Hello everyone, 

I am looking to restore my first radio and I have two Philco’s to choose from; a 42-380 and a 40-130.  I own both of them but was wondering if one might be a better restore for a first timer than the other?  I plan to keep both so no worry’s over resale value and neither is sentimental to me either. The cabinet for the 40-130 is in a lot better condition than the 42-380 but cabinet restoration is another journey.   I plan on restoring both to gain the knowledge and to help keep these radios alive for myself and other generations. I’m also a Ham (KI5MED) so I’ve got the radio bug lol.  I have worked on tube stuff before, but this is my first attempt at a radio and want to make sure it’s done right. No hack jobs here! lol. 

As far as equipment I have a fluke DVM, 100mhz Dual trace Oscilloscope, audio signal generator, variac, isolation transformer, solder station.  What I don’t have is an RF generator to use for the alignment. 

So my questions are:

1. Electronic wise, is one of these radios, easier to restore than the other?

2. Does anyone have a suggestion for an RF Generator that won’t bankrupt me? lol

3. Any help, guidance, or tips are greatly appreciated!

Thanks! 

Matt

Hello Phorum Members:  I am attepting to reassemble my 37-640 during restoration but have encountered a problem reinstalling the bandswitch.  I have inserted the shaft of the bandswitch with the flatside up so that it will be in the BC position but it seems to get stopped at about the last wafer position and will not go in all the way.  Can anyone offer any suggestions of what I might try ar what the problem is.  Thanks--John

Hello everyone, today I picked up for free locally from someone on facebook marketplace a 1939 Motorola Model 82A AM/SW Radio with built-in clock/timer controlled motorized tuning that is all original except for a couple of weird hacked in modifications that were put in by the one of the previous owners of the set, one of the modifications was that they hacked in a toggle switch in the back of the radio cabinet presumably to take the place of the original push-button power switch mounted on the front panel of the radio, and then the other modification which is kind of a weird modification is that someone at some point in time attempted to hack into the radio two extra speakers besides the original 12" Full-Range Speaker, but it looks like they were never able to actually get the speakers wired into the radio though because they wired some speaker wires to the hacked in drivers but never had them actually attached to anything by the looks of it, and also when they hacked in these additional drivers they butchered up the original speaker soundboard but somehow managed to keep the original grille cloth intact?  Not sure how that works...

Anyways I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this particular model of radio and if so how hard or easy is it to restore electrically? I looked at the Rider's Manual for this radio and it looks pretty straight forward except the clock/timer/motorized tuning part which will be kind of interesting to work on.

Also How rare is this radio? I haven't seen too many examples of this model radio out there when doing a general Google search for this model, and what examples I did see were not in very good shape and or the bakelite bezels were either missing or damaged (mine has both bakelite bezels intact yet but the one for the clock is missing the glass insert.)

Any info on this radio would be appreciated, Pictures below of the unit in question.

   

Hello, I just got a 37-116 code 122 so I guess I am a member of the 37-116/38-116 club . This thing sure is heavy. I removed the chassis to examine and test the tubes. What a beast. It will be a challenge to work on that chassis. All the tubes tested good except the 6F6. I removed the bottom plate and found all to be original with the exception of an addition of an external phono jack and switch. My first question is how best to remove the speaker. The grille cloth is just about gone so I see that cone in there. I bet that speaker is heavy as well. Is that wood brace holding the back of the speaker glued in? I was thinking maybe I could lay it down and remove the brace and then pull the speaker straight up. 

Thanks,
Dan

Philco Phriends:

I'm working on my 42-365K, which I introduced to the Phorum last month.

I have a plan to replace the biggest capacitors, which I believe get called electrolytics. 

Here are some photos:

    .    

   

I searched the archives and found Ron Ramirez's super helpful post from 16 years ago. He wrote:

"Okay. Here are the factory specs for the electrolytics used in Model 42-365:
"(37) Dual, 8 and 8 uF, 475 volts (per 1946 replacement 40-3003) - Part No. 30-2476
"(60) 12 uF, 400 volts - Part No. 30-2471
. . .
"Thus, armed with this information, it is safe to assume that 450 volt electrolytics will be just fine for this radio. In fact you could probably get by with 300 volt electrolytics for the two 8 uF units, but to simplify things, you may wish to go ahead and use 450 volts.
"8 and 12 uF are no longer standard values. 10 uF will be fine as substitutes for all three."

