The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I bought my first phonograph - a seemingly decent-condition HMV 102. Definitely the right way to play 50s jazz records. It plays well - but only from about two-thirds of the way through a record. It refuses to be pushed to the start. Is this broken, or is it something that can easily be remedied? If a matter of adjustment, how easy is it to adjust this, for a not exceptionally technical person? I haven't looked inside yet.

Hey and welcome to forum! I will give you a warning though, somehow these machines seem to have babies. In a year or two you may be 3 or 4 A couple of points: Your machine's spring(s) may be weak. Also, your motor may just be too gunked up with old hardened grease. Another quick note, beware of playing 50s records with your HMV 102. Those records were made differently and were made for "newer" lighter pickups.

The real experts should be in soon to help you out more than I can.

-Travis

pingpongpete1 wrote:I bought my first phonograph - a seemingly decent-condition HMV 102. Definitely the right way to play 50s jazz records. It plays well - but only from about two-thirds of the way through a record. It refuses to be pushed to the start. Is this broken, or is it something that can easily be remedied? If a matter of adjustment, how easy is it to adjust this, for a not exceptionally technical person? I haven't looked inside yet.

When you say, "it refuses to be pushed to the start," do you mean you can't move the tonearm all the way to the right of the record at its starting point?

If that's the case, you may have the clip improperly seated in the tonearm's autobrake lever or foot.

Another possibility is that the mechanism's various parts have to be re-positioned.

There are a number of videos showing this mechanism that might help, for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls9P6reHjxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1J13GmaQnc
early version of autobrake -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Y4XF6f5FE

You can also do a google image search to see the proper position of all the parts: https://www.google.com/search?q=HMV+102 ... 44#imgrc=_

Hope this helps.
OrthoFan

travisgreyfox wrote:Hey and welcome to forum! I will give you a warning though, somehow these machines seem to have babies. In a year or two you may be 3 or 4 A couple of points: Your machine's spring(s) may be weak. Also, your motor may just be too gunked up with old hardened grease. Another quick note, beware of playing 50s records with your HMV 102. Those records were made differently and were made for "newer" lighter pickups.

The real experts should be in soon to help you out more than I can.

-Travis

Thanks for the useful help - and the tip about 78s from the 50s. I only tried a fairly beat-up one just in case. So I guess I should look for a good old 60s deck with 33/45 / 78 styli?

OrthoFan wrote:

pingpongpete1 wrote:I bought my first phonograph - a seemingly decent-condition HMV 102. Definitely the right way to play 50s jazz records. It plays well - but only from about two-thirds of the way through a record. It refuses to be pushed to the start. Is this broken, or is it something that can easily be remedied? If a matter of adjustment, how easy is it to adjust this, for a not exceptionally technical person? I haven't looked inside yet.

When you say, "it refuses to be pushed to the start," do you mean you can't move the tonearm all the way to the right of the record at its starting point?

If that's the case, you may have the clip improperly seated in the tonearm's autobrake lever or foot.

Another possibility is that the mechanism's various parts have to be re-positioned.

There are a number of videos showing this mechanism that might help, for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls9P6reHjxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1J13GmaQnc
early version of autobrake -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Y4XF6f5FE

You can also do a google image search to see the proper position of all the parts: https://www.google.com/search?q=HMV+102 ... 44#imgrc=_

Hope this helps.
OrthoFan

Exactly the sort of info I was hoping to be pointed to - thanks very much.
Pete

Yes, this sounds like an occasional problem I have with my early model with the automatic brake. If so, it is easily fixed.

It might be useful to have a photo of your 102 on here showing the whole 'deck' and another the brake position - back right. I would find this very interesting otherwise.

If you have sorted this out I am sorry to be late with my posting.

The automatic brake arm is in the wrong position and just needs to be lifted over the tone arm turn off lever , these photos show the position of your autobrake end

these photos show where it should be

pingpongpete1 wrote:

travisgreyfox wrote:Hey and welcome to forum! I will give you a warning though, somehow these machines seem to have babies. In a year or two you may be 3 or 4 A couple of points: Your machine's spring(s) may be weak. Also, your motor may just be too gunked up with old hardened grease. Another quick note, beware of playing 50s records with your HMV 102. Those records were made differently and were made for "newer" lighter pickups.

The real experts should be in soon to help you out more than I can.

-Travis

Thanks for the useful help - and the tip about 78s from the 50s. I only tried a fairly beat-up one just in case. So I guess I should look for a good old 60s deck with 33/45 / 78 styli?

Dear Pete, even though these records were to some extent intended to be played on newer electronic equipment with mid-weight pick-ups, HMV produced the 102 portable gramophone well into the '50s. It was obviously intended to play those records, and you can rest assured that at least a consistent fraction of your records were actually played back then on one gramophone or another.

My educate take on this matter is that you have to separate the records that look absolutely mint or almost unplayed and reserve them to any vintage/modern/contemporary electronic turntable; those that are instead already beaten up (scratched or with the typical "greyshed" grooves on loud passages) you can play on your 102 without too much concern: if you change needle at every record you won't do much more damage than that already present. Just take care to use extra soft tone needles exclusively, otherwise the soundbox will blast out too loud. User soundgen, who also replied to your post, sells an excellent quality of these needles at a very affordable price.