Flea market philco

[N3DRB The Derb]

the flea market gave up a 5 dollar Philco 37-116XX console today. along with it came 2 good 6B4G's and a nice HQ plate to PP grids interstage transformer. I could use those in the new HB rig. They would make darn good 811A drivers.

Such a pain hauling this stuff around but it keeps cropping up! The wood on it is kinda rough with nasty veneer cracking on the curves. 

complete chassis not in bad shape. dial cracked a bit here and there but thats normal.

So.....I got 4 big consoles, 1 National RA0-7, JN's 75A2, 2 Gonset linears, 1 yeasu FT 101 EE, none of which work at present. And I have a HB transmitter project underway.

and my antennas down.    I got a lot of things to do. 

[k4kyv]

...My dipole fell down... I'm so pissweak.  I don't get on much anymore.

[N3DRB The Derb]

I was not pissweak until my antenna came down. 

Then I was.

[w3jn]

That 116 is worth big bux.  Don't scrap it out!!

Photos...?

[N3DRB The Derb]

I knew it was a special radio thats why I lugged it back here....but the wood is really bad on it. the veneer is coming off on the rounded edges
but it's still there, which means it can be saved. I've done that stuff but it's so time consuming. You could literally take 2 years restoing it.

I'd like to SMACK THE FECES out of the person that put that horrible scratch right through the front of the radio....and right over the
Philco Hi Fidelity decal.     I cant see if the scratch actually wiped out the decal or just went over the top of it. It's under the lacquer. 

It's a monster. PP 6B4G's driven by triode connected 6F6, variable if selectivity out to 10++kc, 15 tubes, basically the second best radio Philco ever made. prolly one of the best BCL rx's ever made. This thing CRUSHES Zenith shutter dials like monster trucks crush old cars.

the dial looks much worse than it is - those are old crack repair lines and they mostly go away when the dial is backlit as in normal use.

[N3DRB The Derb]

more pix.....

interesting info about halfway down on this page....


http://www.museumofbroadcasting.org/Wobbulator.html

[N3DRB The Derb]

I slept on it overnight, I think I'm going to ebay this puppy and use the proceeds ( whatever that might be)  to further the maul down activities. I'd love to resto and keep it but it would literally be a multi year project for me and take time away from the laying down of a maul. There's someone out there that will give it a good resto and save it I'm sure. It's too big a project for me.

I'm at the point where I cant walk around in the shack anymore and both benches are full of radio parts. Somethin gotta go. 

[W1GFH]

Hey, are the speakers in good cdx? Are they electrostatic? Just curious.

[N3DRB The Derb]

yeh the speakers are in great shape. it has one actual electro dino-ramic speaker and the others are "passive radiators" according to Philco..... but  good shape the cabinet is the sticking point. I would bet with new filters and brought up slow the radio would play.

There's cabinet guys out there that could have it looking factory new in a week tops.

[W9GT]

the dial looks much worse than it is - those are old crack repair lines and they mostly go away when the dial is backlit as in normal use.

Hey Derb,

That 116 is a neat radio.  You can get replacement (repro) dials from several sources.  I think RockSea is one of them.  They look just like the originals. 

Not sure if that model has a shad-o-meter, but those are pretty cool signal indicators.

Yes...that wood work can be fairly time consuming.  I have been successful in replacing veneer in sections on quite a few radios, but it is sometimes a lot of tedious work. 

I really like old consoles as well.  I really enjoy the old Philcos in addition to the shutterdial Zeniths.  I used to repair and restore them.  Did hundreds of radios over several years...kinda got burned out.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[N3DRB The Derb]

i worked part time at a storefront in Baltimore called Golden Age Radio in the mid 80's, 2 years. Fixed hundreds of sets. Probably contributed to my radio burnout I had later on. very cool place. it was for all intents an original
1940's radio store.

I've lost a lot of mojo since then. I was a pretty good repairman back then, now not so much I think. 

