[NostalgiaRadioTime]

Once again, Terry, you zero-ed in on the problem area. It was indeed the speaker. This radio must've been in water at some point. The speaker frame was a total rust bucket (as was a good portion of the chassis itself). I cleaned, de-rusted, and painted the speaker, and did some cone repair but never thought to see how WELL the cone moved. It would not move freely. So I found a similar sized permanent magnet speaker I had on hand with an output transformer attached. I used the attached one rather than try to drill out the rivets and attach one separate from the speaker under the chassis. It has volume now like it should. It's possible the original output transformer was partially to blame, but I think the real culprit was the rust bucket speaker itself. So as of tonight, it's playing as it should. When I get back to it tomorrow night, who knows what it will do, though!

Many thanks, my friend