[Guest]

I purchased a 38-60 on ebay and the radio arrived and does work. I have a couple of questions. first of all when I turn it on the tone switch when in the first postition or high it makes squelching noises while playing and would like to know the possible cause of this(does not happen in the low position). Also I wanted to know if any of these radios had a back to them. Also would like an opinion as to whether a selec antenna or terk loop antenna would increase the amount of channels I recieve. Thanks in advance for your help and hope I posted in the right section.

[gary rabbitt]

Hello and welcome!

Ron or Chuck can verify there was a back on the set. Is your set a console (floor standing) or a tombstone table model?

I know that some online sellers are thrilled of having a set make noise and claim "it works!!" Some Ebayers say a radio has been 'restored' I would be suspicious of these claims until I made an inspection under the chassis myself. We have seen some real hack jobs under the chassis. That can be dangerous or even a fire hazard.

It may work for a while, but if it has original parts inside, you may be on borrowed time. Those 71 year old parts have probably dried out, and if they short out or fail, they can quickly take out an expensive transformer. The noise you mention could be a dirty control, or a bad capacitor.
I don't know your background, so you may not understand about the circuits and why capacitors should be replaced before powering up. We don't want to hear that your set burned up or worse.
Have a quick read here: http://www.philcoradio.com/tech/plugin.htm

Even though a radio picks up stations, (that IS a good sign that other parts are working) I would not use it until someone can replace the filter capacitors. You will have a safer, and long lasting set that way.
If you are good with a soldering iron and can even slightly read a wiring diagram, you should be able to replace the parts yourself.
The Select a Tenna should work to bring in stations, but I'd do the recap first as it may bring in a lot more than it is now. The loop antenna will be able to null out stations to the side of your target area.
Good luck!
Gary.

[Ron Ramirez]

Hi

Ditto to everything Gary said. He has given you excellent advice, as always.

No Philco cathedral or tombstone model made in the USA before 1939 ever had a back. The majority of Philco consoles did not have backs, either. The exceptions are the higher-end 1938 consoles. There are some smaller sets, such as the 54C, that did have backs. And most, if not all, of the Inclined Sounding Board models had backs over the speaker portion of the cabinet.

As Gary mentioned, all paper and electrolytic capacitors in your radio need to be replaced for safety and reliability.

Good luck and enjoy your set!

[Guest]

Thanks for the advise guys. I am new to radios but I can use a soldering iron and will do much reading before starting to do the recap myself. The radio by the way is a table model tombstone and it looked like it had never had a back on it. I have been listening to it already for a few hours at a time with no problems but will take your advise and rebuild it so that I know that it has been done. When you say that the squelching noise could be made by a dirty control how do you go about cleaning that? if there is a section that describes this if you could just point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. Thanks again for all the info!! Shawn