Now that's what I call a real classic---what a nice radio. I'm glad to see that yours doesn't have the dreaded coil rot that many Philcos had from that era. I hope there's a part II coming soon, as this beauty is definitely worthy of a proper restoration
Excellent going over in a logical way of the electronics in a early thirties Philco. That Le Moine Music Co. address is a total mystery. 15th St at Welton is a Denver , CO corner there. Did find a 1951 Rocky Mountain News ad for that company at 1543 Champa St. where the phone number was different ( AC 1541). The building is still there and was the IOOF, aka Odd Fellows Hall, Union Lodge number 1. Guess they sold new and used musical instruments, mostly spinet pianos and.. radios (mostly during their earlier years). Thanks for another great video Bryan.
I was just telling myself this morning "I haven't seen a new phono nut video I quite some time " Glad this came up today.. We were getting a little worried. Hope all is going well for you.
Hey I just wanted to say your voice sounds good and strong and confident like maybe your Life is starting to calm down or something not that you sounded bad before Your voice just sounds healthier thanks for sharing your knowledge and your opinion I appreciate it I've learned a lot from you and Shango
I have a 1929 Glorytone cathedral radio TRF set . volume control hooked up about the same..I had to rebuild the condenser block in mine and replace a tube. I restored it over 12 years ago and still works good to this day. One thing I noticed with it....when I am listening to it and you plug something in the wall the volume on the radio goes down or sometimes goes up.
Awesome! Shango Saturday, and I'm watching this Sunday 2am! P.S. maybe the listeners heard the Hindenburg disaster, War of the worlds, and the day of Infamy on that radio!
24:18 That is not Massachusetts. This Le Moine music company at 536 15th is coming up in Colorado. There is no town called Welton in Ma. Plus, the "at" makes it sound like it is on the corner of 15th street and Welton. What the MA is, I have no idea (it could be a phone number MA-1469). But the exact name and address is coming up multiple times in Colorado papers (The Rocky Mountain News) from the era. I very much like trying to track down these random stores and shops you find on these old appliances. I've found stuff in my area with service tags that reference shops that were still there when I was born, but have long since disappeared. You used to be able to find stores and service shops that had signs "Established 1879" or 1937 and such. Now it is next to impossible to find any shop of any kind that isn't just a chain store established 10 years ago owned by some soulless corporation with a super bland name.
I just scored a Radiola type 80 in New Orleans in decent shape. There is some bug damage, as in something ate into some of the trim wood. I brought it up on a variac and bulb current or dim bulb whatever they want to call it this week. the power transformer is good. I got it to pick up a few stations but the volume is super low. This is my oldest set now 1930. I already have a 1932 Crosley console and multiple 1935 on so kinda excited.
I'd be wary of running it much until you or someone looks into that low output signal. A leaky grid cap on the output tube is fairly common in this old stuff, and that ends up running the grid voltage on the output tube way way too high. This increases current through the tube, and can cause it to fry. How soon it fries (seconds or days) depends on how leaky the cap is. This also results in low or no output, since the tube can be turned on almost continuously, like a switch, rather than being an amplifier as it should be.
I wonder whether somebody deliberately re-adjusted the alignment on this radio so that it could receive stations up to 1600 kHz. This would be done by adjusting the antenna trimmer capacitors. Doing so would have the side-effect of making high-dial stations appear low in frequency (i.e. 1510 kHz appears around 1450 kHz). In my opinion, it's a judgement call; if the radio is supposed to be a tool for receiving AM broadcasts, it should tune from 540 to 1700 kHz, as any of those frequencies can have radio stations (in the Caribbean and parts of Canada, 530 is used, as well). However, if the primary goal is authenticity, then the alignment should be done so that the dial calibration is as accurate as possible.
Was it common to not include the tubes? You mentioned early in the video that this was sold with tubes. I've seen ads from the 30s and 40s that say includes tubes or not, but they seem to all be from small distributors (Joe's Radio and Electronics on 375 Main St) and not direct ads from the likes of Zenith or RCA or Philco. All the ads from these companies do not ever say that tubes are extra.
