Hi All,
You may want to keep an eye out for this one. It took me by suprise.
I have a 1940's vintage radio, did the regular stuff and aligned it. It sounded great.
As I played it it got wekaer and weaker in recption. I wans't getting static, but the sound of weaker stations kept getting dimmer. Many disappeared.
Opened it back up. When I put my hand near one of the IF tubes, sound came back. "Microphonic tube?" I thought.
No! I eventually measured the resistance between the chassis and the IF cans and two of them were in the 2K ohm range. The cans had become electrically isolated from the chassis and de-tuned the IFs. Grounding the cans fixed the problem.
Soldering to an IF can usually doesn't work because they are commonly aluminimum. Soldner won't stick to it. In one can currosion over hte years had developed between the disimilar metals. The other can was next to a power transformer that had died an ugly death. Tar was between the chassis and the IF can.
I cleaned it up and installed grounds. The ground for one IF was tie wrapped to the can. It plays well now.

Best Regards,

Bill Grimm

Good tip Bill. Thanks for sharing!

Bill, you could try a product like "no ox", it was made to use between aluminum to aluminum and aluminum to copper wire connection. Looks like gray grease but is conductive. PL

:Good tip Bill. Thanks for sharing!
:

Thanks for the tip on 'No Ox.' I tried conductive jell to correct the problem, but oddly it didn't help.

I suppose this is different. Where would one get it?

Best Regards,

Bill

You can solder to thin aluminum IF cans. Use a sharp chisel tip on your soldering iron. Here is a link showing this trick. about 1/2 way down the page.

http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/repair.htm#if

The "no-ox" is available at home depot or any electrical supply house. It's required on all aluminum wiring connections especially at service entrance (power line into house usually aluminum). I just took a look at the bottle I have and it's called Penetrox. The counter people will know if you tell them its purpose. P)L

:You can solder to thin aluminum IF cans. Use a sharp chisel tip on your soldering iron. Here is a link showing this trick. about 1/2 way down the page.
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:http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/repair.htm#if
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