without a license, you cannot radiate.  a theoretically perfect dummy load with no loss, and perfect shielding on the transceiver, would allow any bench monkey to key up and check the rig out.

a search for "theoretically perfect" on eBay provides no hits.  and covers off to jam diddlesticks and golden screwdrivers into the chassis is not perfect shielding.

nonetheless, I would put a coax and dummy load on the box whenever it is plugged in, just in case there are bad relay circuits, etc.

first part of the puzzle is to check the tubes.  a truly bad tube at any stage of the set might be a clue that there is fundamental damage to the wiring in that stage or previous golden screwdrivers have been used to detriment.  next is the sniff test and the "uuuuggggglyyyy" test of checking out component condition under the chassis.  obvious failures need to be addressed before putting power to the thing.

if the rig has not been used within the past few years, it is really a good idea to make exact value replacements of the power suply electrolytics at minimum, and all of them if you're really an old-time "shotgun" repair tech who is way tired of overlooking a stinker of a part more than once.  ohmmeter checks of the line cord with switch off and switch on to make a go/no-go check for a failed transformer.

at that point, your elmer (local mentor who is working with you on this thing) will probably go for the smoke test, and then if it all stays inside the parts, start checking functionality.

this IS a radio on the sunset side of 40 years old, and while they don't necessarily decay as fast as old cars, there is going to be work this radio needs.  besides test equipment, you do need troubleshooting skills and parts.  this is why I'm not saying buy this and that and the third thing, but pair up with a mentor.  hit the ARRL website and find a radio club if you haven't found an elmer yet, there are lots of helpful things they can guide you through.

SAM:  you have to read a library rack full of government policy documents to come across as much seat-of-the-pants gobbledygook as that typed sheet had on it.

"this is your typewriter on drugs."

formerly-RCA, formerly-Burle, is now Photonis, and still lists some 10 power tubes on the website, including the 8122.  there is one nice little pileup-buster that might be useful to the "extra channel" type of guy who has 1600 amps cold-start for the filaments and 20KV for the B++.. pair of these little devils and some water cooling will get you 400 KW in push-pull AM, which ought to be useful on the chicken band...

http://www.photonisusa.com/wp-includes/pdf/4648.pdf

I don't think you could throttle this thing back to limits if you put a dead short on ALL the grids

and Westrex is not in production in Georgia or Huntsville, the facility is on the move to Chattanooga with a 2014 target for starting back up again, according to a little web searching among the audio hounds sites.  they're only targeting audiofools.

plenty of NOS around in receiving sizes, some NOS in power sizes, and if you need more than a kilovolt on the plate, it's going to have to be biased to the edge on low EMF to getter it again before you can try it in normal mode.

you are not going to see the same quality and longevity in new production glass tubes, period.  the volume is not there to attract that level of interest.  there is a reason all new amp designs are using ceramics, and it's because they're looking down the road 5,10 years at what is being used commercially and thus staying in production for a while yet.  no Kovar to rust and gas, either.

maybe ended up consolidated with DuMont?  iirc a bunch of those high end test equipment makers rolled together for survival when the Japanese invasion started in the mid to late 80s.  Gargled the web for

Dumont Oscilloscope Inc
 
20 Robert St

Parsippany, New Jersey ( NJ) 07054

Phone : 973-334-1410

off powwwerpages.com
 

the likelihood of another US tube maker losing their shirt is way small.  several years ago, it was trumpeted that TungSol 6L6GCs were going to be remade in the US using old GE equipment.  perhaps 10 were.  perhaps they weren't.  but the latest Antique Electronics catalog shows that the trademark owner is now same as Sovtek, and they are being made in Russian plants.

I can see several reasons why it won't happen (and Westrex is apparently not really in production after moving to Georgia, either.)

(1) equipment is expatriated or broken up.  the web alleges there is still a German manufacturer.

(2) we have too many inspectors and too many hoops to jump through to get a quantity of thorium for filamentary cathodes.  it's fissionable, you know.

(3) there is only one tungsten refractory and wire pulling facility, the old Sylvania mill now owned by Osram.  looked the site up once, a few years ago, and they have limited stock material and much is being discontinued.  that sorta sounds like it's going overseas to some island barely above water.

(4)  we have a thing about a living wage that some disadvantaged countries don't.

(5) the EI plant, essentially Philips' last, went down several years ago in Yugoslavia, and has not reopened.

