In , on 04/21/04
at 05:14 PM, "Colin B." said:

[ ... ]

If I'm tuned to
my favorite station (93.7, CKUA!), it'll be fine for a while and then
disappear entirely. To retune it, I have to go to 94.1; and the tuning
capacitor sounds (and looks on the meters) NOISY when I turn it.

[ ... ]

In another reply, Mark has the right answer. If you look closely at the
tuning capacitor (the thing attached to the dial cord that looks like
an egg slicer) you'll see some very fine metal "whiskers" are shorting
the plates together. This is a standard mid-life crisis for analog
tuners.

When you blow out the whiskers, take care not to bend anything in the
general area and don't turn any of the screws.

I'll also use a tiny drop of contact cleaner at each of the bearings.
(This is not an attempt to lubricate or clean the bearings. The
japanese use a little clip beside each bearing to make good contact
with the moving vane. I'm just making sure that the contact is clean
and solid.)

Sometimes the trimmer capacitors (the screws on the main tuning
capacitor) will degrade and become intermittent. I've never been able
to develop a log term solution for that one. Sometimes, I can
temporarily improve the situation by injecting cleaner and rotating
them, but the problem usually returns. (You should not do this, unless
you are prepared to tweak the alignment) The whiskers will return in a
few years, but you can blow them out again.

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