wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/01/85)
My Kenwood TR-7950 has been having an intermittent "receive" problem which has kept the rig in the service center (and kept me off the air) for about two months now. The problem is that, when I have a station tuned in and am listening, the rig starts to "motorboat". That is, the sound is interspersed with "squelch tail" noise several times a second, and the signal-strength LED display alternates rapidly between "strong signal" and "no signal". I normally operate out of my car. However, these identical symptoms were seen when the rig was hooked up to an AC power supply and fed input from a VHF FM signal generator. Hence, the culprit is definitely not my car battery or antenna wiring. The problem seems to be intermittent. Specifically, it seems to occur most often when the rig is NOT thoroughly warmed up. I was seemingly able to reproduce the problem by disconnecting the DC power from the rig, turning the power/volume switch on, and shorting the DC connector pins together briefly in the back of the rig; when I reapplied power after doing this, the "motorboating" would return for a while. I am not 100% sure whether this was really making any difference, though, because shortly after doing this several times I discovered that I had drained my car battery! Has anyone out there had anything similar happen to them? Does anyone have any ideas? The Kenwood customer service people seem quite open to any suggestions I can supply them regarding what the problem might be or how to make the rig misbehave at will. PLEASE DON'T use this request of mine as a springboard for any tirades about poor equipment quality or repair competence by Kenwood, ICOM, or anyone else. All I am looking for are ideas that I can either pass along to the Kenwood people or pursue on my own in case they give up. Please mail replies directly to me if possible (my address is below). I will post a summary to the net once my rig is working again. -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024 // USA ARPA: wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU -or- wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA UUCP: ...!(ucbvax,ihnp4)!ucla-cs!wales