I acquired this Philco 42-350 in the 70's, rebuilt the power supply and got it going on AM, then put
it aside for 30 years. Now I've dug it out of storage and am thinking about doing a full restoration.

This radio has AM, FM and SW bands, plus a fourth position on the bandswitch that switches in the AM
presets, settable by means of trimmer caps. This set goes back to the earliest days of commercial
FM -- the FM dial uses channel numbers instead of frequency.

The vacuum tubes are all loctals. The filaments are parallel 6.3VAC -- more gratifying to work with
than series-string filaments. The speaker uses a field coil in place of a permanent magnet; the coil
doubles as a choke for the power supply. (Old timers will be familiar with this scheme; surprisingly,
it's effective and doesn't create audible hum, but what was the point? Were permanent magnets too weak
or too expensive? If the technique was economical, why did it disappear?)

I have a schematic and quasi-legible parts list from Beitman. The bandswitching looks fairly daunting
and the FM circuit really difficult to trace. I can probably restore the shortwave fairly easily given
that it uses the same IF as the AM, but I'm going to need additional resources to deal with the FM,
which does not work at all. 'd like to hear from anyone who's successfully restored one of these.

I'm pleased to note that the audio output is lush and mellow. This the way AM ought to sound: sweet.
Makes me wish they were still playing Sinatra and Mitch Miller on AM, or Norrie Paramor (wait -- that was
the BBC on 31 meters) instead of right-wing ravers and religious nuts.

Restoring the cabinet will also be an interesting project. Question: How does one refinish the wood
and retain the labels? Maybe I'll just do the top, which has water damage -- the rest is not too bad.

This radio is not for sale. I created this photo gallery to support discussion on an antique radio website.

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