[TonyJSenior]

Just finished recapping the 531 about a half hour ago and fired the radio up slowly 'just in case' with the variac and lo and behold it appears that the fading audio issue went away. Still wondering about that low resistance value in series with the plate supply on the detector tube. What effect would too much voltage have on the set? I did read on another site in trying to find information on the resistor wattage that those units sometimes absorbed moisture into the core and that might explain the lower value.

Now that the recapping is done, I believe the set needs a good alignment as it seems the higher band stations come in much better than the lower. Have a bid on an RF signal generator and hopefully will win that one. Question on aligning and neutralizing the set. Can it be done with the bottom plate off as I will just leave it aside until I get a generator, or does the shielding of the plate make a difference in alignment?

Another question about the general operation of the set. There is a terminal for a ground connection - do these sets benefit by connecting them to earth ground? Also another thing I found strange was on the tuning scale. My first thought was that on the 0 to 100 scale, 0 would be at the low end of the tuning range, not 100 as it operates.

Again - thanks for putting up with all my posts, questions and the help! I think I'm catching the bug and hope to find another low priced set to tackle.