The PHILCO Phorum
General Electric 202 revived. - Printable Version

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General Electric 202 revived. - Jayce - 11-30-2019

I decided to have one of my flea market finds from the summer recapped and chose the nice little General Electric model 202 bakelite I found for $20-$25 at Hartville Flea Market. Radio came out great and sounds good as well. That sixth tube does seem to make a difference in the performance as I think it is an extra RF tube like the beater Philco 42-322 I used to play with. Odd little chassis that uses a nightlight bulb as a dial light! Icon_lol

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - David - 12-01-2019

Have several GE table radios that have the night light bulb kind of neat if it burns out does not do bad things to the rect tube. Growing up my folks had a tube radio using the night light bulb once my dad used a Christmas tree light bulb (red) in the set. When I go to yard sales and flea markets will buy the old style bulbs when I find them.

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - mikethedruid - 12-01-2019

David, you can still buy incandescent 7 watt night light bulbs at most big hardware stores, or online from bulbs.com, although bulbs.com has a minimum order. I have dealt with them before when I was restoring the Philco power supply for battery radios. Here's a link to them: https://www.bulbs.com/Night_Light_&_Holiday/C--7-Shape/results.aspx      and here's a link to Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com/s/C7%2520incandescent%2520bulb?NCNI-5

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Paul Philco322 - 12-01-2019

I have some 7 watt nite lite bulbs from Zayre, Christmas Bulbs by GE from Jordan Marsh.  Icon_lol

Old stores. Old man. 

Paul

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - David - 12-01-2019

One of those 4 letter words OOLD, Thanks!!!!

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Ron Ramirez - 12-01-2019

If it were me, I would use the LED replacements for C7 night light bulbs. They run cooler (greatly reducing the chance of discoloring or burning the plastic found in some sets between the bulb and the dial scale) and use much less current.

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Paul Philco322 - 12-01-2019

There is a good deal of room in this set and the bulb sits back from the dial which is glass painted with numbers, these numbers on the glass will wipe off in[Image: http://blogs.creighton.edu/cjw84423/files/2017/10/IMGP6314.jpg] a blink, you cannot be too careful if you want them to survive, I cannot stress this enough. If you went with the LEDs you would likely never need to replace them. Got pic from Chris Wilmes.

Pablo

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Jayce - 12-01-2019

I actually pulled a dead, gold satin Christmas tree bulb from the 60's out of this GE when I found it. I currently have a 4 watt C7 bulb in it as that was all I could find locally. Figure it will burn cooler. Sadly, someone wiped most of the black shadowing off the front of the dial glass sometime in the past. The white numbers are fully intact though. I pondered an LED bulb, but wondered about interference with the radio. It has enough to deal with in the house!

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Jayce - 12-03-2019

Since I don't think I ever posted it here, a quick picture I just took of the radio while listening to it right now:

   

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - jake wells - 12-03-2019

I will keep a eye out for one with a extra rf stage and older style IF transformers that don't get silver mica disease like the later stuff. A definitive plus in my book and that is a nice set.

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Paul Philco322 - 12-03-2019

[Image: http://tubetalkclassicradioshow.org/images/100_2049-N.jpg]

Here is one in my Bakelite group, they must have made a lot of them. It is a fine sounding set. Does the set you have Jayce have that metal bar on the bottom?
mine dosen't and I am not sure what purpose it serves.

Paul

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - Jayce - 12-03-2019

Mine has the metal bar and I am not sure what it does either. At first I thought the cabinet was fouled up as I couldn't find another with the metal bar until recently. Even so, I have only seen one or two others that way.

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - 462ron - 12-04-2019

Here is mine in white/ivory that I finished about 2 years ago. Think I paid $25 for it at an antique store.

Ron

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - rfeenstra - 12-04-2019

Jayce, do the small LED's have a switching supply in them like the household LED's? I think it's the switching supply that causes the interference. I've had to "de-buzz" all of my household LED's. I don't think they can fit a switching supply inside the small bulbs.

RE: General Electric 202 revived. - John Bartley - 12-04-2019

That's an interesting set. I have owned one, but never liked the style, so I passed it on very quickly. What I find interesting about it is the "tuned RF stage", which if said quickly and without explanation would lead a person to believe that there are two stages of RF tuning in addition to the the tuned oscillator. This is not the case in this set. This set has the extra stage of RF amplification, that stage also being tuned and placed in front of the mixer, BUT .... where most sets have tuned RF coils at the mixer stage, this one does not .... unless I missed something it only amplifies and mixes at the mixer .... it doesn't tune .... hence the tuning capacitor with only two sections instead of the three that are normally associated with a tuned mixer, a tuned oscillator AND a tuned RF stage.

cheers