After I discovered that it was shorted, I left. I won't be able to work on it again until Saturday March 14.

I'm going either tomorrow or Saturday to pick up this 1939 Philco. It only costs $50.

I went to the BirmingHAMfest this weekend and scored! I got a 1934 Philco 84B "Baby Grand" for only $60! The price tag said $140, and I talked the peddler all the way to 60! It was advertised as working, but I can assure you that it does not. I'll have to do some maintenance this Saturday.

I just watched the video. Definitely check the tubes. In the meantime, simply reseat them and see if that does anything.

Yeah, I've taken them out and reseated them about 10 times each. I have a plan, though. These older Philco radios have "dogbone" resistors which love to go way off tolerance. I've seen them as much as 30% off. I'll be replacing those and checking the antenna and oscillator coils. Those are also prone to failure.

In the meantime, I've converted my desk to a radio workbench.

I'm getting thoroughly sick and tired of this 512 KB limit. It took four tries to get the picture to fit.

My 1941 Zenith can be seen here.

Interesting.  Did you get any more work done to it since then?
Anyone know if a VARIAC will work on a modifed sine wave inverter? (TRIAC wall dimmers get fried by those)

A variac will work fine on a modified sine wave inverter, it will just be a bit noisy.

...Like anything with a transformer! (Magnetic ballasts are indeed more buzzy on MSW)
OK, here's another one then: A vintage analog-tuning tuner/amplifier...how would that do on MSW (transistorized that is, I know vacuum tubes get cooked by MSW)

I had some old transistor radios form the 50s and 60s but I think they were sent to habitat.  I remember one and it was a black leather cases and handled Stuart brand 7 transistor radio. I also had another old alarm clock/radio but the alarm clock was way slow.