Spider starting gremlins

[Spiros Angelopoulos <spiros@domain.elided>]

HELP!  My debugging efforts have done nothing to rectify my '85 Spider's 
intermittent starting problems.  When I turn the key to the start position, 
every once in a while, the car will do absolutely nothing.  No sound from 
the starter engaging either.  If I wait a while (not the same every time), 
I retry and the car starts just fine. Although I bought the car used, the 
battery appears to be fairly new.  Its posts are clean and I have 
retightened the cables.  When the car starts, it sounds to me that it has a 
pretty healthy crank so I doubt it would be the battery.  Power 
interruption during the cranking also seems ok as the radio stops when I 
turn the key to the start position, regardless of whether the car starts or 
not.
I am suspecting that either the key/ignition switch is going bad (even 
though I have tried to fiddle with it when the car is not cranking), or the 
starter is on its last legs.
Can anyone give me some advice?

Thanks in advance

Spiros
'94 164LS
'85 Spider

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End of alfa-digest V7 #1030
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