[Arran]

Chuck has a good point that I did not think of, and it is a problem I have run into before myself. Those loop antennas have fairly thin wires and it isn't unusual for the wire at either end to break off on the secondary winding where it is soldered to the chassis or the antenna section of the tuning condenser. In fact on many of these late 40s Philcos the loop antenna is glued onto the inside perimeter of the cabinet, you really have no choice but to disconnect it to get the chassis out, and there are four wires coming off of it, two go to chassis ground (not B-), one goes to the tuning condenser, and one is the external antenna connection. If this is the case then they would have had to disconnect the loop antenna to remove the chassis in both sets, this my be why both appear to have the same problem.
Regards
Arran