minecraft with default settings (none of the fancy new shaders) ran okay, between 60-90 FPS depending on the scenario. Zenless Zone Zero was a tough one, you had to lower it super low and even then it wasn't a fun experience. This phone is definitely on the "bare minimum" for this game.

Handheld systems:

In particular:

Game Boy line: No issues whatsoever

DS: Runs pretty good, just that the form factor isn't perfect

3DS: Can slow down in some places, but overall tolerable

PSP: absolutely no issues, even when upscaled to 1080P

Vita: haven't played much but it seemed fine

Streaming:

I use Apolo/Artemis to stream games from my PC. 1080P 60 FPS streaming is absolutely no problem for this device. Also additional fact: I stream my PS2 games from my laptop to this device since Windows PS2 emulation is much more developed, obviously because this device isn't great to run these games on its own hardware and also because they can take a lot of space

Okay, enough about the phone. I also picked up a controller, a Gamesir X3 Pro. I mostly chose it due to its white/blue color scheme, I am an ABSOLUTE sucker for this combo. Otherwise if I had to choose one right now, I'd get the G8. Yes, it does have a huge fan on the rear, but I rarely use it because well...it's not super effective- Samsung puts the SOC near the cameras on its phones, meaning that even working, the fan cools almost nothing since it is in the center. Oh well...

Here are its pros:

-Hall effect sticks

-Detachable grips

-Very fast buttons, excellent for competitive games

-Great build quality

Cons:

-No analog triggers

- Gamesir software needs some work

That's it from me folks. Feel free to share your thoughts on my review and thanks for reading!

Okay, a description of the cars in case someone isn't familiar with them.

Car on top: FSO Polonez Jamnik

The FSO Polonez was a car built in Poland on the basis of the Fiat 125p chasis, just with a more modern hatchback body. The Jamnik is an experiment by FSO engineers in I think 1979 to create a limousine by adding a third set of doors to the car. I also think it was either an one-off or a very limited production, as it seems it was just a design study

Car on bottom: Lada 2108 Samara "Natasha"

Maybe not a ton of people outside the former Eastern bloc know, but lada built a successor to the Fiat 124-based ladas in 1984, in a stylish for the time hatchback body and with front wheel drive. The car was called Sputnik domestically and Samara for export, the model number being 2108. Anyway, the Natasha convertible was a coachbuilt version by the Belgian company Scaldia-Volga, which imported Ladas into the West-European market. It's otherwise a normal Lada Samara, just with a soft-top convertible roof. It's probably weirder than the Jamnik above just because it was actually something that was produced in a larger scale and you could buy

Have it hooked up to my receiver (unfortunately there's something seemingly wrong with its built in tuner, why I even bothered with an external one to begin with). Works perfectly fine, set me back just 25 euro. Perfect condition, just two scratches on top of the lid which honestly don't bother me and I can paint over them haha. Sounds great, it's got a super sensitive tuner even with a non fully extended antenna. Picks up stuff that my other radios can't. VFD is bright and clear, overall super happy with this component. Been leaving it playing almost non stop for the last 2 days

Lamp is branded as Promin, Ukrainian for ray. Interestingly enough, there's. Seems like it was made in the Ukrainian SSR sometime in the 1980s. Same for the clock, made in Novosibirsk in 1988. Both fully functional, I have put a modern smart LED bulb inside the lamp in order to combine the vintage warm yellowish glow and modern power efficiency, after all a vintage incandescent bulb consumes 60 watts and produces a ton of heat

Hello, I've been recently having problems with my Sherwood RX4030R and honestly decided that it may be better to upgrade to a better amp altogether. I have a friend who has a few, and he offered me these two at below marker prices here in Bulgaria (about 30 euro less than what they go selling from strangers)

Basically here's them (in short)

Amp 1: Sony STR DE875- an early 2000s multimedia amp with surround capabilities, a lot of nice features and a lot of inputs as well. It does have radio as well. The price he told me he wants for it is 70 euro

Amp 2: Harman Kardon PM650- afaik these sound great, and it works great, thing is these were built between 1983-1985, so it actually doesn't have a dedicated CD input (you can still use the tuner and aux inputs though afaik). Plus I don't think it has been serviced, and I'm not sure whether or not I can do it. And I'm sure a professional service may cost more than what the amp is worth...

He does ask 90 for this one.

Which one do you think is worth it? Let me know

Okay, long post warning

I made a post a while ago and you people were very helpful, so I wanted to make a little follow up. Just a recap- the fm part of the receiver isn't working right. It just keeps scanning for stations but finds none. On manual seek there's also absolutely nothing as well- just hiss. The receiver has been fully professionally recapped before me and my dad got it, and the previous owner (a friend of my dad) said that the technician who did the recap did turn on the radio and it worked. But now- no longer. Interestingly enough, attaching two wires to the am antenna terminals led it to (almost) receive a station there, it was audible but very noisy. I tried one of these dipole wire antennas for fm but no dice, same with a powered antenna that's for fm/digital tv. I opened the cover and checked for continuity on the antenna center and the area where the antenna connects to the circuitry with a multimeter and it tested fine. Basically, now I'm at a loss. Sure, I don't listen to a lot of radio and the amp part works and sounds great. But I imagine that if one part of the receiver has irreparably failed, another may come soon. Also just in case I have strong fm reception on other devices, from vintage radios to modern ones and a boombox all receive stations just fine. I attached a picture of the receiver's back off Google in case anyone wants to see

I've never listened to Gary Moore before, so far definitely enjoying the music. Weird to think that these cassettes were sitting around for 20+ years

It's just on top of the phono for testing, I'll put it in place in a bit. Love the design, it's very early 80s. Sounds great, it's been serviced so there's no need to touch it

Fully cleaned, full recap, serviced cassette mechanism with new belts and a general clean. Sounds and works great now. Only the antenna is not original because it broke, salvaged on from a soviet Yunost portable tv but it works just fine. Only the led that turns on when you're listening to stereo fm stopped working or is unreliable, honestly I can't be bothered to check it right now but maybe in the future. Stereo does work fine though. Time to enjoy this beauty

It is pretty heavy and has a weird texture, like smooth yet rough at the same time. It gives my finger a weird feeling when I touch it. I want to know if this is asbestos because I want to replace the cable on this lamp, and just know in general if it's safe to use daily

Did a full recap of all electrolytics after it suddenly lost all ability to receive any station on any band. Also reflowed some of the transistors. Works and sounds great now. Defined my favorite vintage radio