[N3DRB The Derb]

I pulled the ebay listing. gonna keep it and put it in my radio display room (formerly known as the guest bedroom) where no kitties are ever allowed (and where my other 2 consoles and my Victrola are) until I get around to it.

When I found out I could get a brand new replacement dial, all brand new decals, and new grille cloth all for way under 75 bucks.....I changed my mind about sellin it. 

[N3DRB The Derb]

After careful investigating, everyone says the Rock Sea dials are second rate at best. These dials are considered to be the best on the market today:

http://www.oldradioparts.net/dials_intro.html

I ordered a new dial for the philco today. After some heavy reading, I'm convinced that the philco would probably be the all around best receiver in the shack once restored. There's no reason I cant use it as a station receiver. 15 tubes of hi-fi goodness, and 15 honest class A watts of sound.

[KC4KFC]

I've heard lots of folks love those Philcos. I don't know anything about them. How's it get 15 watts Class A? With a 6F6?  Thats the final audio tube in my BC-312 (1944 I think.)  And what year was your console? 37?

[N3DRB The Derb]

It's got a triode connected 6F6 driving a pair of 6B4G's. yeah 1937. I just checked underneath the chassis for quick and dirty problems.... didnt find any on first glance. the flatpack voltage dividers are good. there's 2 1950's era filter caps down there, replacements. no drippies out of the power transformer, so thats good.

Only has 3 replacement tubes, and 2 of those are the 6B4's, Tung-Sols. 1 6K7 is a replacement. The others are all philco based.

For 5 bucks I'm pleased so far. the cabinet is really crap though. 

I should mount it in a wrinkle open tabletop rack like a early HRO with the speaker. Done correctly that could be slick and bad.

[W9GT]

After careful investigating, everyone says the Rock Sea dials are second rate at best. These dials are considered to be the best on the market today:

http://www.oldradioparts.net/dials_intro.html

I ordered a new dial for the philco today. After some heavy reading, I'm convinced that the philco would probably be the all around best receiver in the shack once restored. There's no reason I cant use it as a station receiver. 15 tubes of hi-fi goodness, and 15 honest class A watts of sound.

Good info on the replacement dials Derb.  Well that old Philco is not very selective, so might be a little bit of a challenge to use it under normal crowded band conditions like on 75M at night.  But...sure can get some sweet sounding audio outta that old radio.  That particular radio was a "high end" model and produced some real Hi Fi.

You might also want to see if any of the components contained in thse Philco potted bakelite assemblies need replacing.  There is lots of info available on what is inside those things.  If you worked on Philcos before...you know what I'm talking about.

My first "ham" receiver when I first got my novice license in 1959 was an old Zenith 7S363 that my neighbor gave me.  I, of course, had to remove it from its big console cabinet and set the chassis on the station operating table.  I then put a another little AC-DC table radio along side of the Zenith and used it to heterodyne the oscillator in the IF for a primitive BFO.  It actually worked very well and I had a ball on the 40 M novice band...worked all over the place.

Those 30's vintage radios are wonderful relics and really reflect the "golden age" of radio. 

73,  Jack, W9GT

[flintstone mop]

Hey Tim
Those Baltimore dayz were really good days and burn-outs are not accepted. You did really good work and it's too bad that you're still not there. I remember there was a cabinet guy that could make that Philco look like new. Did they close up?

I also remember that "refrigerator G.E." AM transmitter you restored and it was a very nice sounding TX. Not pretty on the outside but a very nice sound comparable to the behemouth RA-250 in my garage.

Phred

[W1RKW]

the wood and finish on that baby doesn't look to bad and is restorable based on the photo.  I've done a few antique radio cabinets on table top cathedrals and they've come out good.  It takes some time but it can be done.

[N3DRB The Derb]

Phred,

 In the interest of historical accuracy, I have to say that the HuzMan did most of he work to that TX, I id some cleanup work but huz did all the heavy lifting on that unit.

The credit is his.

