The PHILCO Phorum

I bought this Saturday (8/17/2019) at the SCARS swap meet.  I need the tone-off knob and the back.  Do you think they considered having FM?  It has a large blank space beside the tuning gang, perhaps for a separate FM tuning gang they decided not to use...

 

I sort of like that thing..it’s 1953, like me!

I have this model, it sounds great. For FM I have a Pilot tuner that I connect to the phono input, works well.

Steve Chambers

I've always wondered what prompted Philco to offer this radio, which is in essence a Philco Tropic model made for domestic (USA) sale. It was certainly Philco's last hurrah as far as a really good AM/SW table model radio is concerned.

As for FM or the lack of same - only some long dead Philco engineers know for certain. The 53-960 does have a conventional tuning condenser above the chassis for standard tuning of AM and a few SW bands, and permeability tuning under the chassis for the "spread bands" (49M, 31M, etc.).