Greater than 90% of really old radios (1932- 1943) have severe
problems that must be rectified for them to work. Why? Two reasons.
ONE - These radios were not "put away" because they were working
perfectly. In fact, most old radios including those from 1932-1955 were
taken out of service because they stopped working and the
owners did not want to pay good money to repair them because they had this
great new device in their living room - a TV. In fact I suspect that ALL
radios that were relegated to the attic, garage, etc. were put there because
of the introduction of TV.
TWO - there are certain components in these radios that fail
absolutely over time. Capacitors, for example, "dry out" and thus fail.
Tubes on the other hand do not fail over time. These "aged components" must
be replaced for the radio to function reliably. Other items that are
labor intensive include knob removal - where decades of storage results in
"welding" of knobs to shafts, cleaning of the tuning variable capacitor
which can have decades of dust and insect build-up, dangerous line cords
that have frayed over the years and many other age related problems. The manufacturing processes
of 70 years ago were far inferior to the standards of today. The replacement
components that we put in your radio have an almost infinite shelf life.
So, between ONE and TWO there generally is no such thing as a "cheap
fix" See Typical Repair.
Radio Repair Guy