Okay, made some good progress since my last post. Using a stiff plastic drinking straw from DQ, and with the unit on, and headphones in place, I put a little pressure on each wire on the board hoping to find a loose connection somewhere that I could resolder. No change. Mono still greatly reduced in output; stereo still phasey - could hardly hear the announcer, but considered this a benefit given the particular station that came in strong enough for testing at the kitchen table. So wires apparently all securely soldered, which left all the little widgets, thingamajigs, and multi-legged black wafers to check.
Looked at caps, large and small, closely with magnifying glass, noting some sort of hardened reddish-brownish deposit on the lower sides of some of them. Leaking? Maybe...is that what leaking caps look like? If so they must have leaked some time ago...or is it some kinda glue or something? Damned if I know.
Disassembled unit some more to see the underside of the circuit board. Using the magnifying glass, my reading glasses, the three 60-watt lightbulbs above me, and a flashlight so I could frickin' see, I examined the area underneath those caps. Looked kinda grody, to use the technical term. That couldn't be good, I reasoned, so I grabbed a soft toothbrush and cleaned away most of the grode. Hmmm...perhaps grode can conduct electricity to the wrong places, resulting in the problems. Probably fixed now.
Reassembled the unit (still leaving the lid off, though), feeling a great deal of satisfaction in not dropping a single screw into the carpet void. Plugged it back into the preamp, reconnected the dipole, donned the 'phones, and hit the power switch for a listen. Sting stood singing right there before me; almost no distortion at all -that's better - but he had decided to keep the barrel over his head. Hit the Mono switch - very faint output, as before. Well, at least I didn't make anything worse.
Noticed I was tuned to FM station 00.00 which I had never received before in this neighborhood. Perhaps I had inadvertantly improved the tuner's DXing capabilities? Yeah, that was probably it. Feeling good about succeeding at improving at least one parameter of this unit's performance, I decided to call it a day in the area of electronics diagnosis and repair.
Replaced the lid, not losing any of those screws, either - a very professional touch, I believe. Slid the tuner deep underneath the king-sized bed alongside a cherished CD player I repaired a couple years ago. Felt I deserved a beer for a job well done; though not quite complete, progress was made, and tomorrow is another day. At bottom though, I couln't help but feel a little disappointed.
When you get right down to it, seems like that little tuner has a mind of its own - and a contrary one at that. Also seems to me that Larry Schotz should have done a better job on it in the first place; just glad HE didn't have anything to do with my 4130.
So sad to add: true story.
