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Arcticcater
New member
Username: Arcticcater

Post Number: 1
Registered: 4-2005
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 11:18 am:   Edit Post Delete Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi everyone! I am knew @ here and somehow lost too. I have a 2950 DX that I use as a CB. Due to extremely drastic space requirements, I found room to mount it only under the passenger seat. I detached the face with the buttons and made my own 3' cable to run from the console (where the face is neatly mounted now) to the unit under the seat. I bought the radio new about 1 1/2 years back. As soon as I mounted it I noticed the SWR meter bars died. OK, let's just say I missed something with my 48-wire cable I made. About a month ago something else happened and with that is hard to live: the display locks in PA mode and I can not transmit any more. There is no rule to that: sometimes the display shows PA and stays like that as soon as I turn the radio on, sometimes after 5 minutes. Stays like that for some time (anywhere in between 10 seconds to 20 minutes), then out of the blue sky shows the last frequency like is normal. Later on it happens again. It works fine in RX mode (except that the display shows only PA regardless of what buttons I push), I receive but I can not transmit. When the display unlocks from the PA mode, I can also transmit. If I play with the band selector, I can acasionally get the display out of PA. Sometimes it will come back into PA after less than a second, sometimes after 5 minutes, but it will come back again.

Does anybody know what I can do to get rid of the problem? Someone told me I need probably a new CPU board. Before getting into swaping boards and spending money on something that could still be good, does anybody know if I can check some things/voltages somewhere? Is any troubleshooting guide somewhere please? Any ideas/advice would most highly appreciated. Thank you, Roy.
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2600
Advanced Member
Username: 2600

Post Number: 552
Registered: 7-2002


Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 1:06 am:   Edit Post Delete Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi Roy,
Since the computer board on that radio is a replaceable unit, there isn't a lot of info on the internal workings.

I gotta give credit where credit's due. Making the front panel of that radio "remote" was an ambitious undertaking. Lots of details, ALL of which you have to get right.

Given the nature of electronic gadgets, it's the connections between them that cause the most trouble. The vast number of NEW connections that you have added to the radio are probably the cause of all the troubles you describe.

The "PA" problem is pretty self-explanatory. You have an intermittent connection to (from?) the Mode switch. If the connections that tell the CPU what mode you are on come loose, the CPU assumes that you have selected "PA" mode.

Unless you used "military grade" connections and wiring for your remote setup, I'll predict that one or more of all those connections is coming loose.

Uh, what "BAND" selector were you referring to? You don't mean the "Mode" (AM/USB/LSB/CW/PA) selector, do you?

Seriously, I'd take a VERY close look at all the connections to the mode switch and the tiny circuit board it's mounted on. Sure sounds like structural solder defects on the connector pins at the edge of the mode-switch pc board. Unless you anchored the long wires you added to this board for the remote hookup, there will probably be stress damage to the solder on the pins at the edge of that tiny pc board. Worst case would be that the switch has had more leverage applied to it than normal, and the switch itself is going bad.

73


73

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