I am quite comfortable taking out the dash switch; I just finished (3 months ago) removing the wood panel and putting all new lights. No, that did not mess up the switch; it worked for some three months. But I will take it out and clean it up.

Relay - are you thinking that a relay might be what is causing the switch not to work? Makes sense. However the symptom of the Hirschman is that it does not make that complete, maybe 15 second cycle after I get it to retract. {Or maybe the relay is hooked into the ignition?}

The way it is supposed to work is this - turn the radio off, it retracts fully, then it spins for about 15 seconds (guess it is making sure the retract is complete), then it goes off.

So not it neither retracts by itself nor spends another 15 seconds once I release the short circuit.