(6)  all we really have left in the US is CPI/Eimac and Triton.  the old RCA facility, Burle, looks like it's winding down, with the imaging tubes merged up someplace.  And almost all production is ceramic tubes.  The primary ceramic is beryllium, not aluminum, and really the only standing BeO facility there is Brush.  beryllium is much nastier , results similar to plutonium if inhaled.

no, I don't see any more tube fabs.

the whole thing is idiotic, and my take on it is that upfront pricing is a combination of present utility of a good, and residual value of a good.  if the sharks make it impossible to resell, say, a biology text, then the residual value is ZERO.  on a car, that's called blue-book trade-in value.

if the residual value is ZERO, then the upfront price is considerably less than what they want for the item all of a sudden.  so your $200 textbook is better priced to the market as $50.

they're not going to issue the book for 50, and we dammed sure are not paying 200 for the item for several months.

so the sharks will end up chapter-7 by their own hand.  which is probably all for the best, since we have ourselves The Connected Internet for our information.

prove me wrong.

adding to G3RZP's advice... older equipment using EPROMs are likely to start going bonkers, early generations of EPROMs and flash have greater instability over time than the new stuff.  worth using somebody's PROM burner to make a safety copy of the contents on several media, and/or copy the programming to a new part.

this doesn't work as well with a lot of CPU/MEM/ROM combo chips, alas.  if you look enough, you can find a raw chip.  but if you check the data sheet before you buy, you may well find they are NOT readable once burned... either because of a fuse-wire blow the programmer performed to keep you from looking, or because they are externally write-once, read-none.

yet another reason you probably won't see any of today's rigs on the show-and-tell shelves ready to plug in and work in 30 years.  between unobtainium and unreproducium, we're not making any more lifetime-plus electronics.

tubes today are a crapshoot.  the only way to guarantee a win is not to play, go for solid state.

but then you have the usual creaky antenna connection opens/shorts issues that blow one or both banks of the output transistors, too.

probably just as many infant failures one way as there are the other.  a tube amp will usually take some short-term abuse, unless it's the tube that's the abuse.  SS amps, nope.

wonder if the power tube problems are worse than, or better than, the "good old days" of the late 20s, early 30s, when anything at any time was subject to a flash hard failure.

if you are thinking of lacquer coating (GC used to sell 6-color dip kits) know it doesn't take long for the lacquer to burn brown.  silicone color caps will go a little longer, depending on the brightness of the bulb.  T1s last darn near forever, T3-1/4s often get hot enough to darken the SiliCap within months.

temp-resistant paints are opaque, don't be fooled.

acrylic color sheets will last the longest.  theatrical gels are quite availiable.  if you are tempted to pick up some photo filter sheets, be advised they are gelatin, scratch easily, fade indeed, and are not temperature stable.

nice thing about a > real < Amprobe current loop meter is that it's all analog.  sanity check... have it sitting on the bench and key up... if it doesn't indicate, it's not going to give you a false reading.

that's a good check with any test equipment in an RF field, btw... key up out of circuit, and if it reads anything, you will have to consider bypassing or isolation techniques.  doubly so if you clip the leads together and it still indicates non-zero.

better also check the breaker box name tag.  if it's a FPE, you may have internal bus rot issues and no-trip circuit breakers.  if it's a Zinser/Sylvania panel, everything in there may be corroded and welded, and it's not safe for an electrician to open it up to check it out without having the meter pulled.  blanket recommendation of home inspectors is to replace the entrance panel with either brand.

if it's not a panel issue, and a class-A inspection as we call it in telco (down power, open up every connection, inspect the wire and device, fix what needs it, reassemble, move on to the next until it's all scoped out) doesn't find more issues and help your lugging on the line, you absolutely need to clamp an Amprobe or the dock-sweepings wannabe around the bare ground lead coming out of the panel, too.  if it's carrying current, you need an electrician.  the electrician may need to bring in the power company if he suspects their transformer and/or drop has a bum neutral.  you should never see current on the safety ground line, that's a disaster safety backup.

I have walked past a sintering line many a time in the 2 years I worked contract at a major HVAC company.  lot of natural gas used in the ovens there.  lot of pressure in the molds.

I consider going that far into DIY is not worth the effort when there are places selling bulk stock that I can cut down and use.

G3RZP has described some pretty severe symptoms of Male Pattern Priorities In-Order.  iirc a study at Eastern South Dakota Semi-Technical Institute recommends not using an alarm clock for a more well-rounded life experience.

unless you are using a double-needle SWR meter that autocorrects by using a "crossed over scale Z means SWR of Z" scaling, both the forward and reverse power will increase as you crank up the skywarmer.  that is why there is a "calibrate" knob on the single-meter jobs with a FWD/REV switch, like the old Heathkit and other vintage reflectometer designs.  you have to adjust for full scale in FWD power to get an accurate REV, or SWR scale, reading.