[tpcaz]

I am no expert, but after I have restored my radios and aligned them, I usually get stations from the low end of the dial to the high side, and that is with a two foot test lead clipped to the antenna terminal. And did I mention my work space is in the basement.

However, one thing I have seen in some sets when performing an alignment and adjusting the trimmer capacitors, the loop antenna used or length of wire used seems to affect the adjustments. It could be that what he used and adjusted the radio for worked, but when you hooked up something different, the antenna load was different and is causing your poor reception.