'49 Admiral TV/radio/phono combo

[damen]

Thats a nice one ...hope you get it working.

[Dennman6]

Have any of you 78rpm record collectors noticed that the top record on the stack pictured on the Triple-Play phonograph manual is a blue label Columbia record from about 1920-1922 vintage? This would be an acoustic 78 produced before the microphones & amplifiers entered the recording chain in early 1925. The label had gold lettering against a medium blue background, & was the label used just before Columbia's "flag" label, which had a pair of colorful flags on either side of a coppertone or bronze background. How neat for me to have noticed this!

[Dennman6]

Originally Posted by Dennman6

Have any of you 78rpm record collectors noticed that the top record on the stack pictured on the Triple-Play phonograph manual is a blue label Columbia record from about 1920-1922 vintage? This would be an acoustic 78 produced before the microphones & amplifiers entered the recording chain in early 1925. The label had gold lettering against a medium blue background, & was the label used just before Columbia's "flag" label, which had a pair of colorful flags on either side of a coppertone or bronze background. How neat for me to have noticed this!

ALSO-pretty weird to use an early 1920s Columbia 78rpm record in an operator's manual illustration for a record changer made at LEAST twenty-five years later!

[AUdubon5425]

I have a Columbia 78 from around 1930 with a similar looking label with gold text a black background, with the round Columbia/musical note symbol at the top - looks a lot like what's on that brochure.

[barebones]

I just recently acquired one almost identical to that but the mirror-image!!!
How do you date these things?...I'm a TV noob. Mine is probably "newer"..the back panel isn't quite so "sparton"....I kill myself.
Anyways...just like a noob i plugged it in and the radio works fine, the TT needs some help, and the tv works, but just has a wide horizontal bar across...Probably best that someone looks at it that knows their stuff!!
It's a cool looking turntable though..

[radotvguy]

I had one of these years ago . Picked it up at a estate auction . It went for 20 bucks . The tv worked great after a recapping but the radio didnt work . At the time i just got into repairing stuff and was told it had bad IF cans . I wound up giving it to a friend . CAn kick myself in the butt now for not saving it . Those admirals are getting rare to find .

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by barebones

I just recently acquired one almost identical to that but the mirror-image!!!
How do you date these things?...I'm a TV noob. Mine is probably "newer"..the back panel isn't quite so "sparton"....I kill myself.
Anyways...just like a noob i plugged it in and the radio works fine, the TT needs some help, and the tv works, but just has a wide horizontal bar across...Probably best that someone looks at it that knows their stuff!!
It's a cool looking turntable though..

There are several ways to pin down a date on these things. One way is to look for date codes on original tubes, transformers, speakers, etc. A second way is to see what date the Sam's Photofact service data was published. A third way is to check price guides (and they usually use the methods I mentioned to nail down a date). In my case, it was easy since there was documentation stating that the customer bought it in January of 1950. I assumed, from this date, that the TV was actually made in '49.

It sounds like your TV is suffering from no vertical sweep. At any rate, I wouldn't plug it in again until all of the electrolytic and paper capacitors were changed. If one of these caps shorts, the damage could be costly (as in burning up a transformer or other major part that may be difficult to find).

I brought mine up on a variac and the main power supply filter cap spewed it's guts. I'd hate to think what would have happened had I plugged it directly into 120 volts!

I did have another Admiral combo similar to my "new" one; but, I think it was a little newer. The screen was rectangular. I can't remember if the actual CRT was round or rectangular. It was in sad shape and I tossed it.

[radiotvnut]

OK, I now have a usable 12LP4 CRT in my possession. A member of the ARF had a late '50's Dumont tube that was weak but usable. When I first connected it to my tester, (B&K 480) it checked in the red (which I expected). I wasn't really worried because I've seen B&W tubes check bad and actually still make a watchable picture. After about 30 minutes on the tester, the tube checked in the green. It's now been on the tester for 1.5 hours and I'm about to go check it again. This tube probably just needs to be used.

Now, would there be any need for me to save the dud 12LP4? The only reason I would suspect that I need to save it would be to have it rebuilt; but, I'm open to suggestions.

I'm probably not going to install the new tube until I'm done recapping the chassis.

[jeyurkon]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

OK, I now have a usable 12LP4 CRT in my possession. A member of the ARF had a late '50's Dumont tube that was weak but usable. When I first connected it to my tester, (B&K 480) it checked in the red (which I expected). I wasn't really worried because I've seen B&W tubes check bad and actually still make a watchable picture. After about 30 minutes on the tester, the tube checked in the green. It's now been on the tester for 1.5 hours and I'm about to go check it again. This tube probably just needs to be used.

Now, would there be any need for me to save the dud 12LP4? The only reason I would suspect that I need to save it would be to have it rebuilt; but, I'm open to suggestions.

I'm probably not going to install the new tube until I'm done recapping the chassis.

I would save the dud 12LP4. Even if you don't plan on getting it rebuilt, someone else may want it for that purpose. I haven't seen any show up on the bay for some time.

According to Scotty the guns are getting scarce also. He keeps the old guns in case he needs to get them rebuilt.

The 12LP4 in the Philco I haven't started to work on yet behaved like your replacement. It looked completely dead. Then a couple of sudden jumps and the emission started to climb to a decent level and the G1 cutoff was acceptable. As near as I can tell it had been just sitting unused for 29 years.

John

[radiotvnut]

OK, I let the tube cool and fired it up again at 6.3 volts. It starts out in the low end of the "bad" section; but, comes up to "good" after several minutes. I did try the "clean and balance" function of my CRT tester; but, it didn't help and I decided not to push my luck with the rejuvenate function. On my tester, when you press the button in either clean and balance or rejuvenate mode, the meter needle suddenly rises. You hold the button down until the needle falls back down. In this case, the needle just barely moved and fell back down. I still have the same test results, weak for a few minutes and then it checks good. I'm not going to press my luck by trying to get anymore out of it.

I will save the dud CRT in case I decide to have it rebuilt or someone else needs it for rebuilding.