[ajgriff]

Sorry for the delay Brett. Lots of good advice offered by others here. My S51A had been in a dry but unheated cellar for ten years when I decided to bring it out of mothballs. Originally came from a boot sale too.

I would take it out of its case now as that will help to air things out more quickly. Just undo the two screws at the back and the chassis will slide out forwards. Can take a bit of jiggling.

Google and download the manual. Study the user instructions carefully so you know what it should do when it comes to testing. There were several different versions of the S51 (A, B, E & T from memory). They're all similar in terms of use but the circuit diagrams vary so don't worry about those for the moment.

Do construct a lamp limiter as described on the main pages of this site and make sure you understand how to use it. Mine actually fired up without any problems once I'd sorted out the mains cable earth wire which had broken away at the solder joint. This fault was obvious (and dangerous) with the case removed. By the way, the mains lead on mine used the old red, black and green colour scheme.

I notice that your main interest is battery powered radios so don't even think of messing with the scope internally unless you are entirely confident about the safety measures needed when dealing with very high voltages. Often said here but worth repeating I think.

Best of luck and let us know how you get on.

Alan