1940 Philco Wireless Remote Control Radio 40-217
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2022
- please adopt me and I run your electric bill up. Vintage Philco console AM Shortwave radio resurrection. Interesting early remote set with typical philco gimmicks
/ shango066 - Zábava
Follow up video on remote control section repair by new owner. czcams.com/video/6MoYD28PYr8/video.html
Oh boy this whole remote control design is bonkers.
Remarkably while watching an old "Mr. Fong the Fatal Hour circa 1934 this same set was featured as a murder mystery link in a murder. Look up the show and go to about the 55 min mark and the radio with its remote feature was showcased.
That remote set up would have been jaw dropping in 1940. The whole neighborhood would have come over to witness it.
Philco radios were AWESOME! I LOVE REAL (okay, "vintage") ELECTRONICS! THESE WILL BE THE "classic cars" of the future! Quality is ALWAYS classic!
I’m sure this radio will be adopted very quickly. It has a beautiful Art Deco design.
Philco was very advanced for its time! Not only did they have a model with their unique “Beam of Light” changer,but the Mystery Remote control system was also revolutionary. You were able to turn the unit on/off,raise and lower the volume,mute the volume,change radio stations,change to the record player,and even change the records,all wirelessly from the comfort of your chair!
Back in the mid sixties I came across one of them Beam of Light phono turntables and read up on them. Like a dumb ass teen, we laughed at it and smashed it to bits
I bought one of these with the remote off of eBay for $0.01 several years ago. That was the minimum bid and I was the only bidder. I had to drive about 6 hours to Ohio to pick it up. I felt sorry for the guy so gave him $20 anyway. I still have not restored it although I later picked up another remote box that was in better shape. The remote boxes used to show up on eBay from time to time for a reasonable price. This was the very first remote controlled anything sold commercially and as such is a keeper for anyone's collection.
I agree even though I am afraid to dig into mine (different than shown here) when it quit see my other comment Thanks
I have an old Philco 39-45 I've had since I was 16 (1966). It was part of a rummage sale at my church. The parish priest told me I could have it. It didn't work. But I got it working that afternoon. Beautiful sound.
My first was finding a 1939 Zenith in my grandmother's closet in 1968. I promised her if I could inherit it I might be the only one in the family who'd ever get it to work again. After about fainting and asking how I knew to ask that question (I was eleven at that time) I said I didn't know but could I(?). She then agreed an in 2005, my son and wife picked it up and now works setting in my living room.
This set is amazing. I'm 62 and when I visited my high school teacher once, she had a remote controlled radio and TV. Both remotes were like a decadic phone. You literally dialed in a TV station or a radio station but the great thing was that they were both connected by cables not wireless remotes. There was plenty of length and all the pots were on the remotes. If you unplugged the remotes, the internal pots and tuning kicked in if it needed say if the remotes were stolen or lost. I live in Australia and we had some great minds here. My grandmother bought my mum an Australian made Kriesler 6 element 3 way radio gram. The tweeters are electrostatic ribbon units and the bass and mids were magnavox. It was 10 watts a channel push/pull and the neighbours complained about the volume.....especially the bass. It hasnt been turned on for years and I will dim bulb it when I get the chance. Thanks Shango. You are a very talented man. You have what I have....a 6th sense which you are born with. Some technicians don't get it. I do. Cheers Andrew Melbourne Victoria Australia. The pic is me on the right with my first love. We had a wonderful relationship until HIV took him from me.
Best Shango comment ever, “WENR. OK, I’ll just leave that one alone.”
I have a 1942 philco console that my grandfather bought. Has had one new rectifier tube and NO work under the chassis. Still works LOUD with very little hum. No doubt needs caps, but still blasts out the audio. When I was young, I used the phono input so the thing was one half of my stereo. I am 67 now and the thing still works. Don't always dis Philco they were the most popular radio builder of the time and you got what you paid for.
Yes at least replace the coupling caps otherwise you're gonna fry a tube or the OPT.