As far as I know, electronics were almost always sold with tubes, except from what we would have called then "fly by night" discount distributors. They might have bought up the tag ends of last year's stock from a manufacturer or distributor, and pulled the tubes to sell separately. Or if they got a bundle of discontinued parts from a manufacturer, they may not have got tubes with the chassis parts. Not too uncommonly they got incomplete or unfinished units for cheap, and did final assembly themselves. Generally (at least in my experience) they usually did a moderately competent job.
@@lwilton I was thinking it was for false advertising purposes. Like Joe's Appliances could run an ad in the paper with the lowest price by advertising the radio without the tubes. But thanks for the information.
@@tarstarkusz There was probably some of that too. There were A LOT less regulations and laws on advertising in that era, and there was a lot of advertising that was blatant lies, and other advertising that, shall we say, cut corners. If they advertised "tubes extra" or "no tubes" then it technically would not have been false advertising, but the price difference could catch the eye, and if you didn't realize the tubes were going to cost another 50% or 75% the price of the set, you might think you were getting a deal.
@@lwilton I really wish the advertising laws would catch up. I am so tired of seeing scam ads on youtube and google and even on my local CBS/ABC/NBC affiliates.
@@tarstarkusz No worse than they have always been. There was a time in the 60s and 70s when TV manufacturers advertised their new sets on TV commercials. "Look how much clearer the picture is on our set than on your current set." Really? The simulated film picture you are showing on an image of your TV set I am watching on *MY* TV set? Really? Yet those were common, until Congress passed a specific law preventing them.
Great to see a new video RTPN! Hope you're doing well. Thanks for sharing.
Now that's what I call a real classic---what a nice radio. I'm glad to see that yours doesn't have the dreaded coil rot that many Philcos had from that era. I hope there's a part II coming soon, as this beauty is definitely worthy of a proper restoration
Always great to have a new radiotvphononut video to kill time with!
Excellent going over in a logical way of the electronics in a early thirties Philco. That Le Moine Music Co. address is a
total mystery. 15th St at Welton is a Denver , CO corner there. Did find a 1951 Rocky Mountain News ad for that company
at 1543 Champa St. where the phone number was different ( AC 1541). The building is still there and was the IOOF, aka
Odd Fellows Hall, Union Lodge number 1. Guess they sold new and used musical instruments, mostly spinet pianos and..
radios (mostly during their earlier years). Thanks for another great video Bryan.
I was just telling myself this morning "I haven't seen a new phono nut video I quite some time " Glad this came up today.. We were getting a little worried. Hope all is going well for you.
Hey I just wanted to say your voice sounds good and strong and confident like maybe your Life is starting to calm down or something not that you sounded bad before Your voice just sounds healthier thanks for sharing your knowledge and your opinion I appreciate it I've learned a lot from you and Shango
I have a 1929 Glorytone cathedral radio TRF set . volume control hooked up about the same..I had to rebuild the condenser block in mine and replace a tube.
I restored it over 12 years ago and still works good to this day. One thing I noticed with it....when I am listening to it and you plug something in the wall the volume on the radio goes down or sometimes goes up.
My favorite radio PHILCO
I like your videos no ads and informative, like to see these old radis playing
Awesome! Shango Saturday, and I'm watching this Sunday 2am!
P.S. maybe the listeners heard the Hindenburg disaster, War of the worlds, and the day of Infamy on that radio!
24:18 That is not Massachusetts. This Le Moine music company at 536 15th is coming up in Colorado. There is no town called Welton in Ma. Plus, the "at" makes it sound like it is on the corner of 15th street and Welton. What the MA is, I have no idea (it could be a phone number MA-1469). But the exact name and address is coming up multiple times in Colorado papers (The Rocky Mountain News) from the era.
