Philco Predicta Debutante

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by Radiotronman

too much adjusting of either control will cause the set to quickly collapse to a horizontal line and flicker back.

I wonder if one or both of those controls needs cleaning. Did you ever clean them?

The reason I ask is that sometimes an old potentiometer will behave normally through part of its range, but conk out in other parts where it is gunky or worn out. One way to test this is to disconnect the potentiometer and then measure its resistance while turning it all the way back and forth. This works best with an analog ohmmeter where can watch a needle rather than try to interpret a stream of changing numbers. You should see the resistance change smoothly throughout the entire range of travel.

Or, you can just clean the control and see if that helps. This article has a little section with the basics of cleaning pots:

http://antiqueradio.org/FirstStepsInRestoration.htm

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html