It's supposed to look like a spinet piano! When the cover is open, it looks like a music stand, and the "teeth" thing represents the lyre-shaped support for the pedals. A wild creation from the hay-day of radio! Love the Chicago stations on the presets. WBBM and WGN are of course still around. WMBI is the Moody Bible Institute station, 90.1 FM now (a 100,000 watt station, btw - the AM station was sold off only last year and is now WXES). And I remember listening to a revived WJJD playing genuine "oldies" (from the '40s and '50s) at work in the '90s.
Those are Chicagoland stations. The radio was home in the Midwest back in the day.
Shang's Tibetan Prayer Wheel moment 😌
Philco had an even earlier wireless remote radio, in 1933!! This one needs to adopted and restored, it has to be a mega rare survivor. Imagine how much it must have cost in it's day?!
Also IF you want to use the sets own manual volume control, all you have to do is push directly in on the volume control and then turn the control up or down while pushing IN on the control.
This control only operates a set of switch contacts that engages the little motor clockwise or counter clockwise.
AWESOME! This is the spark I think I need to get my 39-116 (very similar, except for the cabinet) running. I picked it up as a leftover from an auction, $20. Has all original Philco tubes...
This is a real gas - you're having all the same WTF moments I had with mine when I got it!
16:39 It is Art Deco at its finest. That was the fashion at that point in time.
I had (my Mom owned this, until her death) a Philco "tube" radio/ phono, nightstand (GREAT SOUND, GREAT PHONO,WORKED!), that I sold, in 1990, for $15! I STILL MISS IT! BEAUTIFUL WOOD CABINET, TOO!
As prev mentioned, the callsigns are all Chicago area stations. Also, the "Television Sound" was to receive the prewar TV audio for use with the Philco's prewar "Vision Only" television attachment, which never made it to market
We’ll you answered a mystery for me. Back in the early 70’s my dad brought home a huge radio. Huge to me. He played with it. The gutted it and kept the cabinet to store paint cans in.
But I remembered it had the vertical wheels on either side of the dial. Now I know it was a Philco. I do remember it played.
Its been adopted out and its new daddy already purchased a remote for it. Can I get 200 more comments that it lived in Chicago? Please ohh pretty please... Chicago, Chicago that toddling town Chicago, Chicago I will show you around I bet your bottom dollar you'll have some fin in Chicago, Chicago The town that Billy Sunday couldn't shut down
Chicago baby!
The remote on these is more fun than spinning the antenna. I've operated a restored one at a museum (I'm a donor so they let me touch stuff), they sound like a jukebox mechanism (cause they basically are) when tuning. EDIT: The remote looks like a rotary dial phone because it does work on pulses, it's basically just a radio telegraph system.
Shango....Betting I speak for the majority here...I appreciate the mixing in of old radios to the channel. YES, Tv's are great, transistor radios too but the occasional antiques are likewise. Thanks, best regards and keep 'em coming.
Darn I always miss out on these!
Is that thing at the bottom an antenna balun ?
I love big radios and TV's that look like furniture. You could feel the quality just by looking at it. This is very nice!
I’ll admit that I just started watching, so this may be corrected, but this may be a bit older. One of these made an appearance in the movie Topper Takes A Trip from 1938
The first 2 numbers in a Philco model number is year of manufacture 99.9% of the time.
1940
However to be fair, a lot of Philco consoles looked like this one.
@@acefeeley9007 I’m almost positive it was this model. They used the movie as an advertisement in a way, although the Philco company isn’t mentioned they talk about and demonstrate the mystery box by name
@@romandjma.recordplayers7806 anything is possible my friend
@@romandjma.recordplayers7806 : See my original post......Philco usually introduced a year model in the previous year's month of June. This model 40-217 was no different and (as stated earlier) had the cabinet as the 1939 40-216RX. With that being said....that model may have debuted as early as June 1938. So you're probably correct on your assumption.
That volume control is amazing. Yes it's gimmicky but it was full of great ideas and the build quality is pretty darn impressive. If I were a person of means at that time, I'd love to have this in my 1940 mancave.
This thing was 189.95 in 1940. That is FOUR THOUSAND Dollars in 2022 funny money and that is only if you believe the Bullshit inflation numbers that massively underestimate inflation. "A person of means" indeed.
