With todays strong stations this is a common problem in Radiola 17. It's design, rather than a component problem.
Unlike AK's, RCA didn't use a metal cabinet. The wood cabinet allows signals to be picked up by stages after the volume control. The volume control only controls signal to your first RF stage.
Here is what you can do to prevent the problem. The chassis is mounted to wood cabinet by screws. Make a metal plate that fits under the chassis. Loosen the screws and mount the plate between chassis and cabinet. Bending this plate at a right angle will help shield coils further.
Radiola 17 has another design problem if you use it with a full fidelity speaker. You will hear hum. This is caused by a two chokes mounted side by side, inside the same container. The first one being used as choke input filter. Ripple from this choke is being transferred to the second one. Hum can be prevented by adding a filter cap before the first choke. Then a wire wound resistor needs to be added between the 80 tube and first filter choke to reduce voltage.
Norm
: I have a Radiola 17 that works a little too well. When
: the volume control is all the way to the left and I'm
: tuned into a strong local station, the volume comes in
: too loud. Should I replace the rheostat or could the
: problem be elsewhere?