Tivoli Model One Tuner = adjusting stations on dial.

[da-lp]

I'm taking a stab at fixing a radio. Something I've never done before and immediately makes me feel like I'm in way over my head.

I found a Tivoli Model One for really cheap and brought it home. The first issue was the 'crackly' tuning issue. I couldn't resolve it via the typical fix (moving the dial back and forth over and over to 'clean out' any gunk) so eventually disassembled the radio, got into the tuning capacitor and gave it a few shots of deoxit. That seemed to worked wonders.

However, I want to fix the other problem and that is my stations don't align with what is on the dial.

There seems to be very little information out there on how to deal with this for this particular radio. I did find one great blog post here: http://la3za.blogspot.com/2013/12/scratchy-tivoli-audio-model-one.html

It talks about the 'Oscillator' and 'RF' trim screws on the back. I've been able to adjust the Oscillator screw and have gotten the lower end of the radio to dial in accurately (roughly 88-95). However, the upper end is all out of whack, with 107.9 showing up around 106.

According to that blog post, the RF trim should also somehow affect things, but doesn't seem to have any affect for me.

Is anyone familiar with the tuner in the model one and know if what I'm trying to do is achievable? Or is this more of a sign that there's something bigger wrong with my radio?

FWIW, it sounds great, and I can live with the mis-aligned stations, but would love to know if I'm just missing the obvious here as to what I should be adjusting.

 

[Punker X]

Trim caps should adjust the upper end of the scale. I would try adjusting so 107.9 is at 107.9. Or if you have a station at 106 it would be better. An adjustable coil would adjust the bottom end, but on many tuners this is fixed. If that didn't work I would try adjusting at 98 see how that works.

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

Mike's advice is spot on and solid!

 

[da-lp]

Or if you have a station at 106 it would be better. An adjustable coil would adjust the bottom end, but on many tuners this is fixed. If that didn't work I would try adjusting at 98 see how that works.

Thanks!

So I adjusted 106.1 to match the dial. That works just fine. But, now the lower stations are out of whack with 88 showing up around 90.1

To use a possibly bad metaphor, the FM stations on a Tivoli dial span about 160 degrees. However, it appears my tuner is using an arc of something like 130 degrees to encompass all stations.

Should this radio have some adjustment to 'stretch out' the stations on the tuner? Or is this just a quirk of this tuner? Or is this a sign of something has gone bad in the radio?

 

[Punker X]

Sorry, never actually worked on one. Did you try things with it adjusted so 98 lines up? Without the manual its hard to go further. There is sometimes a voltage adjustment at 108 you adjust for certain voltage then it at the low end it should be another voltage. If I had it with the test equipment I would experiment with the different adjustments to figure things out. Without understanding radio's and the right test equipment just tweaking on things could make it unusable.

 

[da-lp]

Thanks. Looks like I may just leave it as-is and live with it. Which, for a $5 Tivoli, I can do.

There seems to be zero technical documentation on this radio out there. Tivoli seems rather secretive about their service manuals.

 

[da-lp]

So I talked to someone that has had 3 of these and none of them aligned the stations properly, so I'm thinking this is just a quirk of this radio. I can live with it.