"Chris Kilmer" wrote in message
om...
Hey folks, got a question: I just bought a S-38C and have replaced
most of the resistors. I will be replacing the rest of the capacitors
this week. I've also replaced all 5 tubes with new ones from AES. The
radio does work a lot better than it did when I first got it, but two
problems remain:

1) I only pick up 3 local AM stations (I live in downtown Washington,
DC.) Is this something I should be concerned about? I am new to all of
this, and I am still learning... but it seems to me that this radio
should be picking up more than 3 stations. I have a pretty big antenna
attached to it, so I'm pretty sure that's not the problem. Is living
smack-dab in the middle of downtown the reason why I can't pick up any
AM stations besides the local megawatt monsters?


I don't think so. You should hear dozens of AM broadcast stations.


Or might the poor
reception be due to the fact that there are still 5 wax capacitors
that haven't been replaced? Bands 2 and 3 pull in tons of stations;
band 4 only pulls in a few but I'm not worried about that.


Yeah, don't jump to any conclusions until you've replaced the
capacitors. And be sure the alignment is correct. The RF aligmnent can
be way off on the top three bands and the radio will still recieve
stations because these bands have little RF selectivity. The alignement
on the AM broadcast band is more critical.



2) When I first got the radio, it worked but not very well. The
bandspread tuner worked fine, but after I operated it for a few hours
and then turned it off and started ripping out caps and resistors for
replacement, the bandspread didn't work the way it used to. Now, it
tunes just fine from 0 - 70, but when you turn it past 70 a very loud
crackle is heard, and then there's nothing but a soft buzz. If you
turn the knob back down below 70, the stations come back. Besides this
problem, the bandspread tuner works like a champ.

One, or both, of the plates on your bandspread capacitor is bent. These
plates are very vunerable due to their length and position. You might
be able to spot the bent plate by carefully eyeballing each plate as it
rotates into it's closed position. If it goes off center between the
fixed plates, it's probably touching the fixed plates. A bit of gentle
bending will put it right.

It's best to close up the band spread cap whenever servicing the radio.
Especially when replacing the 12SA7!


I've been having a great time restoring this thing, and learning from
my mistakes. I've got a shipment of the remaining capacitors that I
couldn't find at AES coming to me this week from Mouser... when I'm
done replacing those, there won't be much left to replace!

Thanks.
chris

If you need any alignment tips, fell free to ask. You can do a good job
on this radio without a signal generator!

Frank Dresser