A question or two for Philco enthisiasts.

[BostonDave]

Originally Posted by Reece

If this has an RCA jack, I'm betting it's not original. RCA was the enemy and Philco wouldn't use their metal tubes, much less their phono jack. I'm not sure, but think the RCA jack was invented a year or two after this radio was made, anyway. And I don't think you mentioned any way to switch from radio to phono on your radio, which wouldn't be a good way to sell a new set. My guess is that somebody added this input.
Reece

I'm not really sure. Here is the exchange I came across when searching the net for what the RCA might be for (before trying to plug anything into it):

Q. I just got an old radio that I think was made in 1939. But it has a jack on the back labelled "television." It only has a volume control/on-off switch and tuning control on the front. What's the deal with the jack? How can a radio receive television, and why is a 1939 radio labelled like this when TV broadcasting didn't really begin until after the war.

A. You are looking at a marketing ploy. The jack on the back is an audio input jack, and if there is no switch for it, it is wired permanently to the top of the volume control (detector output), so has whatever signal the radio is receiving on it as well. Television was "just around the corner" in the 1937-39 period and there were some experimental stations broadcasting what is essentially NTSC video on Channel 1 (48-54 Mhz) after 1936. Putting these jacks on the radios was to convince the buying public that their new radio wouldn't be made obsolete by television "next year." Commercial television actually began in 1939, but WW II intervened, and the mass-marketing push for TV did not begin until 1946-7.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~tgale/oradio/faq2.html

It could have been added later. I read in a few other places that while some other manufacturers were providing a tv jack in 1939, Philco's solution was to receive TV audio on a frequency on the SW dial:

RCA, GE, Westinghouse, Silvertone and Philco all made radios in 1939-40 that were designed for television attachment. (the Westinghouse and Silvertones were just rebadged RCA televisions) The RCA and GE sets were designed to connect to a phono input on the radio while the Philco set broadcast the audio IF of the television to a nearby shortwave receiver set to 8.75MHz.

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...02ddd4a6d1be08


Perhaps someone else with a '39 Philco would be able to confirm whether theirs has a jack or not. I've only got the one so don't know if it is original or not.