I've never once seen a tube tester at the local flea market, but leave it to my mom to actually be the one to find me what I'm looking for! She said "I bought you something you've been needing"... and boy did she ever! She got me a tube tester AND an oscilloscope for $5 a piece! I couldn't believe it!
The seller was an older fellow who told her that they still worked to his knowledge but hadn't been used in a long time. Still, the price was reason enough for me to fear the worst. However, after a careful inspection and cleaning, I was delighted to find that they actually appear to be in perfect working order!
The tube tester is an Accurate Instruments Co. Model 257:
It's a basic emissions tester that seems to handle a great variety of tubes for radios and televisions, including cathode ray tubes. I was pretty happy about that, since I probably won't be going out on a limb to buy a dedicated CRT tester and this may be just good enough in the event I ever run across another potential tv project. I downloaded the tube charts for this tester on the internet and printed out all 67 pages of it. So far, I've been able to test every type of tube used in my Zenith television and most others out of my radios. Nothing weak out of my television so far, but my Admiral console radio has a couple that are weak...
The oscilloscope is a Lectrotech Model TO-55:
It wasn't really all that dusty inside, and I'm still cleaning the case which has some paint overspray on it in spots. It seems to run fine, although I don't know so much about oscilloscopes. I was able to adjust the rate at which the the beam swept across the screen, adjusting it's horizontal and vertical orientation, brightness, and focus. I'm not sure what kind of leads I need to hook up to this to take measurements. It has this one attachment, though...
Unlike the tester, I haven't really found too much online about this scope. Hopefully, I'll find a instruction manual or maybe someone will point me in the right direction. Can't be too hard to figure out, I suppose. I just simply haven't used one before. I imagine it would be helpful in troubleshooting my Zenith.