It's alive!
OK, that looks underwhelming, but it's exciting to me. After replacing the ballast and doing, well, a bunch of other stuff, tonight I saw the first coherent image on the Emerson's little 3NP4 CRT. (That's the Xfinity cable TV guide screen, in case you're wondering).
With the chassis spread all over the workbench, there's nothing to project on (the ceiling's much too far away to focus). So peering slantwise down into the Protelgram optic box is the only way to see what's happening.
This set had more problems than I had noticed at first, including an under-chassis meltdown that burned everything around the sockets of the vertical and 1st video IF tubes. But now, the vertical & horizontal are stable, brightness & contrast work as advertised, and the audio is excellent.
There's more checking and tweaking to do, but it's always fun to see the first signs of life.
Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html