My questions are beginner basic.

Can I buy any 10 mfd 450 volt capacitors to replace the original monsters. For example, are these fine?

https://www.amazon.com/ALLECIN-Electroly...r=8-3&th=1

Second, how do I connect the 30-2476—which has two wires in and one wire out because, I think, there's a capacitor within the capacitor? Do I connect one new capacitor to the red wire, one to the green, and then both of them will connect to the black?

Note, btw, that I am replacing the rotten old rubber wires. (Side query: how was Philco getting rubber during WWII to use on the wiring of consumer radios?)

Once I replace these electrolytic capacitors and some of the worst wires, then I may turn to the other capacitors if the radio still works!

Thank you for helping a beginner. The question really is what replacement capacitors do I buy and how do I install the one that's a double.

Tom Russell

Mike and Peter may be interested in this, I obviously can't understand what this gentleman is saying but I think I understand the theory of changing capacitor values in the local oscillator tank circuit for FM, though how well this works with the stock coils I don't know. I am not about to try this on either of my USSR built sets, as I can recall when I had the Chaika running it would pick up the audio for one of the local, over the air, analog TV channels in the Edmonton area, but since I have enough sets that have the 88-108 MC FM band on them there isn't any reason to modify the Soviet ones. By the way, did they have to pay royalties to Armstrong's estate when the started building FM sets in the USSR?  
  I am actually surprised how many Y.T channels involve radio and TV restoration in that part of the world, and they apparently have a lot of views. I had assumed that they were still broadcasting on the Soviet era FM band but maybe the selection isn't as good?
Regards
Arran


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcAhdGJHKN8

Well guys, after picking up the 1957 Golden D and 1960 Bristol sets I posted about a while back I finally found my bucket list Predicta after a long search. I drove from Western Mass to Terra Haute Indiana to pick up this unit, a 1959 Predicta Full Dress. A couple weeks later someone local contacted me and I picked up his 1960 Predicta Miss America. So... now I have four to restore along with another set soon and some radios. Work was slowed due to a flood in our basement, but once the repairs are completed I'll be back to the restos. Stay tuned        

Have several radios that I reworked in the time frame of 1980-1995. Most are AA5-AA6 sets the parts were purchased mostly from a company call All Electronics the E caps were mostly Nippon you could even buy tubes back then a set for AA5 cost around five dollars. So is it time to recap?

Have been unable to locate the correct schematic for this.  All the schematics I find show a 7J7 for the detector/oscillator, mine has a 6K8. The chassis is stamped  40-155, code  121 and the schematic is similar except for condenser 6 and 22 which are a different value listed that what is in this radio.  Performance seems about the same compared to the Philco 39-25 that I restored earlier.  The 40-155 uses a 1232 (7G7) for a r.f. amplifier and an additional 41 for push pull output so I really expected better sound and better reception; I even replicated the built in antenna on the 40-155.  Both of the radio's came without speakers so I installed the same type of  pm speaker in both, would the original speaker make a difference in sound quality?

This radio was bought...at least 8 or so years ago. I still was open to getting consoles, especially those that came with a right price.
I am sure it is a 96, as, first of, it is the Highboy with the leaf pattern

   

Also, upon opening the cassis, (the schematics of 96 and 95 are nearly identical) the tell-tell sign, the backelite capacitors, were found, that confirms the 96.

The chassis, other than lots of dust, is in fair to good condition. A fes rust spots are not bad, surface rust, and inside is clean.

This is the back of the radio.

   
   

And the chassis is out.
   
   
   

Like I said, dust galore.

Now, as I knew (some time ago I did check the speaker), the speaker has bad field coil (and good transformer). I have another speaker, exact same problem, and the third one was the same (I used its transformer elsewhere). Seems to be a common problem with G speakers.
Even though this is the type with removable FC, I am not a big fan or rewinding large coils, and so might try to find a speaker with good coil (the transformer I have).