Thanks again guys. I finally got the damn thing playing. I had the wrong power supply filter restistor (in place of an inductor), 3W instead of 5W, and it just got too damn hot. I also had a higher value ballast resistor, 100 ohm instead of 22 ohm, thinking it'll work fine. Infact, both resistors did the job, but I replaced both with the correct parts. The 1N4007 diode works great inplace of the stinky selenium. The B+ was within tolerance much more than before, but still I gor the same 60Hz buzzing. I disconnected the electrolytics just to test if they were actually doing anything. They were! As the tubes heated up, the buzzing got so loud I thought it was going to ruin something and quickly cut power. I then maticulously checked over every capacitor, resistor, etc for any wiring error and found none. So, testing some grid voltages I noticed I finally got something on AM. It was a faint station. My meter lead was acting as an antenna! So I connected the original antenna and I got stations on AM! woohoo!
The audio quality was horrible, but I feel it really needs an alignment and a recapping of the IF cans. On FM, I still got a 60Hz buzzing. I tuned for a bit and once an fm station came in, the buzzing was gone. I get very little stations on FM, but the FM antenna is connected to the power line via a 100pF mica, and the FM signals don't pass well through my isolation transformer.
Even so, when I get no station, i get the 60Hz buzzing. This to me indicates I need an alignment, do you think it's true?
The one thing that I don't like is the quality of the speaker. It sounds like crap. I don't know if it's the IF cans or both, but it sounds terrible. Can any of you guys suggest a direct drop in replacement or will I have to make my own mounting bracket?
Thanks again.
Jonathan