The PHILCO Phorum
Help in Identifying radio - Printable Version

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Help in Identifying radio - lgkinney - 07-24-2016

Hello everyone.  This is my first post and it concerns the identification of this Philco radio.
Could I tap into your knowledge and have you identify this radio.  I would like to know the model number and years it was produced. I think it's from the mid-1930's but am not sure. Can anyone tell me how many tubes it had and give me an idea of its short wave capabilities as well as the frequencies it received.

Thank you.

Les Kinney

RE: Help in Identifying radio - OldRestorer - 07-24-2016

Hey and WelCoMe!

That beauty is the 1938 series but which one exactly I cant say.
Here they are on the Awesome Philcoradio.com gallery page.

http://philcoradio.com/gallery/1938a.htm

Kirk

RE: Help in Identifying radio - klondike98 - 07-24-2016

Welcome to the Phorum!
Icon_wave 

If you take a look at Ron's gallery link to 1938 Philcos (introduced in June 1937) you'll see a number of models that used this cabinet (38-9K, 38-38K, 38-39K, 38-40K, 38-89K, 38-623K, 38-624K, 38-630K & 38-2630K)  http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/1938a.htm

RE: Help in Identifying radio - Nathan Slingerland - 07-24-2016

No shadow meter - so we can eliminate 38-630K and 38-2630K. Icon_smile

RE: Help in Identifying radio - lgkinney - 07-24-2016

Thank you for responding and thank you for your kind "welcomes."

Now that I got your attention, here is the story behind this picture. According to the woman whose arm you see pictured, she heard Amelia Earhart broadcast over her radio. I am assuming this is the radio she heard that broadcast. From some of your answers, the radio must have been recently purchased. The date she said she heard the broadcast was July 3, 1937 at about 1400 Eastern Standard Time. (her local time) or approximately 1900 hours GMT. The time in the Pacific where the broadcast allegedly originated was approximately 0600 or just about sunrise. I have only superficial knowledge of these old radios, but I have been told numerous radio technicians that the best time to hear a distant broadcast is right around sunrise at the transmitting location.

At the moment, I am not sure if she had an outdoor antenna rigged to her radio (Was that common in 1937? and what time of antenna would she have used?) It is unknown what frequency she heard the broadcast. Earhart was told to transmit by voice on 3105 kHz during the night and 6210 kHz during the day time. There is confusion whether she actually followed those directions. However, it appears most of the possible legitimate radio signals that were heard following her crash were heard on the harmonics associated with 3105kHz. Amelia was using a 50-watt WE-13C transmitter. She would have had to have the right engine running on her Lockheed Electra in order to power the generator.

There appears to have been several radio listeners in the United States, Canada, and Australia that picked up legitimate transmissions from Earhart following her disappearance. What they heard was a lot of garble with a sporadic word or two. None were able to hear the location from which Earhart transmitted except the woman whose radio you see pictured in this post.

I have lots of questions, the first being, do any of you know who might own this particular model and is it still in good operating condition? As I mentioned in my original post, how many tubes does it have?
I would like to hear all of your thoughts.

Thanks,

Les Kinney

RE: Help in Identifying radio - Nathan Slingerland - 07-24-2016

That's an incredibly interesting story Les!

As mentioned, it's hard to say for certain which Philco model that is without more information because Philco used the identical cabinet for a number of models.

But.. we can say that based on the list of possible models it had 6 tubes (different tubes depending on the exact model).

Would the woman pictured know if the radio ran off of batteries or was plugged into the wall?

AC and AC/DC sets include 38-9K, 38-23K, 38-40K, 38-89K.
The rest are battery operated sets.

38-9K
38-23K 38-38K
38-39K
38-40K
38-89K
38-623K
38-624K The above information comes from the gallery link posted earlier and a summary of tube layout information for Philco models of that year summarized here:
http://www.philcorepairbench.com/tube/tcomp5.htm

RE: Help in Identifying radio - klondike98 - 07-24-2016

Thanks for generating that list Nathan!  Looks like the set had to be the 38-89k, 38-263k or 38-264k to hear broadcasts on 3.105MHz.

Yes, Philco sold an antenna set up for outdoors known as the High Efficiency All-Wave Aerial.

