Anyone Dabble in Tuner Alignments in NC?

jheu02

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
The reason I ask is I have an H/K T-403 I'd like to have aligned better than it is now, but it's really not worth sending to Punker-X. I've had Mike do the alignments on my more sensitive tuners, and he does great work, but the shipping costs alone for this one would be more than the tuner is worth (or at least what I could recoup if I ever sold it in the future).

It's got great sound since I recapped it, but there is a little distortion and sibilance I think could be removed with an alignment.

Barring any local AKers who've fiddled with alignments, is there any "over the air" method I could use and align by ear? I have a service manual for it, but don't have all the equipment required...mainly a signal generator. I do have a scope, but haven't used it before, and don't know if I have the correct probes for it.
 
Thanks for that link. I think I came across it before, but not sure. I may check him out if the price is reasonable, but still not sure the tuner is worth enough to do it. It would really end up just being for me I guess and then perhaps sell one of my better ones if the H/K does better with the stations I really listen to now. I don't do much DXing any more.
 
Over the air alignment, NO. Needs a proper signal generator, and not TV service shop grade either. As it is a HiFi tuner which should be decent. Try Alex if he's equipped correctly and has the skillset.
 
Emailed Alex and he was candid. He expects close to a minimum of 2hrs bench time for an alignment' and at $90 and hour it's not gonna happen. It would be less, even with shipping, to send it to punkerX who I know does good work from having three better tuners aligned by him. So, I guess this one will sit as is unless I come across at least some of the proper equipment. Not worth the expense for a $10 GW tuner, even though I put the money into it to recap it.

That's why I was looking for someone local who did it as a hobby even if it didn't get the closest possible alignment. ANYTHING closer would still be an improvement. I can listen on strong local stations, but still can hear some issues with a little distortion/sibilence which tells me it needs one. Suppose I could redo some transistors also if they are typical ones to replace like I see in other restoration threads.
 
Last edited:
Looking at the service manual, unless they left out a lot of stuff, there's almost nothing to align in the FM side. It has ceramic filters, so no adjustment there. It's basically dial tracking, peaking up the RF at each end of the scale, zeroing and a frequency adjust on the MPX. You could do this off weak broadcast stations, though I bet the RF is fine or close to it as is. Ideally you'd need a frequency counter to set the 19 kHz on the MPX, but that's about it. There's no THD adjust (or at least I didn't notice one, so a fancy FM generator isn't going to buy you much. For the AM side, you'd need a sig gen to do the 455, but everything else could be done with broadcast stations.
 
If it were me I'd invest in a signal generator, and learn to use the scope, and then do it myself,,,,,,,, on all future units,

I don't have a signal generator or a scope either, but you are so close to being able to do it.
 
I'll be a willing student to give it a shot. :) Right now I have to deal with a situation with my mom and find new living arrangements as she's gotten up in age and needs more care. So, other things have moved to the back burner. Also, I don't listen to AM, so can leave that completely out of the question.
 
Back
Top Bottom