This might not seem important to the more-experienced in this group, but I
thought I'd share it.

About two months ago I pulled out some Lux components I hadn't used in 15
years and put them in my bedroom as a second system.

The tuner didn't sound very good -- there was what appeared to be multipath
on every station. I tried moving the antenna around, but it didn't do much
good. This seemed odd, because I'd never had multipath problems with this
tuner, and I live on the second floor of a wood-frame building -- not much
metal or large reflecting surfaces in the neighborhood.

This morning the sound was really bad on the left channel -- down a bit, and
very distorted. Moving the cables around indicated that the problem was
definitely with the tuner, and likely somewhere at or following the
multiplex decoder. I did not look forward to servicing the tuner.

Following my rule of "try anything", I turned the level control on the back
of the tuner -- and that did it. The sound cleaned up completely including
the earlier "mild" distortion I'd mistaken for multipath.

I've heard plenty of dirty pots in my service experience, but I've never
come across one that was audibly distorted. A first for everything, I guess.

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
. ..
This might not seem important to the more-experienced in this group, but I
thought I'd share it.

About two months ago I pulled out some Lux components I hadn't used in 15
years and put them in my bedroom as a second system.

The tuner didn't sound very good -- there was what appeared to be
multipath
on every station. I tried moving the antenna around, but it didn't do much
good. This seemed odd, because I'd never had multipath problems with this
tuner, and I live on the second floor of a wood-frame building -- not much
metal or large reflecting surfaces in the neighborhood.

This morning the sound was really bad on the left channel -- down a bit,
and
very distorted. Moving the cables around indicated that the problem was
definitely with the tuner, and likely somewhere at or following the
multiplex decoder. I did not look forward to servicing the tuner.

Following my rule of "try anything", I turned the level control on the
back
of the tuner -- and that did it. The sound cleaned up completely including
the earlier "mild" distortion I'd mistaken for multipath.

I've heard plenty of dirty pots in my service experience, but I've never
come across one that was audibly distorted. A first for everything, I
guess.



I see that sort of thing all the time. Most recently a Mac 4100 receiver
with one of the two stereo separation adjustment pots flaky, causing one
channel to drop 90% intermittently.
Of course if you are looking on a 'scope, you can see moderate to severe
distortion easily, and I often do see it caused by analog controls and
switches.

Mark Z.