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Quality of early Philco televisions.
#1

Now that I have two of these units (one with a 10BP4 and the combination with a 12LP4A), I am wondering how the Philco TV sets compared to others of thier era? I have noticed that Philco sets seem to weigh more for a given size than some other makes of the same size and the chassis in my 12 inch model looks a bit like a tank. More like my 1947 GE than my 1949 RCA sets! So, can these sets be made to be relilable enough for casual viewing without constant headaches? If I ever get them rebuilt that is.... The 12LP4A in the 49-1275 I just rescued tests very good.

No matter where you go, there you are.
#2

I have an early 50's set with a 21" tube and a split chassis. I saved it from an old house set for demolition. It had mice in it from there, then again in my attic - darn rodents! One thing that I saw as interesting was this set using a horizontal sweep output tube (6DQ6) for the vertical output! It seemed this set is a little overbuilt in some respects. I had it powered up when I first got it, and if I recall, I got a blank raster after replacing the horizontal output tube. The mice stripped some wires on the small signal chassis, so I will need to repair this before the next power up. Ill start a thread when I tackle this.

If I could find the place called "Somewhere", I could find "Anything" Icon_confused

Tim

Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me , believes not in me but in him who sent me" John 12:44
#3

Hmm, makes me wonder what all is getting tossed out of the old houses that are being demolished as part of 'Move Ohio Backward erm Forward'. Seems they just smash and toss the whole house into the landfill without a thought to any sort of salvage here.

No matter where you go, there you are.
#4

From what I could find the program you referred to expired on the 30th of September, no mention of any extensions. From what I have observed once the "free money" goes away for such activity the activity is quickly discontinued in short order.
Regards
Arran
#5

Years ago, when someone went into a nursing home, or died, it was common to just leave the house just as it was, no auction or sale. I know of several that sat for years until they got robbed, pushed down or fell down. I have recovered a number of old radios and tv sets from such right before demolition. Usually they are in bad shape because of rodents, coons and water damage, but a few I saved fared well. There were a couple that had old portable TV's from the 50's, but I didn't get them out before the house got razed. Now, most of those old houses are gone. Anything more recent gets auctioned out, sold or demolished. History - pushed down and burned...gone...

If I could find the place called "Somewhere", I could find "Anything" Icon_confused

Tim

Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me , believes not in me but in him who sent me" John 12:44
#6

We lost a major piece of history in my town due to that program. Glad it's done! It is sad about these places. I have seen old homes that look pretty good being shoved down and just hauled off to the landfill around here. Seems there is little respect for history in our modern 'status symbol' society. A home now has to be custom built for the owner's needs and then thrown away a few years down the line for another. This is why I consider hobbies like ours to be so important!

No matter where you go, there you are.
#7

(11-30-2014, 06:17 PM)Jayce Wrote:  Hmm, makes me wonder what all is getting tossed out of the old houses that are being demolished as part of 'Move Ohio Backward erm Forward'. Seems they just smash and toss the whole house into the landfill without a thought to any sort of salvage here.

(12-02-2014, 10:43 AM)Jayce Wrote:  We lost a major piece of history in my town due to that program. Glad it's done! It is sad about these places. I have seen old homes that look pretty good being shoved down and just hauled off to the landfill around here. Seems there is little respect for history in our modern 'status symbol' society. A home now has to be custom built for the owner's needs and then thrown away a few years down the line for another. This is why I consider hobbies like ours to be so important!

It seems like such an odd inversion, but when it comes to property in most place in Canada the government has a hands off approach. They will not give any handouts to a property owner to tear down a building, sometimes they will issue threats if the place is burned out, to either rebuild it, tear it down, or that the city will do it for them and send them the bill, but in the end the cost is on the owner. The only time that one can get money for developing or renovating a property is if it is for low income housing, but there are strings attached. This isn't to say that some historic buildings have not been lost, but most seem to have involved real estate development scams.
 The same was true with regard to car buyback programs, someone with a mind figured out that in a "cash for clunkers style program" the majority of the trade ins would end up being cars that were within a year of hitting the wrecking yards anyhow. There was a similar one regionally aimed at getting people to trade in for more fuel efficient cars, but there were strings attached, like it had to be worth more then a certain amount, and no older then a certain age, basically like a $30,000 SUV. I know about that one because a friend of mine thought the Province was going to give him up to $4000 for his $400 beaters, then I read the fine print, I think it was a tax credit and none of his cars would have qualified since they were too old, or too worthless.
Regards
Arran
#8

(12-03-2014, 03:05 AM)Arran Wrote:  They will not give any handouts to a property owner to tear down a building, sometimes they will issue threats if the place is burned out, to either rebuild it, tear it down, or that the city will do it for them and send them the bill, but in the end the cost is on the owner.
That wouldn't work if the place is in an abandoned or zero value area, like an inner city. The owner would just let the city take it over, by not paying the property tax. This happened in New York City's South Bronx area, even without the above requirement.
#9

I'm going to gently nudge this thread back onto subject here. Anyone know how well restored Philco TVs work compared to the competition of the time?

