[glyphmon]

Okay, getting into the more esoteric aspects now.  I think, as Arran has suggested in another thread, this radio may have fallen over forward at some point in its past.  Not only is there weird damage to the middle of some veneer, but Saturday I observed a crack in a piece of trim that would probably have inflicted the force that did it.

I've noticed three things in the chassis that make me think there was some serious trauma:

1 - one of the rivets that holds the tuning condenser to the part that mounts to chassis had popped and was loose - I managed to secure it a little bit with a judicious amount of force from some pliers, but not sure how that will do long-term

2 - the rotor blades are perfectly straight to my eye, BUT they seem to be off-center between the stator blades, as if the entire rotor assembly was jammed a fraction of a millimeter toward the back of the chassis; this was observable when I used some heavier stock paper to brush between them - one side very tight, the other loose by comparison

3 - especially on shortwave, reception on a detectable station is tremendously improved with the application of very slight pressure upward from beneath the tuning knob

Number 1 (loose rivet) doesn't concern me too much here, but Numbers 2 and 3 make me think there's more to be gained if I can straighten the issues out.

Right now, the radio can hear signals or static around 900 MHz and up.  Picked up 1360 from Hartford, CT tonight; picked up something from Virginia area I think a couple nights ago.  But down in the middle of the dial especially we get just a lot of buzz which varies with the position on the dial - not even what I would call static.  Down around 600, we get some crackle, then silence, then crackle and a little buzz once again, so I feel like there's an actual short where that crackle is happening.  I feel like if there was an adjustment that could be made to position of the rotor along its axis, that would stand a chance of livening up the AM band.  There is more life on shortwave, but still the dead zone surrounded by crackle at the same points on the low end of the dial.

As for the improved reception when applying basically just a light touch from the bottom of the tuning knob, it shouldn't be some electrical conductivity from my finger since it's going through the knob.  We're talking going from barely audible to near full volume difference in sound.  The only thing I can think of is that even this light touch starts to relieve pressure between the gear on the back end of the vernier assembly and the gear that turns the tuning condenser.  Would it be possible that the rotor is also very sensitive to its vertical alignment and may be out of whack at the front "bearing"?  I'm not even sure I see how this could come apart to adjust.

On a separate note, I found a really strong shortwave station tonight.  I caught the station ident as Radio Republica Cuba and according to shortwave.live, it was on 9490 and broadcasts out of Issoudun, France.  I had to actually turn the volume down.  Now, my alignment is still woefully off.  If this was actually 9490, it was showing around 10500 on the dial.  AM similarly, 1370 still coming in at 1400 on the dial.  I'm going to try calibrating my signal generator Sunday or Monday which I suspect may help get the alignment closer to where it needs to be.  At least the aligning has been consistent so far, even if wrong.  Some of the adjustments of the trimmers have been so close to the end of their adjustment range that it's really hard to peak, but I suspect that's because we're really straying off where they should be in the first place.

Best wishes,
Roy