The PHILCO Phorum

I just picked up this weird critter--any help and information would be welcome. The only ID is a tag on the front that reads "International Philco" and a tag on the back that says "Part No. 10020A"

Looks like a distribution system for say a hospital, school, etc. with multiple outputs.Seems like the switches are feeding those terminals on the back which are in turn hooked up to I count about 25 speakers. It possibly has an intercom function as well?

I agree, I think it has something to do with a Muzak/intercom system. It has two mic inputs, switches labeled "Overload Indicator"; "Talk/Listen"; "Monitor Volume", "Master"-(Off-Normal-Emg); "Compensator"(Min Bass, Normal, Min Treb, (unnamed position)); "Volume", "Off-On" and "Selector"-(L3,L2,L1,S,R,P,M1,M2,M3,M4,M5).

The 25 switches are each labeled "S-Off-On"

I've done some research and I believe that the left chassis is a modified 37-650 or 37-660. The power supply chassis on the right appears to have two separate rectifier/audio output systems on the one chassis. The tube lineup on the left chassis is 6A8-(2)6K7-6J5-(2)77-75. The right chassis is 80-5Z3-(2)6A3-42. All tubes, transformers and the speaker are Philco parts. The tube shields have caps on them(is that the way they came originally?). This is a 3 band radio.

WOW, that's different!

Please see my site's History section for more details on the unit in question.

http://www.philcoradio.com/history/hist6.htm

Scroll down toward the bottom of the page.

Also see here:

http://www.philcoradio.com/history/othrphil.htm

This thread just gave me a little insight to the chassis I've had for several years. I'd suspected that IBM may have had something to do with it, but have never seen anything about it.

The receiver chassis is a modified model 91. There is a power amplifier chassis that came with it, that uses 2-81 and 2-50 tubes. There is a panel, with a lot of switches, much like the one shown in the original post.

There is a record player that was part of the system. It's an RCA motor board, using the "inertia" type RCA pickup arm.

This whole thing was obviously made by Philco. It's the only place I've ever seen Philco use Push-pull 50 outputs.

Know anything about this, Ron? Just some more goofy Philco stuff I have.

Hi Doug

I'm afraid that all I know about the IBM-Philco connection is what I have written in my site's History section (see links above).

I'm surprised it uses an RCA phono, given the enmity between RCA and Philco during the 1930s. But then again, Philco did use Victor (RCA) pickups in their radio-phonographs through the 1937 season...rebranded as "Philco", of course.

Edit: You folks should know that it was Doug, many years ago, who told me that Victor had originally developed the magnetic phono pickup used by Philco and other manufacturers for several years. Philco used the same pickup and tone arm, with few exceptions, through the 1937 season (37-650PX), complete with old-style Philco-with-lightning-bolt trademark!