[Reece]

First order of business is to get the Mrs. fixed up. I hope everything goes OK with that and she gets relief. My thoughts are with you.

Tubes are generally not the problem with old radios: most of the old sets I get have all the tubes good or maybe one bad. If you have an ohmmeter (Harbor Freight: digital multimeter, about $4.00) put the leads on the fat pins of each tube. If you get continuity, it means the filament is still good, and that usually means the tube is, also. If you get continuity on those, I'd just fill any empty sockets, for now.

As to tube sources, I have generally placed a "wanted" post in the Radio Classified section of Antique Radio Forums and got several good responses, and I have bought from various individuals. Many of our fellow enthusiasts have extensive collections of tubes and sell them at very fair prices as they don't have any overhead to speak of to maintain. You could also post here in the Classifieds, I just have never done that yet.