Philco tombstone with a twist
 

At the ARCI meet/6m club Hamfest among a variety of bargains I grabbed was a $1 donation auction Philco Tombstone.
http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/...psglaa7bgj.jpg
IMHO the octal socket saver and the nearly full compliment of tubes in it were each worth what I paid. However once the chassis is removed a tube not on the chart is revealed....A 6BE6 on a hand made sub chassis. There were outward clues of mods though. There is an RCA jack (to the volume wiper), a crystal (?) socket a DPDT toggle switch and a knob to a variable cap on the back of the chassis.
http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0gjg4itg.jpg http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9cbotfpy.jpg

I've tested all the tubes and mostly recapped it..One block cap remains, as well as two random wires (down from 4 when I started) from the mod that lead nowhere. I can get pops from the speaker when touching as far back as the top cap of the converter tube but no stations...With the mod chassis missing it's crystal, the loose wires, and the fact the chassis was unbolted with random incorrect screws rolling around in the cabinet, there is little evidence to suggest it ever was a working or complete mod. I'm thinking it may be time to remove the mod sub chassis and trace the wiring more thoroughly....Any one think I should keep it in?

I *always* remove non-factory mods, and restore as close as possible to original condition, plugging holes as best I can.

jr

Thanks for giving me the push I need to remove it. Normally I leave period mods that are useful or do not interfere with normal operation...As long as they are not ugly/too obvious. With most sets plenty of clean original examples exist so a well done vintage mod can be interesting to preserve to give an idea of what hobbyists of yore once did.

looking at the sub-chassis mod you were talking about, it looks like someone was attempting to possibly add an FM tuner to the radio which more than likely would of been originally AM only or AM and SW.

But that's just my guess, possibly what happened was that they started doing the mod but then got sidetracked (I know its easy to do when you have several projects on the bench at once) and never finished the FM Tuner Mod.

The addition doesn't look like anything that would resemble FM circuitry, not even Fremodyne! Plus it uses a crystal, which is missing.
I vote for gutting the bogus circuitry and returning the set to originality.
BTW, the cabinet style was originally for the farm battery sets. I thought the set was converted to AC, but the 38-93 was an AC only set, factory original.
There's no on-line Rider's coverage on this model. :scratch2:

Well that's why I said they probably never finished it, maybe they intended to add more to the circuit.

I gutted the mod, and got no change....Then after some searching found the osc coil was open in an easily repairable way, that fixed it.

It's AM only, I'd guess the mod was supposed to be a SW converter. It used a 4-pin plug-in coil.

I initially had trouble finding a schematic, but found a thread on ARF that stated the 37 model used the same chassis and was listed on line.

That Crosley next to it in the first pic had perhaps the most recent mouse nest of any radio I've bought, in it....With a minced newspaper dated March 22 2015. Whoever donated that Crosley to the club needs a cat or some pest control STAT.

I had no worries about you getting it going! :thmbsp:
I want to see your progress on the Philco 38-116, that you got from the meet.
Now, that's a radio! :banana:

I variaced the 116, and to my surprise the darn thing still works some 78 years into it' existence. :thmbsp:

I need to fix and sell some more mundane consoles before, table sets, and flips before I start to tackle the projects I'd rather be doing now...That 116 is probably 3rd in the want to do list (despite working original sets normally sitting lower).

Only took me two years :yikes: to get to it, but I got to it. :D
http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...92#post3191092