[Ron Ramirez]

One of the few times in my collecting career that I hit it really lucky - about 25 or so years ago, I attended an estate auction of a radio-TV repair shop. I still have one of the items I bought at that auction, a Heathkit TT-1A mutual conductance tube tester. I think that was the best two dollars I ever spent in this hobby. It worked for many years until it began to get flaky a few years ago, at which point I replaced all paper and electrolytic capacitors.

It's still going strong...the meter sticks sometimes now, but a careful tapping gets the pointer loose again.

That said, I concur that for average radio restoration, an emission tester will be good enough.