Another XTL500 Problem
Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:32 am
I have an xtl5000 that I felt the receive wasn’t working as good I thought it should. Then I noticed that I wasn’t able to key some repeaters that I knew I should be able to key up. I have a mid power Kenwood analog radio in the same vehicle and this radio was able to key and receive repeaters that my high power xtl couldn’t. My next thought is this has to be an antenna problem, right. Well that evening I check the antenna with an analyzer and the antenna tests good.
So I check the transmit power from my xtl and nothing not even a wiggle on the 5 watt setting on my bird meter. So I dissemble the xtl and pull the board out and look at it. I am not sure why I did this, I don’t have the equipment to do soldering on surface mount stuff. I put the board back in the radio and set it aside. After speaking to Jim about this problem and he asked me if the radio was still pulling full current for a high power radio, I hadn’t checked that at this point.
So after I got off the phone with him I hooked it back up on the bench and I noticed it was pulling about 20 amps. Then I glanced at the bird meter and had full rf power out. ????? WOW I can fix radios by just pulling the boards out an putting them back in. Well that’s not the case neither. So I left the radio hooked up on the bench and used it for a day or two. Now its back to barley any rf out and it is still pulling the full current.
Jim had said something could be going on in the antenna circuit. Has anybody seen this kind of problem out of one of these high power radios? Is this something that can be fixed by someone in the field or is this a depot trip?
Any advise?
This is 2 xtl500s I have down at this time. This is starting to get real expensive. lol
So I check the transmit power from my xtl and nothing not even a wiggle on the 5 watt setting on my bird meter. So I dissemble the xtl and pull the board out and look at it. I am not sure why I did this, I don’t have the equipment to do soldering on surface mount stuff. I put the board back in the radio and set it aside. After speaking to Jim about this problem and he asked me if the radio was still pulling full current for a high power radio, I hadn’t checked that at this point.
So after I got off the phone with him I hooked it back up on the bench and I noticed it was pulling about 20 amps. Then I glanced at the bird meter and had full rf power out. ????? WOW I can fix radios by just pulling the boards out an putting them back in. Well that’s not the case neither. So I left the radio hooked up on the bench and used it for a day or two. Now its back to barley any rf out and it is still pulling the full current.
Jim had said something could be going on in the antenna circuit. Has anybody seen this kind of problem out of one of these high power radios? Is this something that can be fixed by someone in the field or is this a depot trip?
Any advise?
This is 2 xtl500s I have down at this time. This is starting to get real expensive. lol