Once day I just decided I wanted a Philco Safari. I wanted to own a piece of history. I got one on ePay for $160, and it came today. The set was untested, but the auction stated it worked a few years ago. I took it apart, and removed the antenna cable from the tuner. It came with no battery. I connected a cheater cord to it and turned it on. I got no sound, no picture. The optics were removed also, just the chassis itself. I have not recapped it yet, I just wanted to see if it would work. It obviously doesn't. Is there something in them that commonly fails or no? I think it uses paper capacitors, the electrolytics are probably old, and maybe some HV stuff might be out. Here I thought this set was as big as your average large transistor radio, but I was mistaken. :P I thought it would be all ceramic capacitors and Elna electrolytics kind of like the Early Sony B/W transistor sets. I'm guessing I have to recap everything paper and electrolytic?

Thanks.

Jonathan

Since that TV runs on low voltage, I would not rush into a complete recapping. Electrolytics are surprisingly reliable in that TV.

Troubleshoot it first to make sure you don't build in any more problems. I doubt you will find many bad capacitors.

It is designed to run from a 7.5 volt, positive grounded battery. Check the 3 amp fuse and make sure the power selector switch is in the correct position for 120 volt operation. If you substitute a power supply for the battery, keep it regulated and under 7 volts. Reverse polarity will also pop the fuse. If someone plugged it into a 12 volt source, the CRT is likely bad. You may want to check the CRT filament before investing too much more. Be careful. It is a delicate 150 ma, low drain filament.

The CRT filament lights up, and the fuse is still good. But I have no sound either, So I'm guessing it's a main power problem. I ordered the schematics, but because of the holiday take a little longer for it to get delivered. Thank you for the advice though, because this is kind of a delicate set.

Jonathan

There are +12 and -12 volt power sources that run off the flyback. They power the signal processing and tuner circuits. The high voltage and horizontal run off the 6 volt primary source and must be operatng for the other circuits to function. Fix the horizontal/high voltage first. Once the screen is lit, the rest of the set will probably work. Check the basics. Don't expect anything complicated. Unless the TV has been hacked, there should be very few defective components.
Don

Congratulations on your new purchase. Heres an article about the TV from August 1959:

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c49/Hawkwind02054/BlackAndWhiteTV/PhilcoSafari/

Don,

Thanks. Thats where the filament voltage comes from. What was wrong was the sweep PCB was cracked. I think it was cracked when I got it. The top part of the PCB had two traces that were disconnected because of the crack. I scraped off the solder mask, soldered the broken trace and the set seems to work fine, with sound and picture. With no signal I get snow on the CRT, so I think thats a good sign. I'll test it with a signal and see how the picture is.

Hawkwind,

I was looking for that article. Thank you. :)

Jonathan

Jonathan:

Good work. You have the TV well under control. It will probably work OK with a small antenna. The tuner may need cleaning. It is essentially a miniaturized GI rotary disc tuner. Try tuner cleaner. If it is still not right, then use a relay burnishing tool or light use of very fine sandpaper, 600-1200 grade. Apply only enough effort to remove the light oxidation.

I do not recommend a wholesale capacitor change out. Just fix symptoms caused by defective parts. Quality control was pretty good on the Safari since Philco engineers wanted accurate reliability data from field deployment. Component selection was better than the high volume tube TVs of the era.

Hello Don,

I soldered an F connector to the RF cable and connected a signal to it. The picture comes in fine. There are two issues I notice though. First is the the position of the picture. It's over to the right and I can figure out how to center the picture, do you know how to center it?. Also, the Horizontal seems to go every now and then, but it could be a bad pot.

Thanks.

Jonathan

Yeah, I've read that the Philco engineers REALLY burned the midnite oil on the Safari, it being the "1st one" & all. Transistors were still a new entity back then, it was one thing to design a shirtpocket AM radio, quite another to do a TV...

There are dime-sized ferrite discs on the back of the yoke that move the picture when rotated.

The controls do get noisy. Clean the controls and the horizontal problem will probably go away.

Much of the circuit design work was done by the transistor applications group. The TV was to serve as a testimonial to Philco-Lansdale's ability to provide a wide variety of transistors.

I'd like to get one of those sometime. I saw one a few months ago for, I think, about $280, but didn't have the extra money. I was surprised by how big it really was.

Yeah, I've read that the Philco engineers REALLY burned the midnite oil on the Safari, it being the "1st one" & all. Transistors were still a new entity back then, it was one thing to design a shirtpocket AM radio, quite another to do a TV...

I think even as late as the mid to late 1950's, most transistors did not work very well on VHF/UHF frequencies so I'm sure they really had a challege with the Philco Safari in getting transistors that would work on those frequencies.

In the mid-90s I happened across one that could have been mine for fifty bucks. Dummy me. It's a set I like to have.

By the late '50s, Philco had a full line of high frequency transistors and a new high speed automated transistor manufacturing plant in Spring City, PA. Most were of the small signal variety. They supplied many communication and industrial equipment manufacturers and the Federal government.

The Safari was a transistor demonstration project as well as a first in consumer products.