New hobby—old radio—new things to learn

First, you get an old radio
Not as easy as it sounds, but I finally found an old vacuum tube radio. My goal: to bring it back to life.
Here's the victim, an RCA 8X541. Never heard of it? Neither have I, but this is what it looks like—fancy maroon plastic case with gold dial. Suitable for any decor.




A bad beginning
I found the radio for sale with a DNW label. That means does not work. An examination affirmed it. Here's the power cord.



Old tube tester 
I don't really know what I'm doing, so I tested the tubes. Three of its five tubes didn't score well on the old tube tester. They failed, but still qualified for the Hope Scholarship.



It's an old tube tester because:

• it is old
• it tests old tubes.

Before
Here are the guts, exposed for all to see. All those yellowish cylinders are paper-wound, wax-coated capacitors. All were bad.



After
It's not as cluttered—because today's caps are small.


















I changed about 10 capacitors, with one to go. The big yellow one is on its way to me.

The notepad is from a print-shop auction about 30 years ago. I have hundreds of these pads for notes, sketches, and calculations. 

Next step? To learn what the next step should be. More reading and more YouTube.

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