[Guest]

Thank you Exray and Codefox you hit the nail on the head. According to the schematic the first two gangs should have continutity on the non grounded side and they do. They also had a short to ground starting at about 80 percent fully meshed. Visually, the spacing looked OK on the plates but a bit of sideways pressure on the fourth gang, the one with the least plates and also (right next to the rectifier tube), caused the short to cease. With careful but deliberate sideways presure on the gang I was able to keep the short from coming back when I released the pressure.

My suspicion is that the lack of mass made the fourth gang more susceptible to alignment issues and this may have been excaberated by the heat from the rectifier tube. The boradcast band works well from end to end when I bypass the wavetrap which appears to have issues and the reception on the other bands is nothing short of spectacular with a few feet of wire for an antenna. I was dubious of a radio with two IF sections and no RF section but the reception speaks for itself and is much better than a contemporary model 118 I restored that has the traditional RF and single IF sections.

Thanks again.

JT