[jcassity]

it just occured to me that all i would need to do on the dial glass is block out the oval dial tick mark areas and then spary copper spray paint on the back side of the glass! maybe I'll do that.

[jcassity]

in my 46-1226 cabinet i have a box antenna that gets good to decent AM reception and nearly nothing on SW while in the house.
SW comes and goes but the hits across the dial are maybe one or two and very low amplitude.

while the radio chassis was under restoration in my garage, i had the ability to use my 500 or so feet at 70feet height random wire so AM and SW were great.  many stations were coming in especially on SW.

Part 1 question:
I am looking for a way to improve on the original antenna design such as buy something already to go or make something.   Id like to make something to be honest this way i can control its looks to blend to the era of this 1946 model.

Part 2 question:
Is there an aftermarket solution that i could hide in the radio somewhere that "pre" amplifies a radio signal?  thsi way i would use the output of this device to feed my  antenna input?

home construction is 10'' log two story home with metal roof.
I have a balcony off my bedroom thats about 10' x 40' and its screened in.  My tinkering mind is hatching an idea that i run an outside random wire to the screen, then jumper the screen to my metal roof. the screen is not grounded yet is attached to the red oak two story balcony i made. I know i should have my roof grounded but its not.
years ago i used the roof on this radio and it worked great but,, i would like to be able to relocate the radio around the house if the wife chages things so the random wire forces the location of where the radio is in the house. 

is there a superior new tech solution to this problem that i can blend into this radio?

[Ron Ramirez]

Antenna question merged with this existing thread since it involves the same radio.

http://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread.php?tid=4586

II. Multiple threads on the same subject not allowed.

When you start a thread, please keep the discussion within the same thread.

Example: "Philco 90 broken"

After you've started that thread, please do not start another thread on "Philco 90 bad resistor" if it is the same Philco 90 being discussed in the original thread. Give others a chance to respond to your questions rather than asking them again in a new thread - please be patient.

These sort of threads will be immediately deleted, to keep clutter to a minimum.

Please cooperate with me in keeping one thread in the same place rather than scattering it around.

[jcassity]

understood,
i was wrong, i thought it was a different yet electonics applicable topic and considered a separate thread for that reason. Same for the thread i did for a tube glowing blue i posted.

[Ron Ramirez]

Let's adhere to the rules, please.

Now...regarding your dial scale...if it were mine I think I would be inclined to leave it as is...simply because of this fact: one wrong move and you'll be buying a new dial scale...

[jcassity]

solved the antenna issue.

also dial glass background properly painted and blocked out.

[Ron Ramirez]

How about some photos of that dial scale?

Also, please elaborate on your heat sink on the output and rectifier tubes. That is interesting. That might be something useful for a nice tube stereo receiver, where the output tubes run HOT HOT HOT.

[jcassity]

my friend Tom B down in va beach just informed me that philco has metal an equals to the rectifier and 6k6 positions.
word for word on a heat solution..



"" The 6K6 or 5Y3 were never mfg'd in metal configuration but a pair of metal 6V6 can be subbed...
 Also a metal 5Z4 can be used for 5Y3...
 Metal tubes are usually cheap at the tube vendors or even on ebay(where generally the resellers that cater to audiophools run prices up)... They are certain that some brands sound better than others, of course it's always the ones in short supply... Funny thing is no tube manual that listes specs ever claimed to be better sounding than the next manufacturer's product... ""

[jcassity]

 please elaborate on your heat sink on the output and rectifier tubes. That is interesting. That might be something useful for a nice tube stereo receiver, where the output tubes run HOT HOT HOT.

here is whats going on with the heat sync i made up.  and the photo i posted on the previous page of this thread.
I accounted for expansion and contraction of the metal to glass contact.

