Philco made this model for the 1930
season. It is a TRF with nine tubes.
This Philco 96 was
purchased from the same person that had the Philco 39-25. I emailed
him and asked if he had anything else he wanted to part with and he
sent photos of two consoles. My wife picked the 96. We drove out to
Gainesville, Georgia one Sunday and picked it up. He wanted $50.00
but he had also volunteered to throw in a spare speaker so in my
generosity I gave him $60.00 for them both. Good thing. The output
transformer was open and the spare had a good one but no cone.
Anybody need a 96 speaker with no cone or transformer? I still had to
do a lot of repairs to the speaker cone. It was split in several
places. I used coffee filters and Elmer’s...
The cabinet
had lots of peeling veneer on the left side that required patching.
Other than that the finish was good enough to bring back without
striping. I used Formsby furniture restoration products along with
lots of sanding and buffing.
The chassis electronic
restoration was complicated because someone had removed all but one
of the famous Philco Bakelite blocks along with the associated wires.
The wires in some cases were cut back to the harness that runs around
the perimeter of the chassis. There were loose wires everywhere. The
wires to the potted capacitors were cut and some were twisted back
(in the wrong place). I ordered a schematic from Chuck
Schwark which included a great
pictorial of the under chassis layout. Using that and the schematic I
rewired the radio using terminal strips where the blocks should have
been.
The original 'falling leaf' pattern grill cloth is not
available as a reproduction so I looked around until I found
something that looked right. The pattern name is 'Mozart' which I
think is appropriate for this style radio. It is heavier than grill
cloth but doesn't seem to affect the sound at all. The radio sounds
great. I later made adapters so 1619 tubes could be used in the 45
sockets. 45s are rather expensive and although presently not hard to
come by, I decided to save mine. The radio honestly sounds better
with the 1619s. 1619s are beam power tubes similar to a 6L6 but with
a 2.5 volt filament cathode. They were primarily used as transmitting
tubes in tanks in WWII. To adapt them as subs for 45s they must be
wired as triodes and a four-pin adapter made. Bill
Turner makes the adapter but I made
mine just for the exercise. There is no cost savings at all over
buying the tube and adapter combination from Bill.
Here is a before photo of the Philco 96 .
