10 I got an old Westinghouse cathedral radio from my neighbor when he cleaned out it his attic...
Description
This article is from the Antique Radios And Phonographs FAQ, by Hank van Cleef vancleef@netcom with numerous contributions by others.
10 I got an old Westinghouse cathedral radio from my neighbor when he cleaned out it his attic...
...He told me he put it up there when Fred Allen
left radio, but that it was working when he stored it. I plugged it in
and turned it on. All of the tubes glowed, but nothing came out of the
loudspeaker. After a few minutes, one of the tubes got very red inside
and then, suddenly, liquid shot out of one of the aluminum cans, hit the
bright red tube, and it broke. When I turned the set off, it was
smoking, and this liquid got all over everything like tom cat pee. What
do I do now?
Never ever plug in an old piece of electronics gear that hasn't been
used for a few years without checking it out first. Part 4 of this FAQ
describes some of the things to check. Fred Allen left radio in 1949,
so that radio has been stored 45 years.
DON'T PLUG IT IN UNTIL YOU HAVE CHECKED IT OUT!
What I am describing here actually happened to me around 1948. The
problem was a shorted wet electrolytic condenser. The plates of the
rectifier tube, an 80, glowed red, and I shut the radio off, but the
electrolytic boiled, squirted the electrolyte (nasty stuff) onto the 80,
which promptly shattered. Cleanup was a soap-and-water job.
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