No matter where you go, there you are.
#10

Just my 2cents, but I just restored 2 1952 models in the last year. 52-1802 and 52-2158. One has original CRT, one has basically a NOS CRT. Both have the split chassis design ( or Duplex chassis as Philco marketing actually referred to the design). These are solid performers and really pretty easy to get running again. The 2158 sat in a barn for 30 years, but luckily the Rodney's had not got after. I watch both sets probably a couple of hours every 2 weeks. They perform as well as anything I have restored, and would say near the top in performance of what's in my restored collection. Only problem with this design for was the difficulty on the bench. The way the chassis(s) is designed, it's challenge to power up outside of the cabinet. I think techs back in the day had cable setups to connect the setup out side of the cabinets for working under chassis under power and alignment. I never could figure out what I would consider a safe way to do this, but I know others guys have created jigs for the purpose. I guess I just wastn't that motivated. Regardless, my opinion, they are great performers and compare to the quality of radios they produced at the time.
#11

(12-03-2014, 10:34 PM)Jayce Wrote:  I'm going to gently nudge this thread back onto subject here. Anyone know how well restored Philco TVs work compared to the competition of the time?

I just noticed this thread, and I am going to gently nudge it back off subject for a moment, then I will shut up and let you guys carry on about Philco TV sets.

It's bad enough that Victorian and Edwardian homes are being lost to an uncaring bunch of sheeple so they can build more cheap McMansions that will do well to last 30 years...but I've noticed a trend lately to destroy Mid Century Modern (and just plain Mid Century) homes recently for the same reasons. Tear down a home with character...build another lookalike McMansion. Icon_thumbdown

OK, this concludes my diversion from the topic at hand. Carry on...

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
#12

No problem Ron. The only reason I was nudging this back onto subject is I can go on serious rants about the way our physical heritage is being treated! Believe me, I hear you on the old homes and such! It really depresses me seeing these places being torn down. Sadly, the contractors in my area aren't helping the issue. They are charging rather huge sums to work on old homes, trying to nudge people to build new.

No matter where you go, there you are.
#13

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana
#14

(12-04-2014, 02:21 PM)Ron Ramirez Wrote:  
(12-03-2014, 10:34 PM)Jayce Wrote:  I'm going to gently nudge this thread back onto subject here. Anyone know how well restored Philco TVs work compared to the competition of the time?

I just noticed this thread, and I am going to gently nudge it back off subject for a moment, then I will shut up and let you guys carry on about Philco TV sets.

It's bad enough that Victorian and Edwardian homes are being lost to an uncaring bunch of sheeple so they can build more cheap McMansions that will do well to last 30 years...but I've noticed a trend lately to destroy Mid Century Modern (and just plain Mid Century) homes recently for the same reasons. Tear down a home with character...build another lookalike McMansion. Icon_thumbdown

OK, this concludes my diversion from the topic at hand. Carry on...

They had a lot of that going on during the real estate bubble that burst back in 2008, then there were the fly by night flippers who would actually wreck a house by messing with the plumbing and wiring. Of course they were also building subdivisions where they had no business building them, like out in the desert of California, there are a few videos of them tearing down houses, most of which were unfinished, because there was no chance of anyone buying or completing them.
    It happens around here from time to time, but for most people it's cheaper just to buy an empty lot and build a new house rather then tear an old place down and build a new one unless the old place has an unusually large lot in a "desirable" location. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason behind the zoning though, in some areas of town they allow duplexes to be built but it has no bearing on the size of the lot, in my area of town they don't allow duplexes, even though the lots are larger then where they do allow them.
Regards
Arran
 
#15

(12-03-2014, 02:53 PM)wa2ise Wrote:  
(12-03-2014, 03:05 AM)Arran Wrote:  They will not give any handouts to a property owner to tear down a building, sometimes they will issue threats if the place is burned out, to either rebuild it, tear it down, or that the city will do it for them and send them the bill, but in the end the cost is on the owner.
That wouldn't work if the place is in an abandoned or zero value area, like an inner city.  The owner would just let the city take it over, by not paying the property tax.  This happened in New York City's South Bronx area, even without the above requirement.

If I am not mistaken a lot of what happened in the South Bronx area was motivated by fire insurance fraud, mostly on "rent controlled" buildings. That was an example of a good intentions having a bad outcome, capping rents at a certain level sounds like a nice idea, but if the costs of maintaining the property increase something has to give. It also has the unfortunate consequence of making the property worth less, I can imagine the problems that would ensue with trying to get a loan to renovate, or trying to sell such a building. Here the threat works because the land is often worth more then the building, there is a form of rent control on residential property, but it's more related to rate of increase rather then picking a rate and freezing it.
Regards
Arran




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