The Philco Story

[William]

I fell down the rabbit hole today. The story of Philco is long but interesting, a lot to be learned about one of America's largest companies. My biggest complaint, the narrative and the photos do not match.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7AJRdxcgHU

Bill

[TC Chris]

Link? Lots of those online narratives don't bother to link the image with the text. They'll be talking about one thing an showing something unrelated, or speaking of one time with images from a different era.

Chris Campbell

[MEZLAW]

I plan to watch that later today, it's over an hour long but looks good. I know about Ford's relationship with them and for years worked on "Ford Philco" car radios. Did Ford also own them at one time? I believe this is where the "Locktal" tube came from. The purpose was to not have it jar loose when the car encountered bumpy roads.

[William]

It is long, but I found it interesting, and yes, Ford did buy Philco.

Bill

[TC Chris]

Loctals also originated the technology that went into "miniature" tubes, with the pins fused into the glass envelope and no phenolic base. I put miniature in quotes because there were various much smaller vacuum tubes, including the Nuvistors.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I don't believe Philco invented the Loktal. They really liked Loktals and most of their equipment had them. I thought Sylvania invented and built most of the Loktal tubes. Silvertone was another big user of Loktals. I don't remember ever seeing a Wells-Gardner chassis with Loktals, but I could be mistaken.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_socket