As a collector myself....and thinking along the same lines....Yeah, that would have been neat, but in today's money that set would have set you back $3965. Now some may say they'd never do that but.....remember radios were in their day the computer, the TV, the immediate News, primary sources for entertainment and connection to the world.... Sad to think of what's become of them in my opinion 😕.
"Philco Mystery Control Demonstration", here on CZcams - - shows you that exact remote control you are missing. Plus, this is the phono-less model. Dial it in, man!
Super rare radio in nice condition for its age. Typical rubber coated wiring issues. Needs full recapping. Thank you for showing this rare piece of radio history Shango. It is a restorable radio even without the remote.
This radio was very expensive considering the time it was made. Mass produced in 1940 the end of the depression people still pulling out of the depression and most not having money to buy something as expensive as this. A lot of these radios survived there are still quite a bit of them around I see them on the Internet a lot. This example is exceptionally clean. This interesting is that the remote control for this looks like a wooden jewelry box with a telephone dial on top. Fully restore and Recaps this radio will sound great because of the push pull amplifier it has.
Don’t forget WW2
There's a listing on etsy for the remote control, if you want to go all in.
That is one wild Contraption you have there, my man. That must have been a very expensive set.
Some years ago I bought the entire contents of a garage belonging to a very old man who had fiddled with radio since World War ii. Among a zillion other things in that garage was the entire Rider Perpetual manual set. Those books probably occupied 25 ft of shelf space. I was happy that I was eventually able to find somebody to donate them to, otherwise they would have ended up in a dump somewhere.
That was a VERY expensive radio in it's day!!!!!! VERY COOL!
Those are all Chicago stations that I listened to as I was growing up. As usual, great video. I wish I was close enough, because I'd "adopt" this one, for sure! I have one of those remotes. Cheers!
In 39:00 the capacitor causes a delay or phase difference between the voltage waveform and the current waveform, giving the motor "slip" and hence giving it the ability to produce torque. Once the capacitance goes down the delay isn't enough and the torque produced isn't enough to move the motor. If you need to make a non-polarized capacitor for this purpose, just take 2 electrolytics in series with the two positives tied together to produce one capacitor attached across the motor.
Thats what i did with my $10 39-55.
You can do that with capacitors?
Thank you for this. Enjoyed seeing inside this set. The remote idea was way cool.
Shango066, you're an absolute treasure. I love your videos. Please keep up the great work!
I really enjoyed this one Shango .. thanks for all you do !
Gotta give it to Philco, this radio was way ahead of its time!
Love 'em or hate 'em, their marketing could have a field day with all the available features...
Outstanding video. I intended to watch just a few minutes and then watch the rest later, but I just couldn't stop watching until the end...
I'm in love! I worked on a ton of art deco to 50's sets. But I never got my hands wrapped around a wireless remote chassis from the early 1940's! Hats off to you my friend! Please restore it to the max! :)
A friend and I visit a very large antique mall nearby. Every time we go there, we've been looking at a Philco remote control that been there forever. Always wondered what models this was intended for. Well, if that does get adopted, I can hook the buyer up on the remote. Also, my friend has a model that is very close to this. Not a remote set, but does have the early FM band on it. Has the same piano keyboard cover, thumb wheels...etc. however his has hinged doors on the front. It's a beautiful set. Happy 4th of July holiday weekend Shango. Waiting for your annual 4th of July EOL video with much anticipation! 💣
When I was a little kid, I visited a house that had a working Philco with remote, I was warned, very sternly, not to touch!
I knew about shortwave radio, and I asked the right questions, and after a few minutes of talking about it, we were listening to the radio, and trying the shortwave bands for the first time on that radio!
I ignited the SWL bug in the owner!
Actually, it was the owners son, but he had inherited it from his father after he passed, and he wasn't sure as to what it did until I talked him into pushing the right buttons, and trying it in the evening, instead of in the daytime.
Those antennas that are built in, work fine most of the time, but they did provide for external antennas which worked much better.
BTW most thyratrons are not radioactive.
That tunable antenna looks similar to the Zenith "Wave Guide Magnet" antennas back in the day. As far a gimmicks... most every brand had & has them to varying degrees. For example: RCA had an electric motor that'd turn the dial selector to any of eight pre select's, though it was a remote model it wasn't wireless (and it was a 1937 model).
