This capacitor is still good!

One of the first things I noticed was that the wipers on the rheostats were missing!

  Luckily I found some rheostats in my junk box that had removable wipers that would fit. They're not original,and they're not the same, but they should work.

One of the 2 transformers are open, so that will need to be dealt with. Only 1 of the 5 tubes is good (to be expected).

The variable caps scare me. They have the pot metal look, but they seem to be ok.

 The tuning shafts are unusual. They are a short threaded stub. A small aluminum bushing is threaded on and the set screw on the knob is tightend to that. The problem is that they unscrew going in one direction. I'll need to add some locktite to the threads.

      That worked well

 Now to deal with the bad transformer (only the secondary is bad). I've had success in the past just replacing the core of these transformers with a more modern one, but since the studs are riveted in rather than having screw posts I don't think it's advisable. Instead I'll do an R/C bypass. 

  The more I dig into this set, the more problems I find. I have 2 broken tube sockets that I'll need to repair/replace. I did a temporary fix on the sockets, clipped in my R/C replacement, put in working tubes, a speaker, and applied power. Nothing. Dirty power switch. Now I get a slight hum from the speaker but no voltage on the filaments.

  I've repaired one of the sockets where the contact came loose with a screw and nut. The other bad socket is missing a contact altogether.

  I was able to fashion a new contact out of 1/64 inch thick brass. Drilled a hole for another 4-56 screw. I think it will work fine.

I'm not getting anything but a low hum from the speaker, probably from the 90 volts going through it. No signal. I found a disconnected wire at one of the variable caps. and now that I'm looking at them, I'm beginning to believe they're not original to the set, as they all have short jumpers from the original connection to the cap.

The detector grid leak is open, so I've replaced it with a 3.3 megohm resistor. The associated detector capacitor is high (440 pf) so that will be replaced with a 250pf.

 I found another broken lead to one of the var caps, and now it sings! I do have issues with the rheostats and their new wipers. I'll address that next.

Got the rheostats working better. Put it back in its case, and now it doesn't work. Very frustrating. I'm back to chasing broken connections. I checked over everything and couldn't find a problem. I had hooked it to the power supply with alligator clips. I decided to just run wires instead of clips and it worked. I found one alligator clip with an intermittent internal fault. It went into the circular file.

 Finished 7/28/2026