[Farm Radio]

Hi all. Added a couple of Philco sets to my growing fleet of farm radios. A model 38 cathedral and a 41-95 tabletop. Cabinets are solid, finish could be better, but the chassis look complete. These will be on the back burner for a while, I have a long overdue date with a Philco 46-132 to fulfill first.

   

[sam]

farm
welcome to the phorum
sam

[Farm Radio]

I'm not really new to the Phorum, I was booted off a while back for lack of participation. Not a problem, I'll try to be more vocal. I have many makes and models of radios, both farm and plug-in sets, but farm radios are what got me started collecting and they are still of the greatest interest to me. I enjoy reading everyone's posts and I'll do my best to chime in more often. Thanks for having me.

[Ron Ramirez]

http://www.philcoradio.com/phorum/showth...p?tid=5651

Being dropped for not posting is done automatically by the system to keep database clutter to a minimum. Just stop in and say "hi" once in a while, and the system will leave you alone.

I think it's great that you are specializing in farm radios. These tend to be the "unwanted stepchildren" when it comes to vintage radios, since they do not plug into the wall for power. Someone needs to preserve these sets, too.

[Eliot Ness]

......I think it's great that you are specializing in farm radios. These tend to be the "unwanted stepchildren" when it comes to vintage radios, since they do not plug into the wall for power. Someone needs to preserve these sets, too.

+1

Farm sets played an important part in providing news and entertainment to rural areas.  With a power supply or some batteries you can make a pretty impressive working display.  And then to take it up a notch from there nothing will impress your friends and neighbors like a vintage wind charger in your back yard.

[Image: http://www.windcharger.org/Wind_Charger/...Models.jpg]

[Chris Cusick]

Hi Farm and welcome back !

I think Farm sets is an interesting area to specialize in and they are often good performers to boot.

If you are working on a 46-132 I would be very interested to see a picture of the tuning cap. I have never been able to get mine to tune properly and I suspect that someone may have 'modified' the oscillator section by pulling some of the fins out.

[klondike98]

Welcome back Farm!!! Save those sets that kept the rural folks in touch with the news and entertainment!!

[Farm Radio]

Thanks all. I have more Philco farm sets than any other make but RCA, Zenith, Airline, Silvertone, Truetone, Coronado, Sentinel, and at least one farm Frankenradio are represented in my collection. Seven or eight battery portables as well. One of my great-Grandpa's had a Wincharger back in the day, an Uncle remembers scrapping it once it was no longer in use. Again thanks all, good to be back.

[Arran]

 Battery operated tube radios are something that has interested me almost since I entered this hobby in the mid 1980s. What got me into them was the fact that I could pick up a pre war radio for what was a bargain price, and the most interesting part is that if I applied power to one I could usually get it to work without overhauling the chassis. Most of these sets, even when they were in regular use, never saw the high hours that a typical AC radio would, and many were retired as AC mains started working it's way into rural areas after the war even though there were battery eliminators available. Some of the ones they sold in Canada were quite elaborate featuring up to eight tubes,  tuned RF amplifier stages, extra If amplifier stages, push pull power output, and three or more bands. I think the fact that electrification took longer to reach some areas meant that the radio manufactures in Canada took battery set design more seriously then in the U.S, the Eaton's Catalog had non portable battery operated radios available up until 1957-58.
Regards
Arran

[palegreenthumb]

I've been looking at farm radios recently, but my wife says they're extra big because they were supposed to hold batteries, and cabinets that extra big are bigger than she wants in her house.

I'm surprised Philco was still making farm radios in 1941! Seems late to me. But what do I know? I just started looking at them. ;-)

[Ron Ramirez]

I'm surprised Philco was still making farm radios in 1941!

Philco continued offering farm radios through the 1949 season. From 1950 on, their only radios that used batteries were portables.

[Farm Radio]

I love it!!! We have guys talking farm radios!!!

[Arran]

 Pardon me but I haven't a clue where your wife ever got that idea, the table battery models are usually the same size as any other table models, many were smaller since there was no need to make room for a power transformer, rectifier tube, or filter caps. There is the odd one that had a little extra depth, or a shelf, for an A/B battery pack, but we are talking about maybe 3'' here, those were made from the late 1930s onward after they came out with the low current 1.4 volt battery tubes, think of a suitcase portable's extra dimensions but with a nicer cabinet. In terms of console sets the only difference is that they had a shelf in the bottom of the cabinet bellow the speaker, something the AC sets would not have, but that is unused space in every console anyhow.
Regards
Arran

[cewrightiii]

Ok..forgive my ignorance, but what is a farm radio? or what makes a radio a farm radio? Going to try and look up the models mentioned so I can see what one looks like!

[klondike98]

Farm radios were battery powered radios made for the rural market.  Remember in the 30s and 40s most rural areas had no electric service.  The "farm" radios were not portables, and looked much like the console and table top sets that used AC power.