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Rescued a Courier - Printable Version

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Rescued a Courier - Jayce - 06-08-2015

Decided to rescue this poor radio before it either rotted away totally or was stripped for its parts. Sadly, I can recall when this set was in MUCH better shape like the highboy model the previous owner still has. One thing that freaked me out is when I pulled the back off and realized the tuning chassis was arched and I realized it is made of pot metal! Luckily, the tuner still turns fine with no rubbing of the plates, though the tuning cord does slip in a couple spots. I called the previous owner and warned him to pull any other Couriers he has out of that humid back room!
On a good note, the transformer tests fine and I pulled in a few, faint channels on reduced power with a small length of antenna. Tried briefly on full power, but it started to hum loud, so I threw the bypass switch on my bulb board back to the bulbs! Still, the fact I heard some life from this set is good.
   

   

RE: Rescued a Courier - Doug Houston - 07-01-2015

(06-08-2015, 08:46 PM)Jayce Wrote:  Decided to rescue this poor radio before it either rotted away totally or was stripped for its parts. Sadly, I can recall when this set was in MUCH better shape like the highboy model the previous owner still has. One thing that freaked me out is when I pulled the back off and realized the tuning chassis was arched and I realized it is made of pot metal! Luckily, the tuner still turns fine with no rubbing of the plates, though the tuning cord does slip in a couple spots. I called the previous owner and warned him to pull any other Couriers he has out of that humid back room!
On a good note, the transformer tests fine and I pulled in a few, faint channels on reduced power with a small length of antenna. Tried briefly on full power, but it started to hum loud, so I threw the bypass switch on my bulb board back to the bulbs! Still, the fact I heard some life from this set is good.

Tjhis is the same set as I now have. It's a duplicate of our family set from new until it was replaced with a new Philco 37-650X.

Our old Courier had the "Kylectron" Electrostatic speaker in it, and lasted until around 1934. I was always afraid of that set, because if you advanced the volume too much, you could see sparks thru the spake grille cloth.
Father finally had to replace the Kylectron with a coiled horn Baldwin speaker. That went from probably 1934 to Xmas 1936, when the new Philco arrived.

Perverse little beast that I was, I once trapped our little cat in the Kylectron speaker fame.

I found my Courier set in a radio meet in the sixties, and have restored the chassis. It'sa strange set with those die cast chassis. United reproducers had theiir own way of doing things!! No Kylectron, though. It has the EM speaker like yours.

RE: Rescued a Courier - OldRestorer - 07-02-2015

good job!

Me

RE: Rescued a Courier - morzh - 07-02-2015

This can be made beautiful, I saw some of these on eBay with better finish, those look nice.

RE: Rescued a Courier - Radioroslyn - 07-02-2015

>Our old Courier had the "Kylectron" Electrostatic speaker in it, and lasted until around 1934. I was always afraid of that >set, because if you advanced the volume too much, you could see sparks thru the speaker grille cloth.

Now that's my kind of radio!!!
I love perverse sets!! I'm going to fix a few this weekend!
Great story!

Terry