As far as original cost and other facts: The 40-217 Philco used the same cabinet as the June 1939 model 40-216RX, but uses the same chassis as the 40-215RX. It originally sold for $189.95. In today's money....that'd be $3965.83 adjusted for inflation.
Thank you so much for what you do! I stumbled upon your videos yesterday. I was researching for a philco 41 608-92 cabinet radio record player recorder. It's been hard to find information on. It was my great grandfather's and my great aunt gifted it to me recently. It does not function and is in pretty rough shape missing buttons and knobs. It still has the microphone and all of the internals, of course most of the wires are rotten. I live in Michigan and I can't find anybody to repair this beautiful radio. It even came with the original 78s that my great grandpa recorded on with all my relatives they used to sing and perform. My great grandpa's name was Chester Troutman and he was a performer who lived in Ohio and he traveled the Midwest performing music with a singing parakeet named Alto. I have around 20 78 RPM records he cut himself all with this exact philco 41. Back to the point at hand is I can't find anyone to fix this. Maybe we could work something out? I could pay you to fix it and you could feature it in a video! Maybe you could even play one of my records for your audience? There's a lot to choose from. Anyways have a great day and regardless of your response keep doing what you're doing it is a talent and a gift that is rare in the world today.
yeah!!! friend shango I loved you working Radio Philco was a jewel!!
It's shango you're a great technician!
Wow that is one fancy Philco. Very Art-Deco and wireless remote. Amazing piece.
That is the coolest radio I have ever seen, completely restored even cooler.
The remote control unit looked like a wooden box with a rotary dial just like a rotary telephone dial. I have both the radio and remote. The frequency for the remote was between 200 Kcs and 450 or so Kcs.and was set by the selling agency so as two sets in neighboring apartments would not interefere with one another!
I don't think it was too frequent to have two of these within one square mile. These were surely very expensive.
You seem to find some real gems of radios and TVs.
😎
It reminded me of an old pin ball machine when you opened it up.
Hello Shango!! Whats in the box ?? The box is the cover for the relay system that selects the coils and caps for the preset stations! The remote control transmitted at a predetermined RF Frequency which was received by the big loop antenna wound around inside the console cabinet. The remote PULSED the RF at a given rate and the radio received this pulsed RF and operated a set of coils that indexed the selector at the same number of (MOVES) as there was pulses of rf received. The volume was also controlled by the remote with again a few pulses of RF. but I am not going to get into that right now!
Shango, great video, I just looked on Evil Bay, and they are 2 of the Magic Box remotes listed. Both in the $100.00 range, if any of your other viewers that has an interest in this radio. Yes, Philco's were gimmicky, and cheap. That's why so many are still available today. Good luck finding it a home.
Beautiful design and engineering. Great video.
Outstanding Shango !! Rare find indeed !!!
Love it, and the way u deliver sarcastic .
I’m interested in this console!! Judging from the radio station presets, it’s from the Chicago, IL area and it would honestly be cool to see it back in this area. Very cool!!
All the call signs on the presets are Chicago radio stations from the 1940's, some still have the same call letters today yet.
Philco was from Pennsylvania , and we had TON's of them roll through our little shop in Pittsburgh PA. I have restored so many of them that I was sick of seeing them. but now I miss them :(
I have a Philco 41-280 that was set out next to the street in front of a house a couple years ago. Tubes are missing. I've been watching channels like yours to get an education on how to restore it.
Very beautiful old set and very cool
HEY SHANGO!!!! Happy independence day!!
Thanks for the video
I restored a Philco 42-400 about 12 years ago. Very big. According to an original brochure for 1942, that I have, this was their most expensive radio console and the last radio made before WW II. AM, FM (the original FM no longer used) and SW. No remote control thankfully, but talk about a complicated and packed chassis. It did have separate bass and tone controls. It now sits on my 3rd floor landing and gets used often since I run my own AM house broadcasting system for all my AM radios. With 11 tubes this will not only play your favorite music it will also heat the room!
Late to the show but thanks for an excellent video. Had no idea wireless remote technology existed back that far, and Philco no less.
