Posts: 2,005
Threads: 361
Joined: Jun 2010
City: Dover, OH
The purchase of a 39-6 table radio from my buddy this week has led me to getting out all of my five tube Philcos from that era and checking them out for what they still need. The 39-6 wasn't working quite right as my buddy said, even after a recap. The issue, the 75 had gone bad and after swapping in my last good spare, the radio works well only needing a new dial light socket as it went bad while I was checking it out. Dial light will work right now as long as I don't bump the radio. After that I pulled out my 38-12 bakelite that kept popping and cracking and found out the 75 in it was gassy, so pulled the one from my 60B for now and need to find a couple 75s! My Transitone TH-3 (39-6 in a Bakelite cabinet) has drifted on alignment, so need to get that checked out. Finally I pulled out my 39-17 and got it working again after sitting for a good while. Still need to reglue the veneer on it and both the dial light sockets and wires need replaced later. Other than that, it plays well. Now all I have to do is make room and get the Phactory Phranken model 17 out later to check and get my Plaskon 38-12 out for restoration. It needs a 75 and an 84 before restoration even starts.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Posts: 4,612
Threads: 51
Joined: Sep 2008
City: Sandwick, BC, CA
Don't toss those #75 tubes without getting a second opinion, those double ended tubes, especially with the older bases are notorious for having the solder joint, and indeed the cement, holding the grid cap on, failing causing intermittent performance. Another failure point is the grid cap lead itself.
Regards
Arran
Posts: 2,005
Threads: 361
Joined: Jun 2010
City: Dover, OH
I'll give them another checking out though the third one comes up as a short on my tester no matter what I try, so it's probably history. The gassy one might be dirty pins and grid cap, so I will try cleaning them first and see if that improves. If so, I have a radio I don't play often it can go into. The bad one, well we will see. It was bad on all readings with only one diode getting barely past the line on my tester.
I finally dug out my Phactory Phranken 17 and it still plays, but I did go back over the repairs my later friend made to the speaker cone and swapped the 41 and it sounds a bit better now. If it wasn't for how odd this model is, it would have just been a parts radio. Finish is not good, it was missing all its knobs which I thankfully got from Kirk, the speaker cone was split, and my friend had to piggy back another output transformer as one section of the original was open and we did not have an exact replacement. It's a miracle this radio works! Actually, none of my radios sound really good on AM lately and I am wondering what is going on. I know our AC line has a distortion that comes out on my old radios anymore. It's everywhere no matter where I try my radios out around here.
No matter where you go, there you are.
