[matspar]

Hi John, Jeffrey, and Kev,

A big thankyou for your advice and assistance, very very much appreciated.

I've spent a few hours on the VT2 today and done the following. C49 (12uf) replaced (along with C35 & 44 - contained in same can)
Oscillator transformer checked out of circuit and appears to be in good health.
Width coil and line hold coil also read ok. I had the set on continuously for about 30 mins and from what I can tell the lopt didn't appear to get warm.

I've temporarily sustituted the PL81, PY81, and EY51 from known working sets just in case any of the new ones I've fitted were duff, but unfortunately I've not yet had any improvements.

I also couldn't see any heater glow from the EY51 today, although the line whistle still sounds nice and strong. It was very bright in my conservatory however and may have just been to hard to see, so I might wait until it gets a bit dark and run the set up again.

I've not taken the scan coils out of circuit yet, or tried a silicon diode but I will explore both of these during my next session. Apart from that I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to try next.

My gut feeling is the Lopt (although I don't really want to admit it), possibly the saturation problem. The resistance readings are again very close to the service info but I suppose a single shorted turn wouldn't make a lot of difference.
Is there anything else worth trying or anything you can think of that I may have overlooked?!!

If anyone has a Lopt available to try/buy I'd be very happy. Alternatively do you think I may be able to adapt a lopt from another similar sized set? I have good working lopts available for Ferguson 991T, Pye V4, Ultra V814.

Best regards
Matt