[N3DRB The Derb]

If you worked on Philcos before...you know what I'm talking about.

oh yeah. I used to chip the tar out of them and put new caps in and poke the new leads up through the holes.  never bothered to re-tar them. This thing looks like it has about 8 or 9 of those cap blocks. Not lookin forward to that....gonna make sure the radio plays before I go through all that work. Dont wanna go there only to find it has a open coil(s) or something like that. 

This is the second 'hi fidelity' philco I had. The first was the 200-X made in 1934. great radio but it had the BC band only. That radio came up on a variac and played with only new filters. It was playing on half voltage.

this one has BCL, 160, 80/75, 40 etc so it's much more useful to me.

[W1GFH]

There's no reason I cant use it as a station receiver. 15 tubes of hi-fi goodness, and 15 honest class A watts of sound.

That's way cool, Derb. I've read of 1930s hams using the old cathedrals and consoles as their main recvr. and I bet the Philco would be kickass for buzzardly armchair copy nites on 75 and 160.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Yep, often listened to Tron and the gang on 75 at night on my bedside Zenith tombstone. P-P 6V6s sounded nice through the speaker, enhanced by the wooden cabinet. In fact, it was an old Philco 41-280 console that set the hook of the Magic of Radio for me back in the 70s. Clearly not as easy to tune as a comms receiver with bandspread and muting is more of a challenge, but well worth the effort!

Glad to hear you'll be keeping and resurrecting it, Derb. RockSea sold out a lot of its dials to another company a few years back and several others have sprung up since. Mohawk makes some nice touch up finish pens and wax crayons for fixing up the wood. Got a set of both years ago in the furniture biz and they are great. Other than the scruffy veneer edges around the bottom, you should be able to fix the old girl up quite nicely. And those 6B4s will bark nicely. 

[w3jn]

That's way cool, Derb. I've read of 1930s hams using the old cathedrals and consoles as their main recvr. and I bet the Philco would be kickass for buzzardly armchair copy nites on 75 and 160.

Every once in a while eBay coughs up an old tombstone radio that's been modified with a BFO and bandspread.

[N3DRB The Derb]

I was checking out the way Philco varied the i.f. selectivity - they move the primary and secondary coils closer or further apart with an eccentric cam system. The narrow is abt 3.4 kc, the wide is 10 kc.

this rx has not been messed around with much. It got some filter caps back in the 50's, and one of the wires going to the shadow tuner seems to have shorted to one of the filters case and repaired with red PVC wire.

The cabinet is worse than it looks in pictures. I can restore it, but it's going to be a job - the veneer is cracked and lifting
on every curved surface. Shows that the radio was in very dry storage and did'nt get any wood care.

It's too important a radio to not bring it back. It'll fit into the station somehow.

[Vortex Joe - N3IBX]

That 116 is worth big bux.  Don't scrap it out!!

Photos...?

Derb-O-Dyne,
                  The "JN" is correct-o-mundo! The 37-116X is next to the top of the line Phico for the 1937 model year. It is a true high fidelity set (as written on it).
Does your set have the bass reflex units in the bottom of it? The bass reflex "speakers", were passive radiators with nothing connected to them. They were designed to be passive radiators operating off of the low frequency resonance of the big 15" speaker.

In addition, if you remove the 15" speaker, you should have a removable wooden cone directly in the middle of it. The wooden cone is actually a rudimentary form of a tweeter as designed by Philco's engineers.

I have a 37-116-X, and man, it's it a playin, thumpin set! The 6B4G's are actually 2A3 triodes rebased with a octal socket and have 6.3v heaters in them. Philco rated the set at 15W undistorted output.

I sometimes tune in CKLW in Windsor Ontario (740AM) to listen to their oldies, and the country station in Nashville, Tenn (callsign escapes me at the moment) to listen to their country music in the evening. Besides, you can tuner in the "gangstas" on 75M 'fone! If you have a decent cabinet and electronics, I'd say it's a keeper. It's also one of the most coveted 1930's consoles by collectors, so it's value ios rated accordingly.