Reception on Zenith 6D015 crashes when I move it to another room

5/8/2014 2:25:39 AMTim

I was ready to put the little a.m. radio back in the chassis when I decided to try it in the kitchen. When I turned it on I found something missing. Most of the reception. I moved it to the living room with little improvement. I took it back down to the basement and it came back. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated accept for the one that stipulates that I should leave it in the basement.

5/8/2014 3:15:30 AMJohnnysan

:I was ready to put the little a.m. radio back in the chassis when I decided to try it in the kitchen. When I turned it on I found something missing. Most of the reception. I moved it to the living room with little improvement. I took it back down to the basement and it came back. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated accept for the one that stipulates that I should leave it in the basement.
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If it uses a loop antenna there may be a break in it.

5/8/2014 3:26:03 AMCV

Does your house have metal siding or steel wall studs? If so, this will attenuate much of the signal. This is the "Faraday Cage Effect". (The house foundation has little metal in it, so will be fairly transparent to radio signals). If this is the case, about the only thing that you can do is install an outside antenna. Your set has provisions for this- connect Wavemagnet terminal "A" to the outside antenna and terminal "B" to a good earth ground (can use the center screw of a wall outlet, which connects to the house ground line).

It's also possible that the set has low sensitivity due to a weak tube or poor alignment. Correcting this may improve reception to an acceptable level but I wouldn't count on it. If the set seems to pick up a reasonable number of stations in the basement, or outside the house, it is probably working OK and you are back to needing an outside antenna to improve things. If it is only able to pick up a couple of strong nearby stations in the basement or outside, it could probably benefit from an alignment and/or mixer/IF/detector tube replacement.

5/8/2014 10:12:21 PMCV

And as Johnnysan observed, an open winding in the Wavemagnet can lead to poor sensitivity, too. So, if the radio is performing poorly even in a strong signal environment (i.e. outdoors) that's another thing to check along with alignment and tube condition.

5/10/2014 2:06:38 AMTim

:And as Johnnysan observed, an open winding in the Wavemagnet can lead to poor sensitivity, too. So, if the radio is performing poorly even in a strong signal environment (i.e. outdoors) that's another thing to check along with alignment and tube condition.
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I checked for continuity in the wave magnet and the oscillation coil I would myself. Both good. The wires in the oscillator were way too fragile. The 12SJ7 was going bad, as well as the 12BA6. I could have sworn they were NOS. After replacing them with the tubes that came with the radio it picked right up. Considering its performance is an alignment really necessary?

5/10/2014 2:21:08 AMCV

"Considering its performance is an alignment really necessary?'

Not if its performance meets your expectations. But if the set hasn't been aligned in the past few decades you might be surprised how much an alignment improves the performance.

5/11/2014 12:06:04 AMTim

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:"Considering its performance is an alignment really necessary?'
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:Not if its performance meets your expectations. But if the set hasn't been aligned in the past few decades you might be surprised how much an alignment improves the performance.
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Since I have the Hallicrafter 5R10 as well Ill need to save some money to get them both done. If the average alignment costs over $200.00. Both radios combined cost about $30.00 for parts.

5/11/2014 2:45:51 AMEdd

Sir Tim . . . . . .

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" If the average alignment costs over $200.00. "

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Those units are NOT being . . . .e.g. . . . . . the depicted Collins Radio. . . . R388 / R399 complexity of units .

What carpetbagger/shyster/radio mercenary are you dealing with . . . . for that pricey of an estimate ?

73's de Edd

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Tact and diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they’ll look forward to the trip.

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::Not if its performance meets your expectations. But if the set hasn't been aligned in the past few decades you might be surprised how much an alignment improves the performance.
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:Since I have the Hallicrafter 5R10 as well Ill need to save some money to get them both done. If the average alignment costs over $200.00. Both radios combined cost about $30.00 for parts.
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5/11/2014 5:57:58 PMTim

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::Since I have the Hallicrafter 5R10 as well Ill need to save some money to get them both done. If the average alignment costs over $200.00. Both radios combined cost about $30.00 for parts.
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:Sir Tim? To answer your question Ed, the all inclusive kind. Its a flat rate for whatever the man touches. He comes highly recommended.

5/11/2014 2:54:59 AMCV

$200 would buy you the (used) test equipment that you need to perform an alignment on most AM radios. You will need a tone-modulated signal generator and an output meter. Simple radios such as your Zenith take about fifteen minutes or less to align; maybe a little longer if you've never done an alignment before. The Hallicrafters would take longer due to its additional bands, but isn't tricky to do.

5/11/2014 6:12:10 PMTim

:$200 would buy you the (used) test equipment that you need to perform an alignment on most AM radios. You will need a tone-modulated signal generator and an output meter. Simple radios such as your Zenith take about fifteen minutes or less to align; maybe a little longer if you've never done an alignment before. The Hallicrafters would take longer due to its additional bands, but isn't tricky to do.
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:I was thinking of a digital hand held oscilloscope capable of 455KC and a digital tone-modulated function generator. Both from radio shack. Simple instructions from a schematic I can get. Formulas send me into seizures unless I actually study the background math. For the oscillator coil, trying to calculate how long a wire I needed, at a certain gauge, for a certain Ohm value maybe, but that's it.