We have used a regulated power supply kit from
www.tubesandmore.com to power these kinds of radios. It comes with a wooden board to build it on but we used a Radio Shack project case for better safety and a more professional appearance.
There is not much to go wrong on these sets...maybe a few mica capacitors and a few resistors.
Back when this was built there would have been so much less sources of RFI...now there are touchlamps, compact fluorescent lamps, computer monitors, etc. Just about every electronic device now has a switching power supply which can radiate RFI.