The voltage at the input of the 78m12 ist unregulated and will go up if there is no load behind the 78m12 - 18V is with load and @ 220V mains !
Right, but the 7812 cannot draw a lot of power, otherwise the 10 Ohm/1 Watt resistor will burn (-> schematics).
By simulating a load of about 4W with a big resistor directly after the bridge rectifier, the voltage drops by 4.5V to 24V, much more as it would under load by the 7812.
Therefore I want to lower the voltage at the 7812 input by some means.
Does the tuner work if you feed it 12 volts from a external psu ?
The 7812 is not entirely dead. When I lower the mains input voltage (by variac) so that the voltage at the input of the 7812 is around 13V, the output then switches on again (at around 10.5V to 11V) and the tuner works. A bit odd I guess but that's what happens.