sparky wrote:
Why is the meter 'zeroed' against the right peg, is it broken?
Or did National design it that way because they had a backwards meter
circuit that pulled full current with zero signal?


This is a backward meter by National. The meter deflects left when
current flows.

The radio must have had a backwards meter amplifier then. Weird.
Guess one could design a proper solid state amplifier to make it work,
but you'd have to 'zero' the meter at full scale with no signal.