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My $40 vintage radio from a yard sale just gave up after 6 months
Honestly, I grabbed this old Philco tabletop from a flea market in Portland back in May. It worked fine for a while, warm sound and all, but yesterday it just started humming and then went silent. I popped the back off and saw a couple of cracked capacitors, so I tried replacing them with parts from a hobby shop, but it still won't power up. Anyone else run into tube radios where the transformers are shot and have luck finding a repair guy who doesn't charge more than the thing's worth?
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charlesb421mo ago
Scrap it for parts like @faith_torres83 said, but that humming might just be a bad rectifier tube.
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faith_torres831mo ago
Did you check the actual tubes before you went after the caps? I used to think any dead tube radio was just bad caps or a worn tube, but my 1950s Zenith taught me different. Spent weeks replacing resistors and whatnot only to find the power transformer was cooked, and the guy at the shop confirmed it by testing the windings. Old radios are like that, the transformer takes a hard hit after a tube shorts out and drags everything with it. For what it's worth, a repair that involves transformer work will almost always run more than 40 bucks, so I'd say your best move is to hunt for a parts donor online. That Philco might not be worth saving, but the speakers and knobs can fund a better one.
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