[Ron Ramirez]

Congratulations, Morzh! Seeing your 18L brings back memories...the very first 1930s Philco I ever owned was an 18L which was identical to yours. It had a power transformer which was ready to give up...when you put in the dial lamps for the dial and for the shadow meter, the transformer would smoke. Leave out the lamp for the shadowmeter, and it worked OK. So then-young Ron left the shadowmeter lamp out. This was about 100 years ago, when I was younger and didn't know any better.

That set also served as my introduction to bakelite blocks. My remedy at the time? I pulled all of those old things out and threw them away, and installed terminal strips with the new capacitors. Again, I was much younger then and didn't know any better. Al Gore had not yet invented the Internet and we only had Antique Radio Topics and the Horn Speaker to keep us informed about vintage radios. And, yes, there was Radio Age as well, but I couldn't afford to subscribe to all three at the time.

Ah, yes, the not-so-good old days.