[Arran]

When I smell a rat, this is always the first one: Did the character who re-capped the set do an alignment when he was finished? Sounds to me like he just replaced a few capacitors, and called it restored. The alignment of that set could be a mile off.

Yes, all of the things you heard about the Philco 16 are true. It was a monumental set, and a demon for performance. You have one of the best performing radios that was made in the thirties. If you can find someone who knows how to align it, and has the equipment, the set can knock you on the floor with its operation!

I had a discussion the other day with a guy on the other forum about one of these, a chicken coup special that sold on fleabay for too much money. It was set with a moisture damaged cabinet, finish flaking off, lifting veneer, and the chassis was in unknown untested condition, it did look fairly complete in the photos. I figured that it might need $200 worth of work, he was adamant that it was in great shape all it needed was a simple re-cap (he could tell this by fleabay photos?), yah right! I've never worked on a 16B but I have worked on a 116, there is no such thing as a "simple" recap on a 16 or 116B or any other big Philco with Bakelite block condensers, then you have drifted resistors, and an alignment on top of that assuming there isn't anything more serious wrong with it. Unfortunately because of Philco's stubborn adherence to the Bakelite block condensers I've noticed that many of these sorts of sets received the "Quick and Dirty" servicing treatment, like paralleling old caps and other hack jobs. Something is not right with this set, if anything it should be working better on the AM broadcast band then shortwave, it could very well be an alignment issue unless the TRF stage is bypassed fro short wave, then the problem may lie there.
Regards
Arran