The PHILCO Phorum
National NC sixty special - Printable Version

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National NC sixty special - jcassity - 04-26-2023

I am soon going to be documenting a resto of an NC60 special for someone who is buying it.
I found a thread on this set and wanted to know if anyone has the repair manual or diagram.

mikethedruid posted some useful info on this set here

https://philcoradio.com/phorum/archive/index.php?thread-22989-1.html


and he mentions how it nearly mirrors the hallicrafters s38 even down to the gimmic capacitor for cw.

I am going to try and get in touch with mikethedruid for a better quality diagram and perhaps a source for the alignment steps just in case these steps are different from the hallicrafters.  I look forward to some more silver mica issue on the IF's.

thanks in adavance guys!

scott cassity

jcassity@frontier.com
304 772 4082

RE: National NC sixty special - Arran - 04-26-2023

I have a National Sixty Special that's a bit of a beater, and found some information online about them, I think it's from about 1959-60. My impression is that it is somewhat better made then a Hallicrafters S-38E?, at least the cabinet and chassis are, but it's still made to a price. Most of the capacitors are not paper, they are reddish-brown "chiclet" style, the rest may be paper mylar or just paper since they appear to be molded black Sprague ones, the filter caps are in a typical "toilet roll" one like most 1950s AC/DC sets have. The IF cans were not made by National, Automatic/Miller K-trans, though the front end coils may or may not have been I don't think they were), the tube sockets are the typical phenolic wafer ones used in loads of AC/DC radios at the time. Mine has the black cabinet, some come in a grey cabinet, and allegedly blue as well, made out of heavier gauge steel then the Hallicrafters S-38s of the time, the chassis slides out the front, two screws hold it in from the back, and two on the bottom, once the back is removed. 
Regards
Arran

RE: National NC sixty special - jcassity - 04-26-2023

thanks for the additional info Arran. I have learned the total blacked out sets are very very rare to find whereas the two tone black / gray are common,,, and yes,, also a better well made set than hallicrafters.

I am under the impression i may not need to replace the disc caps as they usually dont go bad but yes all the bumble bee caps are gone and as well the filter cap good or bad.

i am crossing my fingers the silver mica wont be a problem but i feel compelled to mitigate it in the future by using a 150pf cap after i eliminate the mica discs,,, then do a full realignment.

thoughts?

RE: National NC sixty special - Arran - 04-27-2023

This thread reminded me that I had not really checked over the one I had electrically. The caps were mostly chicklet style, but they were also a number of disk caps in it too. The black ones were not made by Sprague, they were "Pyramid" brand. In any event I threw a set of tubes in it (four were missing), connected a pair of new filter caps across the old ones, with test leads, and powered it up slow on a variac. In spite of the surface rust, and corrosion from mouse urine, it actually still worked, even even the old filter caps in the toilet roll (also Pyramid brand). I did have to spray the band switch though as it was flakey, I could not confirm whether the S.W bands were working properly as there is a lot of electromagnetic hash where I have the radio stored, probably one of the neighbors is using a China junk switchmode power gadget nearby, or the pole pig is dying. I have a feeling that those molded caps may be paper/mylar as I had some NOS ones that I ran across before, tested on a bridge at high voltage, and they still tested good. In any even the set is fairly complete, but rough due to the rust, and there is a hairline crack in the plastic around the headphone jack socket on the front. The front panel looks neat but using the same plastic piece for both the controls and the dial was a bad idea.
Regards
Arran