I'm thinking glass is  harder than steel so therefore the steel will always be "ahead" of the glass at the molecular level ,, as in i tried to account for this setup to not break the tube glass.  Time will tell.

what i really want to do is bond the top of the aluminum plate to the "TOP side" of the power transformer this way heat walks to a large chassis part but........ at this time, the power transformer is staying so cool and the simple air cooled setup vented aluminum chunk i have is keeping temps low enough. ,,, much lower than before. nothing is hitting 300 degrees anymore so from my redneck view, sounds like progress to me.

i wonder if it would be better if the bands were copper instead of steel. ? thoughts on this transition from heat produced and traded off to a metal object that then has another metal object that sucks it away and out into the air??????????

[jcassity]

here is the patent i mentioned earlier that gave me the go light to proceed.

i like his idea better than mine ,, corrigated metal slip on cage around the tube,,, yet the dislike i have is that it depends on the tube base for heat wicking.. ... yet.... his design  mentions a convetion being created by way of the design. 
From my desk,, it seems his design could "trap" heat in even during the time which convection is being generated.

I coud easily make plenty of these designs in about 5 minutes.

http://www.google.com/patents/US2745895

[jcassity]

here is the buisness end of his patent,, flat metal shaped to a corrigation vertically to which then the efforts to bend it around in a circle naturally promote interlocking of the two ends.
the areas curved away from the tube it surrounds would act as a chimney and as heat is produced, naturally it goes up, yet the base would suck cool air in.

I really like it actually, but a part of me says it has to in some fashion actually "trap" heat as well.

in my design i am trying to attach metal to the hottest glass area of heat prodution then pull it up and away. mine is more complicated than his as far as work efforts are concerned to deal with heat,, his is more cost affective and probably does work.... i did not mock up or try his method.

[jcassity]

I wonder about this.......

buy a copper steel wool pad.,, the kind you buy would be way too much material for one tube., well maybe not because it depends on how you look at it.

cut off the amount you want then shape it into a cylinder.  slip it over your hot tube,,, may actually work,, who knows.

perhaps the copper were kept in its big single pad form and you wiggled out openings into the pad so that the one single pad could slip over two or three consecutive side by side tubes????

Then again,, if we had a low dc voltage power supply with utility ac as  the input then a old computer CPU fan would also work even better.  this way we dont use the natural convection principles as the means to fight heat out of the tube, we blow it away.

I think you guys understand by now that i enjoy taking something that lasted so long and then i dig into it and attempt to make it even more bullet proof.  From a purist standpoint this isn't going to work, but i cant let a minor but important opportunity to do a quick improvment slip by me.

same with my fox body cougars and Tbirds,, to change a heater core out shop manual step one says to "remove dash".
-Nope,, my step 1 is remove the access cover from the engine bay fire wall !,, now slips out in 10 minutes rather and the shop manual denoted 13 man hours.

or.. change the fuel pump- shop manual says step 1 is to drain gas and drop tank
-Nope, my step one is open trunk and roll back carpet. Open the access hatch in the trunk and remove pump there.

or.. improve one mistakes like all my exterior lighting goes through my headlamp switch and thats why it has the big heat sink,, typical results are with engine at idle and alterantor at 13.6vdc, the headlamps only get 11.9 to 12v when on.
-Nope, add slave relays to the headlamp switch and what do you know,,, now you have 13.3vdc at your headlamps. when you only have 13.5volts and you missing 2 of them due to voltage drop and OEM design errors, its hard not taking the time to improve on them.

[jcassity]

new topic same radio...................

the philco is located in our master bedroom and the wife mentioned it would be nice if the front lights could be doubled to be used as a night light as well.

the simple way to solve this is to use 120v lamps on the front.
redirect lamp power source upstream upto the fused side of the primary of my transformer.
put in a push button on/off switch there.

with radio off i can control 120v to the front dial glass illumination but not have any additional internal parts energized.

basically the lamps will no longer depend on the 6volt power trasnformer secondary section called "A" on my diagrams.

before i proceed, perhaps someone has already done this before and if so can you share what you did to achieve this.

i considered a few options,, like a six pole slave rlay, and other over complicated over doing it ideas,, i just thought i would ask first here.

[Ron Ramirez]

I would not do that...but it is your radio...

[Kenneth F. Besso Jr.]

I HEARD enough,,,,,to much brain work ,,running loose ,,,please shot it