Brrrr!
 

Monday morning came and went with very little fanfare. I looked out the bedroom window only to find more snow than had been predicted by the previous night's forecast. Snowbound is the only word that comes to mind. Brrrr!
I poured a cup of strong coffee and shuffled over to the computer to check the latest mail. The following videokarma link was number three in the early morning list of updated threads.

Ultra-rare Philco
http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=249566
In forum: Early Color Television
Started by: kbmuri
Last post: 12-12-2010 07:57 PM

I moved the mouse cursor over the blue-underlined text and clicked the leftmost button. <Click> The following vBulletin Message popped onto the screen.

TubeType, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

• Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
• If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

What did the message mean? Had I forgotten to log into the forum? I logged out, logged in and clicked the update link again. "TubeType, you do not have permission to access this page."

My next stop was the "Early Color Television" forum. Lo and behold, the Ultra-rare Philco thread was nowhere to be found.
What happened?

I tried it with the same results.....

I has been moved to the 'black hole', which is a place only mods can see it till they decide to either edit out objectionable material or simply delete it.

It turned into a pissing contest and was obviously removed. It was getting pretty ugly.

It was removed.

Say It Ain't So, George!
 

That sounds too Orwellian for me. There has to be better reason. No one would intentionally edit out another person's opinion or idea; would they? Maybe profanity, but not an idea.

Thank you for answering the question; "What happened?"
Will you please explain; "Why was the thread removed?"

I've been in contact with the guy that owns the early Philco set, he lives about 15 minutes from me. He said he has two other interested buyers and the price is up to $1000. I would have to drive down and take a look at the set, can't tell from the photo how rough the cabinet is. It also has a replacement jug in it.

I read the original thread this morning, it needs to stay in the "black hole" as you called it:D I can only see more problems with re-opening it........although it was an interesting thread to read:)

Not sure what it is, but I don't really like the TV-123. It just looks cheaply made, I guess. My common sense tells me that with a non-original glass jug and a beat up cabinet it's not worth $1k, but knowing Bob he'll have it back to former glory in no time at all.

Bob
 

I've spoken to Bob on the phone on my way to work at NASA and he seems like the kind of guy that could easily solve MANY vacuum problems with his machine skills. We need people to help solve the 15GP22 problem !
Thanks
Greg:thmbsp::banana:

Yeah, the original thread was getting REALLY "Out-Of-Hand." Fellers, one thing I love about this hobby is the "All for one, one for all" type of attitude we generally seem to exhibit. The thread was degenerating into a really bad catfight, & to my way of thinking, there is no room for that sort of attitude here at VK or in TV collecting as a whole. It just leads to hard feelings, & life's too short for that.

I was looking for this thread this morning because I couldn't understand the statement about the rectifier retrofit. What rectifier tubes did this set use originally? I dont think the 5V3 was out at that time. It must've been either a 5AW4 or a 5AU4 which is a lot heavier tube. The pictures I've seen of this chassis show two sockets on the power transformer.

Let me see if I understand this correctly.
Every time there's a "cat-fight" in this forum, we remove the current discussion and move on to the next thread.
Why not remove the cat?

Because this cat has something to say, and might help YOU at some point. Do you really want people getting removed everytime they say something that might offend you? Sounds like a recipie for a pretty boring life, to me. Just because a member has a problem with another member- that's not a reason to ban anyone. That's the kind of thinking that will bring us net neutrality and I gotta tell ya, if you're for that, you should move to another country.

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... "
 

I was able to recover the current owner's photos of his Philco Model TV-123 color set.

I understand there were about five hundred of these sets produced.
Does anyone know how many are on the survivor's list?

Caveat: I am not now, nor have I ever been associated with the sale of this television set. T.C.

The Philco 123 had a 5U4 and a 5Y3 in sockets atop the power transformer. Philco made a little box which plugged into one of the two sockets (not sure which) which contained two 5U4s in parallel. Here is a photo of the box which came with my set.

John, do you mean 5U4 and 5V3?

When I saw how "interesting" this thread was getting, I did a little research. According to what I've been able to find, it seems less than a handful are around. This may only be the third that has been out in public lately. Now what I was reading may be outdated or not accurate by now.

There are two TV-123's (that's the chassis designation, the Philco model number is 22D5102) in museums and four more in the hands of collectors. This latest set makes five for a grand total of seven. At one time they were extremely rare but the queue his filled up a bit. I have one that is believed to be the 'newest' one around; it was manufactured early in 1956. Am in the process of doing my thing with mine: restore one circuit function at a time and test it.

There's been talk of a glass CRT. The AXP in mine was factory installed, and it looks very similar to the photo TubeType recovered. I can't tell for sure though if it's glass or metal.

The guy I bought it from, the original owner, a Philco dealer in southern NJ, it was about six years ago now, had made his own rectifier extension; he said the rectifiers when run in their sockets on the power transformer would melt their solder. Not likely of course, but they must have gotten real warm in those non-airconditioned rooms back in the late fifties NJ summers.

Pete

Looking at the pictures, I think that I see a pair of Helmholtz coils mounted on the sides of the CRT cover. Are these indeed coils, perhaps used for field neutralization? Very interesting looking set!
jr

Some really great pix found here:

http://www.myvintagetv.com/philco_tv123.htm

I happened to have the ad open and saved it to PDF. See the attached file (for posterity's sake I guess?)

-J

Certainly an interesting set to read about. I see that the ETF archive includes the TV-123 setup manual, but that lacks a schematic. It looks like 22D5102 is covered in Sams, folder 349-9. I will trot down to the library to make a copy for bedtime reading.

Phil Nelson

Yes, 5U4 and 5Y3 (not 5V3).

Yep, field neutralization. I agree it is an interesting set. Crawling through the schematic finds little in common with the basic RCA design. An exception is the chroma ref osc area, and so that's my next victim. Vertical and horizontal centering circuits are similar, but Philco engineering had a free reign it seems. Maybe it's me, but I'm not used to seeing three video amps.

Pete

OK, my bad. It IS 5U4 and 5V3, just ad David Roper said. :sigh:

Here's the schematic and tube layout diagram in case anyone's curious.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/temp/Phi...Schematic1.jpg

http://antiqueradio.org/art/temp/Phi...Schematic2.jpg

http://antiqueradio.org/art/temp/Phi...TubeLayout.jpg

These are big files. I'd copy 'em to your local machine and view there.

I'm not going to keep these in this temporary location forever, so download now or forever hold your peace.

Phil

My Two Cents
 

Junior: Thanks for the link over to Chuck's site. His photos, and lots of them, are always great. Thanks Chuck!
Phil: Thanks for posting the schematics. You came through, again.
Pete: I hadn't heard about your Philco. Please post some photos.

John,
Thanks for the dual-5U4 box photo. So, the original PS couldn't handle the load and had to be beefed up?

Interesting thread,
How long was Philco in the early color tv race?
If I recall correctly Philco didn't make colors sets anymore by the late 50's right?

The Early Television Foundation website has lots of info about early color, including a database of which companies made what during those days:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/color.html

Phil Nelson

Thanks for the link,I enjoyed reading it.

That mechanical color wheel system sounds interesting,it would be neat to see one in action.

Like this?

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...c.php?t=148413