Finally getting around to watching this. I have a Philco Mystery Control in my collection and have been keeping an eye out for a radio. It seems that all I can find locally are orphaned remotes like mine. Hopefully I can find a radio in the near future as I would love to use this innovative radio that was very much ahead of its time. For now the Mystery Control is just a display piece.
I enjoy watching old items resurrected almost as much as I enjoy abandoned mine exploration and bottle digging. I quit cave exploring a while back, sold my tube tester and vintage radios and now I just bottle dig.
Very nice Art Deco cabinet. Well built. It will be adopted in no time.
I saw this model in April at the InfoAge Science and History Museum in New Jersey (International Marconi Day) they had it with the remote. What an amazing piece of industrial art. Someday one will find its way to my collection.
Wild and wacky radio. Another super interesting upload... Mainly the discovery into that remote... Imagine leaving it on all night by accident with that tube in there .. there goes another set of battery!
Wow! That is way ahead of its time. There are a couple of those remotes on Ebay.
@35:30 background sounds matches the observation. Well done and keep ion Shango066ing ⚡️
Happy Saturday Sir
Watching you wait on that volume control reminds me of how angry my teenage son got when turning on my old Collins 51J. He lost all radio interest right then. I am old enough to have been trained to wait. YMMV.
I loved this! At 35 minutes, I believe that's a clock work mechanism adapted to it's function.
And Philco was nice enough the solve the issue of answering the phone, doorbell, that gossiping neighbor across the yard; with a mute function on that 'Mystery Box' remote. I'd love to see how that works to mute audio... Damn it Shango n0w I want one,.. or that Grundig Majestic 3035 you rebuilt..! The Philco Roto-tweebulator still makes me laugh though, Thanks once again for sharing
Yeah men, I like your radio. Because I love our retro Design.
The presets are Chicagoland stations. The woodwork is still simply beautiful. Back in the 1940’s it was a beautiful addition to the living room.
Just picked up a decent 39-116 (no remote unit). Your video help will come in handy - maybe; the layout is quite different. Thanks!
This is indeed way ahead of its time, beautifully constructed but at the same time overly complicated. One might say it is the radio equivalent of a modern BMW car. Only way better constructed than the plastic fantastic BMW car that won’t last. Greetings, Willem, Hekelingen, The Netherlands.
I think it's supposed to look like an old organ. Those middle pieces resemble the foot controls on an old organ. I tore apart on old 1970's organ that had foot controls that resembled those middle pieces on the front.
Earlier for nutrition is your mom malignant over for fourfall he is Sissy tracer
@@shango066 🤣👍 Thanks for the 'informative' reply! LOL! You're the best!😉
Similar art deco design aesthetic to jukeboxes from the same era. Also I've seen early guitar amplifiers with the vertical bars on the speaker grill- decorative and also protects the speaker cone
@@randyr.parker2698 sorry that was for Greg my bot friend
@@shango066 That's OK, I still got a good laugh. 😂
I’m a sucker for these beautiful floor model radios like this I’ve got about seven of them but this particular one is nicer than any of mine I love these things so damn classy
The metal box contains stepper switches and step-relays for station selection and volume up/down controlled by the wireless remote control. The Tyhratron is a special tube for controlling the relays inside the metal box. The vertical shaft AM antenna is an electrostatically shielded AM loop antenna. It helps eliminate static from appliances that may have sparks jumping inside their motors or neon sign lights. This special antenna was a one year feature. The very next year they dropped that feature. That rectangle in the bottom is likely the antenna for the remote control. It operated below the AM broadcast band (Long-Wave frequencies under 500kHz). The "Mystery Control" (Philco's name for their remote, which has what looks like a rotary telephone dial on it) sometimes shows up on eBay as a separate item.
what even is the "testing testing, this is only a test" station? have you ever tried to pinpoint it on one of your road trips?
I figured it would get adopted out pretty quick. Very unique radio, bet that cost a pretty penny back in the day. Maybe the new owner can do something to make the volume change quicker. For 82 years old and at least somewhat working, is pretty darn good! Cabinet still is shiny in spots. Quite a rare unit.
This is a David Tipton special.
