[Eliot Ness]

The obvious answer is something less than 23 ohms, but of course you already know that! Without knowing a little more, like what your line voltage was to start all we could do is guess at what lesser value you could try.

As to the shadow-meter performance, the lower line voltage could very well be a problem, but have you replaced all the caps and any resistors that are out of range, especially in the shadow-meter/a.v.c. circuit? If so I would run the set on a variac at 110-115 and see how the set and shadow-meter perform. Below are a couple of helpful links on shadow-meters, the first one will help you visualize how the meter works in relation to the a.v.c.:

http://www.philcorepairbench.com/tips/svctip01a.htm

http://www.philcorepairbench.com/tips/svctip01.htm