Hi guys:
I have a Philco F-1442 car radio and I have powered it up on the garage bench using a 6V car battery and power/ground cables I made from modern wiring. The radio works fine. The power cables, which appears OEM Philco, is falling apart and that is why I did not use it on the bench test. Does anyone know where I can get the OEM style wires and terminal lug to make new power wires? One wire is a single conductor with a fabric color coded jacket and has a ring lug where it attaches to the car power. This wire is then soldered to a lug on the radio control head. The second wire is soldered to another lug and goes from the radio control head to the receiver. There is a metal in-line fuse holder (I have located a new replacement) in the middle of this power wire. The wire section that goes between the fuse holder and the receiver is shielded with a metal overbraid and a light brown colored fabric with a tracer...but the single conductor wire under the shield still looks like the other wire I have described. This shielded piece of wire is strain relieved to the receiver chassis with a wire clamp. I am not sure of the gauge of the wires but it is probably in the range of 12 or 14 AWG.
My speaker wire is in not so bad shape but I want to try and get spare wire to replace it in the near future...it is a 3 conductor cable and each wire is fabric covered and color coded. There is a shield over the wire, and then the shield is covered with a fabric jacket that is light brown.
If anyone can tell me where I can find these wires and hardware, I can solder it all together to make OEM looking harnesses...or I would be willing to buy the finished cables if there is a supplier anyone knows of.
You could try Rhode Island Wiring Service. They deal primarily with antique auto wiring however I have purchased cloth covered wire for radio projects.
Check out their supply section.
Hi Patrician56:
Thanks for the advice...I actually found the Rhode Island Wiring Service website late on Friday from an internet search...I plan on calling them on Monday. Can you or anyone advise me of the current or power my 1937 Philco F-1442 draws? I want this info to determine the gauge of my power wire. my car is a 6V pos ground system.
Hi KbLf,
My knowledge of Auto radios is very limited (12 volt late mid-'50s). I did look up your schematic in the Riders manuals - special custom-built receiver for 1937 Ford V8 with Concealed header bar speaker with ear level reception. it is in volume 8 in the Philco section on page 8-145. I hoped it would provide some voltage readings but alas, no. I would measure the diameter of the wires you have (copper wire, no insulation) and talk to the people at Rhode Island Wiring for their recommendation. They do offer shielded wire in 1, 2 and 3 wire bundles by the foot and I believe that they have the ability to produce custom cloth covered bundle. They also have all the connectors that I believe you might need.
Sorry that I cannot be more specific on the current draw. I did look up the transformer for your radio - Philco part # 32-7720 and the secondary voltage produced is 234 Volts, 40 ma.
Good luck!
Fran
> Can you or anyone advise me of the current or power my 1937 Philco F-1442 draws?
Simple enough problem. Hook an amp meter in series with the battery A lead and measure the current. Add another 20% and your good. I would guess about 15 to 20amps.
>My car is a 6V pos ground system.
Doesn't matter if it's - or + ground it's still the same amount of power. The ground situation is a car thing and not really a radio thing. The only thing is there's two different vibrators one for the two different ground connections. So you DO have to have the right polarity vibrator for the power supply to work. The rest of the set doesn't care. And you do have proper vibrator.
>Does anyone know where I can get the OEM style wires and terminal lug to make new power wires?
It would be handy to snap a few pics of what you need and we can brainstorm a bit to try and come up with something.
If you are looking for copper braid to slip wires into I've used scraps of coaxial cable. For your application I would go with RG-9 or RG-11. Once it's disassemble the hole in the center for the wire(s) is about 5/16" If you need something smaller RG-58 or RG-59 has about 3/16" hole in the center. By pushing on the inside of the hole it can be made larger but the length will get shorter. If you have buddies that are ham radio operators they would probably give a couple of feet, it's normally sold in rolls of 100'.
When my pals were reading comic books
I was down in the basement in my dad's
workshop. Perusing his Sam's Photofoacts
Vol 1-50 admiring the old set and trying to
figure out what all those squiggly meant.
Circa 1966
Now I think I've got!
Easiest way is to check the fuse. I expect that it would be between 7.5 and 10A. For a 6 tube radio, i expect that the filaments alone would draw a total of 3.6 -5A. Throw in another amp or 2 for the vibrator and plate supply. I would think that 14 gauge would be more than plenty, especially if the pigtail is less than say 3 ft long. I would not be surprised if the cable was 16 or even 18 gauge. There are tables for voltage drop for various gauges of wire at given currents. For 14 gauge wire and a 10 A DC Draw, the voltage drop is 0.025V/ft. For 18 gauge, the voltage drop for a 10A DC draw is 0.032V/ft.
I agree with the others that various suppliers of wire for antique auto restorations will have the wire that you need. This type of wire was common in cars even into the early 1950s.
"Do Justly, love Mercy and walk humbly with your God"- Micah 6:8
Best Regards,
Hi Guys:
Thanks for the advisements. I have established that the fuse that goes in the fuseholder is a 15 amp glass fuse and so a modern 15 amp AGC will probably be what I use...others at the Early Ford V8 forum say this is what they use in their F-1442 radios...I think I also found out that the Philco fuse part number 7227 you see in the schematic parts list is a 15 amp fuse. I have attached two photos of my power wires...they are in rough shape. You see that the wire with the fuse holder (goes between the receiver and control head) is bare in a few spots so I should be able to measure the diameter of the conductor. BTW, in addition to finding another metal in-line fuseholder I have also found some carboard cylinders that slide over the fuse to insulate it from the metal fuseholder. You notice that the other cable has a break in it where someone twisted the wires together...I believe this is where a security switch used to be in the cable but is now missing. The Philco radio installation for Ford cars in 1937 had a security switch in the locking glovebox so the radio could be disabled by the owner and not turned on simply at the control head power/volume switch. (This is because it was/is very easy to run down a car battery with these radios when the car was off). I have also located an antique SPST switch that I will mount in my locking glovebox to replicate the OEM set up. The combined length of these two cables is about 6 foot length. So I guess I have a little more homework to do before I call Rhode Island Wire Services.
