[Ron Ramirez]

I've had a Philco 49-901 "Secretary" around here for a couple years or so, sitting in a corner, gathering dust.

   

I should mention that, for some strange reason, this radio has acquired the notoriety of supposedly being a "Secretary's Radio" which was operated with the foot. This is false; it is fake news; and how this false rumor started, I have no idea. It was never intended to be operated with a foot. The large roller was always intended to be used with one's hand, not foot. But I digress.

Recently, I decided I would try to rebuild this little five tube AC/DC radio and get it going.

The recapping went fairly smoothly. When I made it to my final step, which was rebuilding the three-section electrolytic, I found that I had no 22 uF electrolytics but had several 33 uF, 200 volt Panasonics on hand. So, I used three 33 uF electrolytics instead of one 33 uF and two 22 uF units.

After doing a quick and dirty IF alignment and getting the six preset channels aligned to stations (660, 710, 740, 810, 990 and 1280 kc) with the help of my signal generator, I tried it out with my home AM transmitter (SSTRAN).

Unfortunately, it is not doing well.

The signal is weak, and the sound is horrible.

All tubes have been tested and two which were weak were replaced. And, again, all paper and electrolytic capacitors were replaced.

Here is a sample of its horrible, garbled sound:

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-quOM_mPSI]

If you want to follow along in an actual service manual, you can find that information HERE (in the Philco Library).

Thanks in advance for any help.