Bench: Philco 48-200, Saturday edition

Sat 7 Nov, 09:40. Shutter half up. Mr. Delacroix is here for a pickup and says the bench is mine until noon, as long as I don't touch his coffee.

On the bench: Philco 48-200, 1948, brown Bakelite, five tubes. Brought in Thursday by a retired PATH motorman from Journal Square. It sat on his mother's kitchen windowsill for forty years.

Fault: loud 120 Hz hum from switch-on. Stations come in under it, thin, and drift off after ten minutes warm.

Fix:

• 10:05 · both filter caps replaced, 40 µF and 20 µF at 150 V. The originals were dry and leaking wax.
• 10:40 · output tube tested weak. Swapped for a good one from the drawer.
• 11:15 · one cracked solder joint on the oscillator coil, the cause of the drift. Reflowed.
• 11:30 · line cord replaced. The old one was cloth over hope.

After: thirty seconds of nothing while the tubes warm. Then a low rush, no hum, and WNYC on 820 with a man reading the weekend weather. Held it for forty minutes. No drift.

Mr. Delacroix's pickup never came. The motorman's radio goes home Tuesday.