04-07-2022, 01:52 PM
You could say this radio is an example of the third time is the charm as I have had three of these now and might still have a 1500H in storage. The first one was intact, but had the melted earlier dial and was sun bleached, so my late friend took it for parts. The second one had some damage to the back and both antenna wires broke off the chassis. This one is fully intact, has a new cord, and is working.
I almost had a spoke too soon moment yesterday as I played it for an hour after posting about it along with my other Phinds in the Phinds thread. It suddenly just faded out and shut down and it turned out the 50L6 had burnt out. Actually, four of the five tubes including that on were factore originals and all were getting weak, which is surprising considering how well the radio was working. The one replacement 12AT6 was also not good and looked like it was used when put in so I opted to just retube the whole radio with much better and cleaner tubes. I even opted to replace the dial lamp as it took a major jolt when I shut radio off and turned it back on at first to make sure it wasn't the power switch. Like a flash bulb! After that, I ran this radio for four hours solid last night with no issue and am listening to it now. I am assuming it has been recapped, but some examples on the other forum are still running fine on original parts as it seems Stromberg must have used good stuff in this series of radios. I guess you can even take the IF cans apart and clean them as most are clipped together. From the tube line up (still using the 12AT6) and the curved dial scale, mine appears to be a 1400 model. The tag on mine is gone and it also seems the broken dial pointer is a common issue with an otherwise nice radio. Basically, this is a six tube set (selenium rectifier) and I was surprised to see it has a full three gang tuner in there.
I almost had a spoke too soon moment yesterday as I played it for an hour after posting about it along with my other Phinds in the Phinds thread. It suddenly just faded out and shut down and it turned out the 50L6 had burnt out. Actually, four of the five tubes including that on were factore originals and all were getting weak, which is surprising considering how well the radio was working. The one replacement 12AT6 was also not good and looked like it was used when put in so I opted to just retube the whole radio with much better and cleaner tubes. I even opted to replace the dial lamp as it took a major jolt when I shut radio off and turned it back on at first to make sure it wasn't the power switch. Like a flash bulb! After that, I ran this radio for four hours solid last night with no issue and am listening to it now. I am assuming it has been recapped, but some examples on the other forum are still running fine on original parts as it seems Stromberg must have used good stuff in this series of radios. I guess you can even take the IF cans apart and clean them as most are clipped together. From the tube line up (still using the 12AT6) and the curved dial scale, mine appears to be a 1400 model. The tag on mine is gone and it also seems the broken dial pointer is a common issue with an otherwise nice radio. Basically, this is a six tube set (selenium rectifier) and I was surprised to see it has a full three gang tuner in there.
No matter where you go, there you are.