[calmark]

Hi, This is my first time on the forum and first time Philco radio owner. I purchased a model 41-255 a few weeks ago at a garage sale for $40.00. The owner said he had it for about 10 years but hasn't used it in a while. The cabinet was in excellent condition with original knobs, push buttons, grill cloth, etc. I took it home and plugged it in and it works. I get stations on the broadcast, overseas, push buttons, but not much on the police band except speaker sounds. It came with a schematic showing the rect-84 tube was replaced with four diodes and two resistors. So I took a look inside and noticed all the paper and electrolytic capacitors were replaced and the power supply. I noticed the volume control switch was replaced because that turns on the radio instead of the off on push button that the schematic shows. The problem I'm having is sometimes when I turn on the set I get no stations just hum until I turn the band switch to push buttons and back to broadcast and then it works again. Someday it is like this and then it plays all day with no problems. Other days it starts and then it might stop after a hour or so until I turn the band switch again. I cleaned the rotor band switch contacts with De-Ox-Id but didn't help. I'm thinking it is in the contacts on that rotor switch but may be wrong. Appreciate any help or words of wisdom from the pros. Thank you for your time, calmark.

[Terry Judkins]

I had the exact symptom with a 41-255. It turned out to be a bad 250 pf mica capacitor (nuumber 24 on the Rider schematic) connected to the grid of the XXL oscillator.

[calmark]

Thanks Terry for your help. I pickup a 270pf capacitor and install it today. Will find out in a couple of days if it solve my problem. Will let you know. Going to a estate sale Friday morning of a person who collect old radios and work on them. The person who is running the sale said there are 1000's of old tubes, parts, test equipment, and old radios. He said that a person could be there for hours digging through all the stuff. Sounds like fun to me. Thanks again, Mark.