roadside find, Philco 39-116

[gadget73]

So on my way to get lunch today I spotted a big cabinet sitting in someone's driveway, with the unmistakable appearance of tubes. I stopped and asked the lady who answered the door what she was doing with the set. Her response was "helping you put it in the back of your truck". Needless to say thats the response I was hoping for. It was garage cleanout time, and the old Philco had to go. I also got a tube caddy full of assorted stuff that I haven't gone through yet. I was told that it did work last anyone knew, but that was a while ago.

Cabinet is decent, with a few chips out of the veneer along the rear edge on top. Grille cloth is also shot, looks like maybe the cat decided to stretch and claw at it because there are 2 round spots where its gone, and the board underneath is torn up a bit. Nothing a bolt of grille fabric and some staples won't fix. Speaker is the 10" electrodynamic, not ripped, etc. It also needs a tuning string. The one for the capacitor is there, but the one for the needle snapped. Actually I didn't see the needle when I pulled the chassis, have to go look for that. Its presently warming slowly on the light bulb variac. I've got a 75 watter in there at the moment, and its showing about 68 volts at the radio. I've got a faint buzz at the speaker, so its doing something. Not enough juice to actually function at the moment though.

I have never seen such a complex mess inside a radio before. The mechanicals for the volume control and power circuit are cool, and the band switch is a rather involved looking thing. The only down side, I did not get the mystery control. I may stop back tomorrow and ask about it. I didn't realize this was *that* model till I got it home and did some research.


Anyway, back out to the workshop, I want to go through that tube caddy and see whats in there.