Bought a 1971 Drake TR4 "by accident" on ebay about a year and a half ago. After a bit of searching I came up with a power supply. In breathless anticipation, I powered it up carefully and... nothing. Pulled the tubes one by one and finally found one with a broken pin. A replacement was installed, but still no joy.
The radio moved to the closet, only to be drug back out a few months ago. I've been fussing around cleaning band switches, applying DeOxit to the tube pins and doing the few troubleshooting steps I'm capable of, when I noticed in the manual that there is a small lamp in the antenna receive path that is used as a fuse. As the lamp wasn't glowing, I thought to pull it to check continuity. Well, the lamp was good, and as I learned later, it isn't supposed to be illuminated, but the radio perked up and found its "ears" when I reinstalled the lamp. Yahoo! Houston, we have signal!
Not a lot on the bands these days, but the Drake will now hear pretty much everything my FT-897 will hear. Next step is to see if I can make it transmit. What fun to tinker with this old tube gear!
Cheers... Jim