1939 Philco table radio

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

It's kind of hard to figure out what the manufactures and engineers were thinking about when they do that. My Philco 37-116 uses a 5U4, where my 38-116 uses a 5X4. The only difference is the pin-out.
Zenith used a tube socket that didn't have the contacts for a 5Y3. Maybe your Philco does. If so, rewire it.

Thanks for the green light on that. I did not want to commit some conservation nono, but I will prominently (not permanently) label the change on the chassis.

I can only guess that manufacturers ran out of the popular tubes and that held up production.
A quick fix was to get something-anything to work instead so that set could ship. I have models 501X, 118X, 20, 89, 42-1009, 42-380 all close in age but have different tubes

Reading Ron Ramirez's Philco (1928-1942) excellent book sure helped me to understand how driven that particular manufacturer was to get their product to market.