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Wavemagnet/Triple Hi-Ficiency Switch
4/12/2002 1:40:22 AMTed
Hello,

I have a couple Zenith AC-DC portable battery sets that have the three position switch on the chassis, which can be set for the best reception depending on wavemagnet postion -- in the cabinet, outside. Only one radio that I own with this feature seems to work as advertised. Both have been completely recapped and aligned and generally work swell.

The switch is OK itself, I tried shorting that out to see if any change so it must be further upstream. Any ideas? Thank You.
4/12/2002 9:36:16 AMJohn McPherson
Hi,
There are a few minor possibilities that come to mind.

Are you testing if the switch works with a local broadcast, or one that is just barely able to be recieved? When I tweak a radio for sensitivity, I will tune to the extreme end of the dial and search for a station that is barely audible, but distinct; and those are usually about 600 miles away.

If that is the basic parameter that you are using and not noticing any differences between switch positions, but still pull those stations in well, it may be an issue with the AVC buss such as excessive leakage in the avc cap, or a bypass. Even new caps can sometimes be deffective. I would look at the one that "seems" to be working too, because the AVC would tend to mask whatever effect you might be getting from the different switch positions. Or maybe there is enough gain in the tubes to cover up the differences that you hear, or there is enough design variation between the radios themselves to produce the results that you see.

But I would first try for very distant stations. Usually this is best done after 9:00 PM central time, or later- Through to about 7:00am Central, as this corresponds to many stations that go to full power like KFAB, KOMA, KOXA, and others, and othe class B, C and D stations drop power output.

This is when you should really note differences.


: Hello,
:
: I have a couple Zenith AC-DC portable battery sets that have the three position switch on the chassis, which can be set for the best reception depending on wavemagnet postion -- in the cabinet, outside. Only one radio that I own with this feature seems to work as advertised. Both have been completely recapped and aligned and generally work swell.
:
: The switch is OK itself, I tried shorting that out to see if any change so it must be further upstream. Any ideas? Thank You.

4/12/2002 11:31:56 AMTed
Thanks John,

Yes, the switch is best used on distant stations on the low end of the band. I'm not entirely sure these units have AVC to tell the truth. The 6G601 is an AM only portable and the switch works pretty well as designed. The other radio is a 7G605 AM/SW portable and it has no effect at all. The radio performs excellent overall, but I did notice the antenna trimmer on the tuning cap seemed inop during alignment, a very weak 'peak' is about it. Maybe there's a connection there -- if there's a problem somewhere else it may affect the switch too.


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