The PHILCO Phorum

I was quite surprised to find one of these in a vintage shop on the northside. It's not working and they were promoting more as a prop or decoration. They had received a few inquires and offers already, but if I could lay down some cash it would be mine. So I ran over to a nearby bank (paid the $3 fee ) and it was mine



Now I am taking a gamble that the CRT is good, but I could liberate one from a Holiday if I really had to.
The base is very light. Almost makes me wonder if there's anything really in there!



It's also missing one knob and, as usual, the antenna.



Now for the worst part. Someone cut and tossed the umbilical cord

I suppose I can roll my own unless by some miracle there's a spare cable floating around out there.

Hi Bob
Good catch I have often wondered, was that cord flexible, did it try to coil or did it lay flat. I used to service TV back in the 50's and early 60's (tube days) but I don't think many were sold in the Louisville area I never saw one.
Joe

Thanks. This is the first one I've ever seen in person. I think the cable was coiled in the pictures I've seen.

Amazingly, the 2.35 volt picture tube still has some life left

A fellow collector in the Boston area saw my post wit the hacked off cable and contacted me. He had seen a craigslist post advertising for old radios and TVs and checked it out. It was mostly junk but he did have a nasty, moldy, filthy head unit with cable for this set.

The picture tube tested bad though so he left it behind. That was weeks ago, the listing had expired and he no longer had the guys phone #. Luckily, a websearch turned up a cached copy of the listed, we contacted him and he still had the unit

It's a bit of a drive for him so he contact yet another area collector closer to the seller. He kindly went over, held his nose and brought it back to collector #1. He then disassembled it and carefully packed and shipped the key bits to me. He held on to the picture tube too. It seems it has a cathode - heater short, but may be useable with a separate filament transformer.


So here it finally is.


And after a few hours of cleaning with orange "goop" hand cleaner.
It is somewhat flexible, but it's probably been coiled up for decades and wants to stay that way.

Now the real challenge will be mating it to my head unit.

WOW you are lucky all kidding aside glad you got it. It really cleaned up pretty at least in the pictures. BTW I want to ask you a question, in your video you used a RCA signal generator WR-50 i think, does it drift much, I have one and it drifts a lot. Joe

Hi Joe. Lucky for sure. Although it ended up costing me almost as much as the whole set, it's a lot cheaper then new cable. I think I priced out single conductor shielded HV cable at about $10 / ft and there are over a dozen conductors in this cable!

As for the WR-50, I couldn't really say. I don't use it that often and then it's mostly in sweep mode.

Here's how the cable plugs into the base unit.

During the holidays and deep freeze, I decided to take a whack at restoring this set.
After a bit of cleaning, I determined all but the two tubes in the tuner are original and it's never been serviced.






I removed the main sweep board and replaced all the caps, resistors and rebuilt the K networks.


Underneath all that dirt, the chassis is in remarkably good condition.


The same can't be said of the flyback so I unmounted and recoated it.




I just wrapped up with underneath the chassis tonight and will attempt a first power up tomorrow

That's coming along nicely! I've been keeping my eye out for a Predicta, hopefully I'll score one at some point.

Thanks. Try to get one of the 17" models if you can. They have power transformers, more reliable CRTs and a superior type of plastic for the screen cover.

I did some final checks and got up the nerve to power it up. A raster on the very first try

Now for the bad. No sound or video is getting through. No response at all to changing channels. I did the obvious things like wiggle the tuner and IF tunes and checked the connections, but no response.

Next, I'll try injecting some IF signals.

Hi Bob,
Are you doing a You Tube video for this set? I really enjoy watching your videos Looks like a very well preserved chassis, good luck with it!
Kevin

Oh, yes! So much video footage you just may be tired of it by the end

After several frustrating days, I discovered there is an error in the Sams service info tube chart! I had the tuner tubes flip=flopped. With them in their correct sockets, the et sprang to life



That was so much fun, I dove right into restoring a second identical chassis.

Hi Bob:
I must say I am impressed with your abilities! Are you self edumacated or did you take some formal training?

Gregb

Thanks. I'm a little too young to have learned anything about tubes in school - it was all transistors and integrated circuits. I know what I know about these old TVs and radios mostly from reading everything I can get my hands on including this great forum. The rest from getting my hands dirty