I very much like trying to track down these random stores and shops you find on these old appliances. I've found stuff in my area with service tags that reference shops that were still there when I was born, but have long since disappeared. You used to be able to find stores and service shops that had signs "Established 1879" or 1937 and such. Now it is next to impossible to find any shop of any kind that isn't just a chain store established 10 years ago owned by some soulless corporation with a super bland name.
I just scored a Radiola type 80 in New Orleans in decent shape. There is some bug damage, as in something ate into some of the trim wood. I brought it up on a variac and bulb current or dim bulb whatever they want to call it this week. the power transformer is good. I got it to pick up a few stations but the volume is super low. This is my oldest set now 1930. I already have a 1932 Crosley console and multiple 1935 on so kinda excited.
I'd be wary of running it much until you or someone looks into that low output signal. A leaky grid cap on the output tube is fairly common in this old stuff, and that ends up running the grid voltage on the output tube way way too high. This increases current through the tube, and can cause it to fry. How soon it fries (seconds or days) depends on how leaky the cap is. This also results in low or no output, since the tube can be turned on almost continuously, like a switch, rather than being an amplifier as it should be.
I wonder whether somebody deliberately re-adjusted the alignment on this radio so that it could receive stations up to 1600 kHz. This would be done by adjusting the antenna trimmer capacitors. Doing so would have the side-effect of making high-dial stations appear low in frequency (i.e. 1510 kHz appears around 1450 kHz). In my opinion, it's a judgement call; if the radio is supposed to be a tool for receiving AM broadcasts, it should tune from 540 to 1700 kHz, as any of those frequencies can have radio stations (in the Caribbean and parts of Canada, 530 is used, as well). However, if the primary goal is authenticity, then the alignment should be done so that the dial calibration is as accurate as possible.
Muy buena radio luego de repararla la venderia????
What do you use to record your videos? This is seriously one of my favorite channels.
Are you using an old 90s camera?
How would you align a TRF radio, there’s no local oscillator or IF?
A TRF set would be aligned the same as the antenna adjustment on a superheterodyne.
Make the two tuned circuits track across the band. This maximizes sensitivity.
Was it common to not include the tubes? You mentioned early in the video that this was sold with tubes. I've seen ads from the 30s and 40s that say includes tubes or not, but they seem to all be from small distributors (Joe's Radio and Electronics on 375 Main St) and not direct ads from the likes of Zenith or RCA or Philco. All the ads from these companies do not ever say that tubes are extra.
As far as I know, electronics were almost always sold with tubes, except from what we would have called then "fly by night" discount distributors. They might have bought up the tag ends of last year's stock from a manufacturer or distributor, and pulled the tubes to sell separately. Or if they got a bundle of discontinued parts from a manufacturer, they may not have got tubes with the chassis parts.
Not too uncommonly they got incomplete or unfinished units for cheap, and did final assembly themselves. Generally (at least in my experience) they usually did a moderately competent job.
@@lwilton I was thinking it was for false advertising purposes. Like Joe's Appliances could run an ad in the paper with the lowest price by advertising the radio without the tubes. But thanks for the information.
@@tarstarkusz There was probably some of that too. There were A LOT less regulations and laws on advertising in that era, and there was a lot of advertising that was blatant lies, and other advertising that, shall we say, cut corners.
If they advertised "tubes extra" or "no tubes" then it technically would not have been false advertising, but the price difference could catch the eye, and if you didn't realize the tubes were going to cost another 50% or 75% the price of the set, you might think you were getting a deal.
@@lwilton I really wish the advertising laws would catch up. I am so tired of seeing scam ads on youtube and google and even on my local CBS/ABC/NBC affiliates.
@@tarstarkusz No worse than they have always been. There was a time in the 60s and 70s when TV manufacturers advertised their new sets on TV commercials. "Look how much clearer the picture is on our set than on your current set." Really? The simulated film picture you are showing on an image of your TV set I am watching on *MY* TV set? Really? Yet those were common, until Congress passed a specific law preventing them.
IT'S JUNK HOARDER