The PHILCO Phorum
Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - Printable Version

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RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - morzh - 09-13-2013

I never had anything worse to re-cap than 37-116 but them my experience is limited.
Restoration includes other things, and between replacing a whole lot of tightly packed rubber wire and recapping 37-116 I am not sure which one I'd choose.
If it weren't for the RF chassis hidden caps, 37-116 would be not so bad at all, if not easy.
And, of course, soldered rivets in backelite caps did not help....

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - Phlogiston - 09-13-2013

I suppose it does make a difference how much rubber wire a person has replaced. I have replaced a lot, but I can remember back in the days that I would feel the strong urge to "just leave it" (a bad idea I got over) or turn the radio into a parts set. And I have taken apart a lot of sub chassis, also not so bad by the time you have a couple dozen under your belt. I wonder how many of them have all the caps replaced except the two in the center of the RF and Antenna section?:

http://www.nostalgiaair.org/PagesByModel/199/M0013199.pdf

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - morzh - 09-14-2013

In mine 37-116 it has all of them replaced, except of course micas which all proved to be OK so far, but that took some doing without taking it apart - it is tricky, and couple of times I wanted to give up.

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - Radioroslyn - 09-15-2013

But it was well worth it in the end right??
Terry

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - morzh - 09-15-2013

Oh yeah!!! Totally!!!

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - Radioroslyn - 09-15-2013

It's great learning experience!!! I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner but someone who understands how it works or if they don't can figure it out from the schematic should be fine with it as a restoration project. At the end you get a very nice surprise a great looking and sounding set that will give you many years of enjoyment!!!!
Now days I guess it's not that big of a deal to hear signals from thousands of miles away with the advent of the net and cell fones and the like. But to me there's a certain amount of magic involved. Just think with my little radio and a little antenna I can hear stations thousands of miles away Doesn't matter whether it's a little two or three tube regen set or a big gun like the 37-116.I kinda like the smaller sets to see what they can do. Not only do I get the opportunity to fix up a few of these old guys but I get a chance to talk to people too via the air waves. Any way you look at it it's great fun!!
Terry N3GTE

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - morzh - 09-21-2013

Terry

Honestly, Internet and Skype and all that...they don't have that magic. And the radio was no novelty for at least 40 years prior to my birth so I was born into the era of well-developed radio and TV. Still the radio fascinated me from the very start and for many years when I was a kid and learning electronics all I wanted to make were radios. Eventually I outgrew it and went to build amplifiers. But....here I am in the beginning of my 50s and dealing with radios again, and not any radios - tube ones.

RE: Philco 37-116 and Zenith 9S-262 - BrendaAnnD - 09-22-2013

Radio is still magic. Internet is good, but prone to failure and does not, and likely never will have, anything like the total penetration of HF radio. Of course, the powers that be are doing everything they can to destroy terrestrial radio, using digital signals that purposely don't cover any more than (and often not even) the local market for the station. They've pretty much destroyed BCBDX, what with I-BLOCK, the addition of hundreds of low power nighttime licenses, the destruction of 'clear channels', and the fact that most all the stations you CAN still hear at night are running the same programming, e.g. Goerge Noorey and Rush Limbaugh. Virtually gone is the thrill of hearing interesting and diverse programming from all over the US, Canada and Mexico (and those were just the ones you could get on your pocket transistor!).

And now, the idiots want to turn off the analog altogether and go total digital on AM. Say goodbye, DX (or even 'local' reception outside the cities)