[skykng]

Touching the antenna to the grip cap of 24A RF tube had no appreciable effect except distortion/whistling.  I went back and rechecked my wiring on the variable capacitor and resoldered/firmed up all the connections to ground and the coils.  That did it.....I now have good solid sig gen at the high end that let's me peak the trimmers that results in good reception of several stations from the high end through to the low end.  IF's peak normally.  My paperwork says the model 90 with one 47 audio final has a 260kc IF and the model 90 with two 45s has a 175kc IF.  My model 90 Loboy with one 47 has a 175kc IF............not 260kc.  I think the previous owner tried to peak the IFs at 260kc - and they didn't.  It sounds good now with a hi-watt resistor replacing the field coil (on the bench) and a shop speaker/transformer working well.  The original speaker, field coil and audio transformer are mounted in the cabinet out in the shop and they are workable, but I think there is a lot of loss of volume with them.  The setup on the bench is quite loud and clear compared to the original.  I'll put them together tomorrow and check to see the difference in performance.  May have to go with a 3100 ohm load and PM speaker and some more filtering.  BUT, am miles ahead of where I was last night and I thank you and the forum very much for the help.
best, steve