28 Facts About Philco

Philco is an American electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia.

Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production.

Philco built many iconic radios and television sets, including the classic cathedral-shaped wooden radio of the 1930s, and the Predicta series of television receiver sets of the 1950s.

The first Philco radios were introduced in mid-1928, and 96,000 were produced that year, making Philco radios 26th in the nation in production volume.

Philco radios were notable for their economy of design without sacrificing quality or durability.

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Philco made battery-powered radios which were by then called "farm radios", most of which had cabinets identical to their AC powered versions.

The Philco "Baby Grand" was a shape that featured an arched top that wrapped from the sides over the top.

Philco sold far more of this style than any other maker, a total of over two million from 1930 to 1938; many of them exist today in collections.

Philco ranked 57th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

Philco began marketing car radios in 1930 and later expanded into other areas including air conditioners, refrigerators, home freezers, consumer televisions, electric ranges, home laundry washers and dryers, and home entertainment products.

Philco was a pioneer in television broadcasting, launching experimental station W3XE in 1932.

In late 1953, engineers at Philco Corporation invented the surface-barrier transistor, the first high frequency transistor suitable for use in high speed computers.

Philco Corporation had produced a late 1950s production film about its surface-barrier transistor manufacturing processes and product developments that was titled, "Philco Transistors - The Tiny Giants Of The Future"[1].

In June 1955, the National Security Agency and the United States Navy entered into a contract with Philco to build a specialized scientific transistorized computer based on Philco's surface barrier transistor technology.

Philco entered into a contract with the US Navy's David Taylor Basin Research Division in 1955, to build a larger scale fully transistorized computer using its surface-barrier transistor technology, which was named the CPXQ model and later became the Philco Transac S-2000.

Philco had developed and produced a miniature transistorized computer brain for the Navy's jet fighter planes in 1955, which was called the "Transac" and which stood for "Transistor Automatic Computer".

Chrysler and Philco announced that they had developed and produced the world's first all-transistor car radio and it was announced in the April 28,1955, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all-transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2.

Philco had begun selling these all-transistor phonographs in the fall of 1955 for $59.

In 1959, Philco developed and produced the world's first battery-powered portable transistorized TV.

Philco had developed the VHF micro-alloy diffused-base transistors and used them in the Safari portable TV.

Courier 1B was built by the Western Development Labs division of Philco, previously known as "Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories".

In 1960, NASA contracted with Philco to build the worldwide tracking station network for Project Mercury, and all subsequent man-in-space projects until the ground station network was replaced by the TDRS communication satellites in the 1990s.

The Philco-designed and installed consoles in Mission Control 2 at the Johnson Space Center have been preserved and will be restored to their Apollo-era configuration for historical purposes.

In 1971, Philco-Ford began to sell reverse osmosis-based water purification systems that used tube-shaped membranes developed by the company to filter and desalinate raw polluted water for municipal utilities and manufacturing.

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On December 11,1961, Ford Motor Company purchased Philco and continued to offer consumer products, computer systems and defense related projects.

In 1977, Philco International was sold to White Consolidated Industries.

Philco had been able to keep Philips from using its trademark because of the similar-sounding names, so Philips had sold its products in the United States under the name "Norelco".