I bought this little tracer on e-bay for a few bucks. The seller told me that it was in working order and in good shape. Well, just goes to show that e-bay is sometimes a "crap shoot".
First thing to note is that the voltages and current in these simple looking signal testers are VERY dangerous. It can literally kill you. So caution is the word when opening one of these things up and plugging it in.
This thing needs every capacitor replaced, along with some wiring. It also needs a thorough cleaning. The input stage was dead until I realized that the transformer was hooked up wrong. 50 years ago this was a "kit", and someone assembled it incorrectly. It must have been sitting in a worthless state like this since it was assembled.
It's used to inject a signal into a circuit which then can be traced along the main and various branch circuits until at some point it can't be measured or heard anymore (it has a speaker for audible signal response). At that point the problem component can be readily isolated.
Quite handy for fixing older equipment -- except this one, it's a "pig" and will have to be totally rebuilt.
Just one more item on my "to do" list -- ;D ;D
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0043Medium.jpg)
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0044Medium.jpg)
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0045Medium.jpg)
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0046Medium.jpg)
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0048Medium.jpg)
Finally got it to work --
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0050Medium.jpg)
(http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo18/goodfellow_2004/misc/PICT0051Medium.jpg)
It works, but almost every capacitor in this thing is the "sh#ts".