Philco Town and Country restoration

[bandersen]

I was hanging out with some friends this afternoon and spied this in one of their garages. He said 'sure you can have it' so I brought it home. The front plastic bezel has been damaged, but otherwise it looks OK.
I thought it might be a Philco Seventeener, but I'm not sure.
Can anyone identify it?

[jr_tech]

At first I thought that it might be one of the Admiral "playmate" series but the knob placement is wrong.

Found an ad on the 'bay for a Philco "town and country":

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1961-Philco-...item4cf9d8d14c

jr

[bandersen]

Ah-ha! That's it I knew I had seen it somewhere before - audubon5425 was selling one

Now, what should I do with it ? Scrap it or try to replace the damaged front

[jr_tech]

What is the jug? might it fit a Predicta?

jr

[bandersen]

That's what I was thinking, but it appears to be a 19".

[AUdubon5425]

Bah - I just threw away the cabinet from mine.

One recently sold on epay for something ridiculous, over $150 I think.

It is a nineteen inch set. I still have the chassis and some knobs if you decide to try to restore it. Check the CRT first though, they're pretty uncommon birds.

[bandersen]

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't still have it.
It's cleaning up OK, but it's missing trim and the plastic damage is pretty bad.


A few of the "cool chassis" tubes have gone to air


I'll check the CRT in a few.

[mpatoray]

I see another "Friday Night Restoration? Coming on! What was with Philco and this low voltage high deflection angle tubes, where they all as lousy as the ones used in the Predictas?

Matt

[bandersen]

Dunno, but this one tests very good Excellent emissions and life test.

[bandersen]

All the tubes are original and all but two test very, very bad. Some barely moved the tube tester needle off zero!
Someone must have really watched this set a lot but never had it serviced.

[miniman82]

Rejuvination attempt? lol

[bandersen]

I went tube hunting and found either NOS or very good used replacements for all but a couple 11JE8s.
I've never encountered this tube before so I suspect they weren't widely used.
I figured I could throw in the originals just to try powering the set up, but one has gone to air so I'll just have to wait a week or so for some to arrive in the mail.

[bandersen]

Here's a peek at the flyback. It looks OK.


I dug up a good 10GN8 which is an acceptable substitute for an 11JE8.
I've got it up on the workbench and am slowly powering it up with a variac n the hopes the electrolytics will reform. So far no problems.

[bandersen]

First signs of life. Seems either the vertical oscillator or output transformer is bad. Sound is pretty bad too.

[AiboPet]

I suspect a power problem since it looks like "several" things look subpar....no vertical, ALMOST no horizontal....and that sound problem all make me think the set is generally starving. Are you still on the variac?

From what I see, and you describe "sound" at all, looks like you DO likely have a tuner, IF, reception and at least SOMETHING that looks like HV.

Glad to see this set at least coming along. I've always been fascinated by this particular form factor with the REAL high deflection CRTS and the overall slim profile. I still own NO tube set...and will likely look for something like this as my first one. I'm in an apartment, so no room for a big 'ol roundie. Shame what happened to the front of this set.

I bet back in the day, it was astonishing to see a large screen that could sit on a book case. Sort of the precurser to the whole "flat screen" thing.