[37silverstreak]

Hi everyone,
Well, after having success at resurrecting quite a few radios, I thought I might try my hand at working on one of my early Televisions! I bought this Philco 51-T1601 back in the early 90's from an old collector. He had a huge collection of Radio's and tv's and whenever he needed cash, he knew he could find something to separate a young collector from my money
Back then I was at Lakeshore Technical College and enrolled in Electronics servicing. As usual I was the ODD one in the bunch, where everyone else was bringing in Stereos and VCR's to class to work on in the shop, I was lugging in my Philco 71 cathedral and this Philco tv among other various pieces!! My instructors kind of got a kick out of me and what I would drag in next. At that time the lab, they were getting rid of a lot of obsolete parts and equipment, and every once in a while i would find a "care" package on my bench with old tubes and other parts they thought I would like One of the older teachers even gave me Complete Philco 65 chassis and a shopping bag full of early NOS tubes in their original boxes! I even bought the labs set of Rider manuals for 200 bucks from them. They sat on a shelf in class and I think I was the only student in 20 some years to actually take them down and look at them!
Anyway, I took this 51-T1601 to class and played with it. I actually got it to work somewhat! It has been sitting in my parents basement ever since. Today I decided to bust my back (as well as other various organs!!) and bring it home, man these things are heavy!!! I can't believe I used to carry this thing around!!!!!!!!!!
So, after I finish my Detrola project I want to take a crack at this thing. I plan on doing a recap and replace any out of tolerance resistors. I'm also pretty sure the crt is weak, it has a tube brightener on it.
Anyone have any pointers or am I nuts to try this!
As always, any input is welcome! Thanks!
Kevin
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[Arran]

If that is a CRT brightener and not an isolation transformer I would get rid of it if you can. It was a a common quick and dirty fix for a dim picture, not necessarily a weak picture tube, and if they stayed on there too long they would destroy whatever coating was left on the cathode. Sometimes it could simply be a case of the set's B+ being too low and hence the high voltage as well.
Regards
Arran

[chris25260880]

My grandparents had this same TV only with a brown cabinet, the 16" round glass picture tubes used in this model had phosphurs that gave a notoriously yellowish brown picture.
I sadly lost out on an exact mate to your Philco which included a factory UHF tuner in place of the center Philco emblem. Early on when my grandparents set needed repair
the Philco dealer must have had a full test jig for this model as he would take either the left or right chassis only leaving the CRT only took whichever side he suspected
had the problem. Very sensitive receiver. Normal VHF reception of stations close to 200 miles with an antenna very popular in New England in those days mounted about 30' AG in coastal New England. It was called a "Five in line" or "New Englander" Looked exactally like the three element Amphenol with two additional high band parasitics on the front. Only other place I ever saw them used was in Iowa. New England had many antennas that seemed to be very unique to the area including one very popular called a clipper, solid rod very short boom conical with a full length parasitic dipole on the back with with short high band parasitic in front of the conical. These were commonly stacked on 20' guyed masts in Southern NH and Maine. There are still many in place on the three deckers of Worcester and Manchester, NH. In Providence and all over RI and SE Massachusetts the most commonly used antenna during the 50's and 60's was another unique NE antenna called a "Bat Wing". Rotors were also very common in the above areas, unusul in most places until the advent of color and UHF in the late 60's

[Tim Tress]

Find someone with a CRT tester/rejuvenator, and check the picture tube; it may not be as bad as you think. If the tube is low, it might respond to rejuvenation.

I had one of those when I was a young teenager. They are FULL of "black beauties" and paper capacitors, so you have some recapping ahead of you if the CRT checks OK. And another thing; with the power on, be careful around the plate cap of that 6CD6-G.... it bites!