[Doug Houston]

If you do find one of the Philco antenna kits, the rubber insulation on the twisted lead-in will be completely dried out and possibly shorting. When most people got their radios, as we got our 37-650, they improvised putting up the antenna in anything but the way it was intended to be installed.

Those antennae were to be installed outside, strung from possibly a post outdoors to the house, with the lead-in getting to the radio. That would make a good antenna for the set. But my father found that the antenna already on the house from 1926 brought in reception in the set very well. I ended up with the HE antenna strung across the floor joists in the basement, and used it for my radios down there.

My aunt and uncle lived in a second story flat. They bought a Philco 640 (which I now have). It too, had the HE antenna kit. It was strung across a medium sized attic, with the lead-in coming down the front of the house from an attic window. Reception was decent, being enhanced by street car interference from the street in front.

In both cases, reception was good because the RADIO was good. If you simply string a long wire antenna, about 50 feet outside, with appropriate insulators and lightning arrestors, you will get amazing reception on any radio. I have a 50 footer in my attic and it can really make a radio earn its keep.