[BC] Re: Octal based All American 5

[Phil Alexander]

On 9 Jul 2005 at 20:52, DHultsman5 at aol.com wrote:

> Phil the Hallicrafters S38-D  $59.95  Shortwave receiver was an  AC/DC using 
> the Octal based tubes.   

Really!  I don't know why I never got into one of those. Played around with
SWLing when I was 9 or 10 years old with one or two, but never got inside.
What tube line-up did they use to get the 120 V fils?

I did have an S-54 mounted under the dash of my first car in high school,
because it would tune 6 meters. I had an old army whip with ceramic
base insulator on the rear bumper. Had to go through all kinds of problems
to make that set work when the car (an old '40 Plymouth sedan) was running,
and had to build an external PS for it with a vibrator.

> My folks had a 1940's Philco Console with Loctal tubes but it had a power  
> transformer.  

Mine had a table model that I think was made about 1939 or 1940. I know
we used it in the kitchen until some time in the mid '50's. Dad even bought
a Pilot tuner for it so we could hear the local FM station in about 1949.

I remember enough about the Loctals to recall they had 7's to indicate
6 V filaments, and the numbers were not quite the same as the octals.

> The large 12 inch speaker had a filed coil winding that would  
> knock you on your but.

Heh, heh, I remember those from other radios. The Philco table model
only had a little 5" cone speaker with magnet. It also had a radially
wound loop inside the back cover which was pressed fiber similar to
Masonite, but not as sturdy.

> This radio had AM  old FM 30-40 mHz. and two shortwave bands.   Also had an 
> external antenna connection.  Playing with the shortwave in the  early '50's 
> got me interested in radio instead of being a train engineer.

I think I was always interested in it. My mother blamed it on my pulling
the plug of the Philco out of the socket zorching my hand in the process
before I was three years old. By the time I was about eight I was taking
old radios apart marvelling at the coils and variable caps that were really
something in some of the TRF sets. I wondered what those funny sticks with
wires wrapped around the ends were. They had such neat colors and dots on
them. Then, one day I broke one in half, and found the same stuff I'd
gotten when I took a dry cell apart - carbon - now, how did that work.
I found out, and I'm not sure to this day if it was a good thing or a bad
thing. <ggg>


Phil Alexander, CSRE, AMD
Broadcast Engineering Services and Technology 
(a Div. of Advanced Parts Corporation) 
Ph. (317) 335-2065   FAX (317) 335-9037





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