Vacuum tubes generate heat -- components abhor heat and die
Capacitors have wet gooey stuff in em and dry out.
My solid state TV (less CRT) has been on every day for 15+ years
no heat no die

Then there may be fungus amongst us (;-)
Rodents love paper parts.
And my damn dawg will eat anything including chewy cables.

--
KeyBoard In The Wilderness



wrote in message
...
I have a few old radios similar to that one.It is true about some of the
electronic parts in radios degrading in performance over the years.I
wonder why? Moisture in the air gradually getting into the parts and
degrading them? I have been collecting old radios since I was a kid,most
of them aren't anything special though.Whenever I would see a radio at
junk shops,fleamarkets,thrift stores and wherever,if it's a radio I
liked and the price was right I would buy it whether it worked or not.I
own a lot of old tube type radios and transistor radios.Some of them do
not work at all,some of them sort of work and some of them work ok.
cuhulin