Fantastic radio that I would have considered picking up if I had room for it.
These are highly sought after especially if you have the remote. The remote is totally amazing. It looks like old rotary phone dial. Too bad you don’t have the remote
I cannot believe this thing was wireless in the 40s that is crazy. I work on jukeboxes and through the late 80s they were still wired! I don’t believe they started having remote control until the 90s and those are expensive commercial units.
I've seen one of these in an office building just as an art piece. This radio is certainly a nice looking unit compared to what they cat usually drags home.
User image checks out
Glad to see it got adopted... Good job, was entertaining
Great. This video just popped up Well I have a similar one sticker says 38-116 I have both parts and it worked fine until a few months ago. I was going to get into it (finish is original and fantastic) however it was last owned/repaired by a gentleman who was in signal corps in ww2 he could fix just about any thing but when I turned over the chassis he had designed a circuit with modern relays so I guess it will just stay a nice curio in the room so again thanks for the vidieo!
No one in interested in it tossed
180W! Can you imagine running this all day and the power bill comes in and you hadn't a clue what was guzzling all the electricity, I know throw out the fridge nupe, washing machine nupe...
Yes, it needs a switch on the back to isolate the power from the remote control receiver, so if you want just to listen to it and not showing off its cool remote control feature to your friends, you can disable it. It draws at least half the power I guess.
The New Jersey Antique Radio Club has a working example of this radio with a working remote control. Just a really cool radio!
Hey 👋 Shango!! Please put this in your house 🏠!! Overall, this is a GREAT 😊 radio 📻. I see the damage at the bottom, but I’ll see ya ✌️ resurrect it, along with the capacitors and tubes. By the dials on the front, it looks like 👍 this may have a very complex dial cord system. That looks like 👍 a transformer that ya were knocking on. It probably is full of dried out paper 📄, and a lot of copper 👮♀️ wiring. I see that this is a Philco, but I’ve missed the year. It’s permanent magnet 🧲. I’m probably going to guess it’s from circa 1953. I wished I could buy this radio 📻 from ya, but I’m not sure 🤔 of the shipping 🚢 cost 💲 to Casa Grande, Arizona. “Rototweebler fidget tweebler”😂😂😂!! VERY impressive dial cord pulley, and dial cord system. Hope the dial light 💡 works. Your friend, Jeff.
When i seen WGN that told me that this radio was probably from Chicago.
That's an impressive radio for it's time! That must have cost
big bucks back in the day!
First time in years I wish I had my RV down in Topock Az so I could go pick that up. I Love the units look, ops hardware design and that speaker! Ah well I am now pretty much here in Northern South Dakota and probably will remain here for the rest of my life. Driving a thousand miles or so in my RV at 10 MPG would empty any savings I have left. Ah well it was a nice pipedream.
This just in: the state of California has asked it's residents to, in addition to not charging their electric cars and not using their air conditioners, switch off their vintage tube radios this summer to prevent overloading of the electrical grid.
Saba had a 1950s large tube radio that would search for strong radio stations at the push of a button, with a dedicated motor on the tuning dial, and a wired remote control.
If I still lived in Arizona, I'd brave the wilds of LA traffic to adopt that. Run a huge Marconi antenna and I bet it'd sill pull in all kinds of fun.
Very interesting Shango..... This was ahead of it's time.... Yes it's slow by today's standards but back in 1940 that would be amazing no matter how slow it was. It's to bad today it seems like nothing is being invented any more electronic wise or is that just my imagination. Thanks as always for the video!
It would be great if Bob Andersen was the adopter. Would be so nice for this radio to go back to its homeland, and be restored very thoroughly by Bob.
Nice score on this one. Sure hope it finds a good home - even if it's just a display piece.
53:52 🤣 this is so me. My inner dialog while eavesdropping
This thing reminds me of a Beautiful old Raymer multi IF stage FM radio i let a graduate student borrow to work on his Master's thesis. He removed several of the main tuning capacitor plates along with shredding up all of the ferrite cores in each of the IF cans. I never got that radio back as a working FM receiver. A lesson learned. Never loan out your stuff!
Holy shit, even nowadays modern remotes use RF. Thats impressive!