[rolleiflex]

Good Afternoon

Looking forward to learning more from this forum! I'm in the process of working on a 38-3 with a fellow ham and have it mostly working but have had some strange things happen when it comes to receiving signals.

There were three bad tubes that we found using a tube tester and we were able to get some signals once those were replaced. In the setup where the radio is able to receive AM, the Red terminal is attached to the copper pipes and there is nothing connected to the ground lug. If the ground lug is attached to the copper pipes and a random wire is attached to the red terminal, nothing comes through.

In this setup are the pipes of the house operating as the antenna? Is this a safe way to operate the radio? If not what changes need to be made? It's entirely possible that we have a bad ground on the pipes (house built in 1884).

Thanks in advance!