RE: Help in Identifying radio - Ron Ramirez - 07-24-2016

It would not have been a 38-623K or 38-624K - the knobs are spaced differently on those. So that leaves the 38-89K.

July 1937...yes, the 1938 Philco models were introduced in June 1937, so that was still basically a spankin' new model, one of the first 1938 Philcos produced.

RE: Help in Identifying radio - klondike98 - 07-24-2016

OK..I see how the knob positioning for the 38-623k is different from the pictures in this thread http://philcoradio.com/phorum/archive/index.php?thread-3979.html

As for whether that particular set is still functional and if so who owns it...... good question. You may be in a better position to track that down if you know the identity of the lady in the photo and her family. Perhaps someone knows what happened to it. Many of the set of this vintage were discarded or if not discarded, put in the basement, barn or garage and left to decay.

RE: Help in Identifying radio - Radioroslyn - 07-25-2016

There's also some chatter about AE being heard on a National SW-3 in the Howland Island too. Before the crash.

RE: Help in Identifying radio - morzh - 07-25-2016

Ron

if the model is "introduced" in June 1937 but is for 1938, could it have been bought in 1937 or had the sales started in 1938?

RE: Help in Identifying radio - Ron Ramirez - 07-26-2016

Sales for the 1938 line began in June 1937.

It was similar with how automobiles used to be - new cars used to be introduced in September of the previous calendar year. Back in ye olden days, the manufacturers' new line of radios came out in June of the previous calendar year.

RE: Help in Identifying radio - lgkinney - 07-27-2016

(07-24-2016, 09:18 PM)klondike98 Wrote:  OK..I see how the knob positioning for the 38-623k is different from the pictures in this thread http://philcoradio.com/phorum/archive/index.php?thread-3979.html

As for whether that particular set is still functional and if so who owns it...... good question.  You may be in a better position to track that down if you know the identity of the lady in the photo and her family.  Perhaps someone knows what happened to it.  Many of the set of this vintage were discarded or if not discarded, put in the basement, barn or garage and left to decay.
Thanks for responding. 
The lady in the picture who owned this radio died in 1970.  I am trying to locate an almost identical radio or at least a radio with identical properties, not necessarily the same cabinet.   

RE: Help in Identifying radio - lgkinney - 07-27-2016

(07-24-2016, 08:58 PM)Ron Ramirez Wrote:  It would not have been a 38-623K or 38-624K - the knobs are spaced differently on those. So that leaves the 38-89K.

July 1937...yes, the 1938 Philco models were introduced in June 1937, so that was still basically a spankin' new model, one of the first 1938 Philcos produced.
Thanks

As I mentioned in another answer to this thread, I am trying to buy or "borrow" a radio that had identical properties to the one pictured in the photo. If the radio was identical in every respect to the console model (not necessarily with a big cabinet) shown it would work. Does anyone know of a working radio that would be available that fits this request?

Thanks

RE: Help in Identifying radio - klondike98 - 07-27-2016

So you need to find a 38-89 chassis or its equivalent. That would mean any of the following radios with a working chassis (or even the chassis without the cabinet since the chassis in these are the same) would fill the bill: 37-89B (table model), 37-89F (console), 38-89B (table model), or 38-89K (console).

Borrowing might be difficult since shipping is always a somewhat risky business but you never know until you ask. You can add a note in the "Wanted Ads" section to buy or borrow a set and see who might have something. There are a few 37-89s on ebay at the moment even some that claim to be working (that sometimes means that the dial lamp glows or you can hear static).

There is the Northwest Vintage Radio Society that is only 2 hours south of you that might have someone who owns one of the above radios and could help you out. Unfortunately I don't know anyone in that group but you could give them a call to see what they might have. Most folks in this hobby are pretty friendly and always interested in showing off their collections.

If you are trying to recreate the radio call that the lady believes she heard and looking for the same set to use as part of the experiment, keep in mind that restored sets today may vary quite a bit in performance depending on how well they were restored. Reception on short wave can be very dependent on the atmospheric conditions that cause the radio signals to bounce off the atmosphere and travel long distances (I'm no expert on this, just general info. ) OK..probably more than you wanted to know ...