Sir Scott. . . . .

1.There is no direction in alignment instruction for this radio as to what position the tuning capacitor should be in when tuning IF's. Advise? I shorted out oscillator section as Warren stated. The IF's seem to be in alignment. Does the position matter?

Sounds like you done the usual, by the shorting out of the osc section to keep that section inoperative and dismissing the throwing in of any unwanted signals being created in that section.

I also want to have the tuning condenser plates wide open . . . that being just in the respect of that RF section in having its minimal capacitance , which otherwise can be be draining off some of that 456 RF signal to ground .

2. On the low end of the dial the signal strength for example station 640 carries clear up to 700. How can I tighten this up?

Also there are some double stations on the high end of the dial with creeping inaccuracy to dial designation. Advise?

I wonder here . . . if that 640 station might be a strong station and is just covering up a bit of extra width due to its received strength.

Lets just initially examine that given Majestic alignment procedure and see if there might have been some pitfalls commited there.

Consulting the left side of the schematic, the first thing that I see is this set using a "totem pole" arrangenent of both the the oscillator coils and the RF coils of the unit.

Most sets switch in different coils for the three bands . . . on this sets arrangement the very top OSC and RF coils are used for the very highest frequency coverage ( 5-18 Mhz). . . . with the lower two bands sets of OSC and RF coils being out of circuit.

When one switches to the Middle band of 1.7-6 Mhz, the inductance of the High band STAYS in the series inductive circuitry when tuning in the Mid band.

And then the real kicker . . . is when you switch to BCB . . . BOTH of the above inductances remain in the series circuitry, with that MIDDLE band inductance value being pretty noticable, when being compared to that quite minor value of inductance used for the High band.

This is taking into consideration when you follow the given alignment procedure, since the set is aligned sequentially DOWNWARDS in frequency coverage, starting with the HIGH band.

E.G. . . align the Hi band . . align the Mid band . . align the BCB.

Some touch points . . .

That just might result in some clarification of the double signals on high end of the band as well as the 640 Khz tuning error when being plotted against the dial scale.

First of all would be the 5-18 Mhz alignment on that step 2 note the coming in from the MINIMUM capacity of the C4 osc trimming capacitor.

The reason that is to be sure that you are setting your local oscillator frequency ~ 456 Khz HIGHER than 16 Megs . . . . . since with 456 Khz being just a wee tuning fraction of a big 16 Megs, it is possible to tighen on down on that C4 capacitance a wee bit tighter and then have your local oscillator operating ~456 Khz LOWER than the 16 Megs.

That will bring in stations also, but that is NOT the way you want the tuning set . . . you want to be 456 Khz in frequency HIGHER than the received 16 Meg signal.

If you just started with an unaligned set on HIGH band it might have been twiddled in the past, and actually be tuned in with a lower oscillator setting. If you start with coming in from lowest capacitance, you will be sure to initially be ABOVE the desired oscillator freq and then come on down in freq as the cap is increased.

The C5 RF trimmer then is adjusted for max reception of the incoming signal.

You are pretty much dependant on a sig generator for your initial spot alignment of the two SW bands, as SW stations counts are severely diminishing as well as VOA stations and AM ham band signals (all SSB).

The same is true of your alignment on the MID band, but I'm not quite sure if the misalignment of the C6 osc trimmer is even having enough range capability to be able to erroneously tune you way down to 456 Khz BELOW the specified 5.5 Mhz. You want to start with minimum capacitance of C6 and increase its value slowly until you get the 5.5 to fall in .

The C9 Ant coils trimmer and the C10 Mixer coils trimmer are then is adjusted for max reception of the incoming 5.5 signal.

With the above two bands aligned, one is now switching to BCB position where the HF and Mid inductances are also being in series with the principal bottom BCB coil.

On BCB one is then using the C8 trimmer to get 1600 to fall into place.

Now realize that when the tuning condenser is tuned to 1600 that most all of the tuning condensers plates are being unmeshed, therefore with it throwing in probably only ~40 pf's of capacitance , even including the amount that your C8 shunting it is adding by its adjustment.

Then you get max signal reception level by trimming in your Ant C9 trimmer and the C10 Mixer trimmer.

This now bring us down to the final mentioned, low end of the BCB alignment, and its oscillator adjustment, where the magical C11 trimmer will let you trim in compensation for error there.

All of the BCB prior adjustments were concentrated on the 1600 end of the dial, now when you are wanting to set up the 600 end of the dial you are now more fully meshing almost all of the vanes of the condenser.

Heretobefore you were merely shunting the minimalistic capacitance of the tuning condenser in its open position with a trimmer condenser shunting it. They were being almost of equal value. . . . thus quite a tuning change.

Now you are dealing with hundreds of picofrads of capacitance, needing to be slightly altered.

That is where the C11 unit comes in and its being inserted in series with the series of oscillator sections inductances to ground thru an additonal fixed value cap of C18.

If you will set the radio tuning to the received ~640 Khz signal and then just off-of the station, towards the direction that you need it shifted towards for correction . . . . C11's adjustment should then bring the station into tune in that direction.

Then you go back to the 1600 signal and peak up that adjustment again, since you slightly skewed that initial alignment adjustment with the just now performed 640 alignment.

Walk between the 1600-640 adjustments until their interreactions balance out.

Aside . . . . Hopefully you left the sets original mica condensers , untouched, with their sequence of importance / affectation being C18, C20 and C17.

73's de Edd