made a lucky find today, and old 1950s vintage Heathkit receiver for $20.
I know the caps have got to be dried out, hopefully not all but the larger paper electrolytic have got to be.
I powered it up about 3 hours ago and just now found out you are supposed to slowly increase voltage with variac.
It almost works, at first nothing and very little audio output but now its actually picking up several shortwave stations, but nothing but static and pops on AM broadcast.
This radio looks all original, would replacing the caps with modern equivalent help or hurt the value, or should I try to find reproduction caps, perhaps stuff a modern cap in the old cap's shell?
What would hooking it straight up to 110v AC do to it, I figure when they use a variac to ramp up the voltage it helps the old caps expand or set somehow so would it have ruined what was left of the caps. Would what I have done hurt the tubes as well?
The radio is still running, should I let it run overnight or pull the plug now and hit self in head for messing things up worse by not ramping up the voltage?
Harbor freight or somebody made a cheap multimeter that measured capacitance, would such a thing be useful for this or are they junk?
