[Raleigh]

Some Philcos of this vintage are made to use their specific loop antennas and will squeal if you use a random wire like many of us use as test bench antennas. Others seem to work OK on a random wire.

You should for sure use the correct loop antenna installed in the cabinet and connected to the chassis with original short leads (or only short extenders) to do any final alignment. If you can reach the compensators with the chassis installed in the cabinet, that would be best, but I've had good luck putting the chassis on a table back-to-back to the chassis (antenna installed in cabinet) so that the original wires will reach. Electrically, that's almost equivalent to having everything installed in the cabinet as designed.