[mikethedruid]

Well, my Philco Tropic A-3641 arrived today. This thing is HUGE!  22 1/2 inches wide, by 15 inches tall, by 9 1/4 inches deep. The first thing I noticed was a roll of red wire which connected to a blue wire that went inside the chassis. I supposed that someone did this so that they didn't need an external antenna. It struck me though, that this could just have been screwed to the proper antenna terminal, and made me wonder why tthis had been done this way. Since the listing said that the radio had been re-capped, I decided to try it out. I connected my antenna and ground to the proper terminals, and turned on the set. It lit up, and a low hum came from the speaker, but I could receive nothing on any band. On the broadcast band there were faint sounds that were perhaps a station or two as I tuned across the band, but no real reception that one might expect. I did not try unrolling the red wire and seeing if that worked better. Instead I have written the person I bought it from to inquire about the modification and how the radio was modified. This kind of foolishness REALLY annoys me. I wish I had the service information on this model. It is a very impressive radio, and I would like to get it properly restored. If anybody has the schematic and service information, please help me. Thanks.

[Image: https://66.media.tumblr.com/970a82f326d2...o1_500.jpg]

[Image: https://66.media.tumblr.com/c69af15e8dc6...o2_500.jpg]

The yellow arrow shows where the blue wire that goes through the chassis and connects to the roll of red wire connects to a terminal on the band switch.

[radiohenry]

Imagine how I felt . I purchased a movie dial chassis and speaker on e-pay and when I opened the carton instead of unplugging the speaker plug at the back of the chassis the idiot cut the harness.
                                                 Henry

[Ron Ramirez]

Don't blame me. I never did anything with this radio while I owned it. It collected dust for years until I decided to let it go as part of my massive collection reduction.

[mikethedruid]

Don't worry, Ron. One look at the workmanship that was done, and I knew it wasn't your work. It may end up being a "shelf queen" in my own collection unless I can get hold of some documentation on it.

[mikethedruid]

I worked on this radio today. When I got it, someone had installed a "replacement" candelabra base for the bulb that illuminates the dial. It had obviously been salvaged from a string of Christmas tree lights. I found a proper replacement that looked like it would work on eBay, and ordered it months ago, the end of February. The trouble is, it was coming from China. It never arrived! They had put that it might be as long as April 25th as the outside arrival date, but by then eBay had removed it from my list of orders. Tracking showed it had been sent from China, but it never showed it arriving in the U. S. Oh well. It wasn't that expensive, but it held up my working on this radio for a LONG time. I finally ordered another one of the same type, this time from a U. S. seller. It arrived in a few days. Today I installed it along with a proper bulb. It works well. I tested out the radio too. The tuning condenser was out of alignment and rubbing and so I had to fix that. I can now pick up some stations on 2 bands. I really need a schematic to go much farther. I want to know where the wire that the guy I bought it from attached a long piece of wire for an "antenna" to originally went. I would also like to undo any other mischief.