Michael.Chepponis@C.CS.CMU.EDU (Mike Chepponis) (10/20/85)
Indeed, I have been experiencing a frying/popping noise in the transmit audio on my TR-2500, most likely very similar to Bob, K9EUI's noise on his 7930/7950. I have ripped out way too much circuitry for such a "simple" problem, but it still hasn't gone away. The noise appears only intermittently, and never has it been > 1 KHz deviation. So I live with it. Since we're discussing rigs, I'd like to put in a strong plug for Ten Tec. I have owned both the Triton 4 and now the Corsair and I have never had ANY problems with the rigs - NEVER! OK, the Corsair doesn't have a general coverage RX, or as many spiffy features as the Kenwood TS-940S, but as far as I can tell, the Corsair is a superior CW rig compared with the '940, although on SSB the 940 has an edge with all of its bells & whistles. I chose Ten Tec because of all the HF rigs I was looking at at the time, only Ten Tec gear looked like it could be fixed by an average ham...Peek into one of those other HF rigs & say something nice about serviceability! -Mike, K3MC -------
jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA (10/21/85)
Could the noises be the same old "Kenwood Crunchies" that used to plague the TR-2400? As I recall, this was caused by the PC board to chassis ground becoming intermittent. Tightening up the PC board mounting screws and maybe soldering one of them in place cured the problem. Putting a lockwasher under one of them would seem a less drastic way of ensuring good contact. I hope it's that easy. 73, John S., W3IKG
jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA (10/22/85)
Other possibilities for excessive crunchy noise are bad transistors (high 1/f or "flicker" noise), electrolytics installed with wrong polarity, or just bad electrolytics (usually the reversed ones come back to life if installed properly), or DC running through the wiper arm of a pot. The latter condition can be caused by leaking electrolytics, by the way. Also loose connectors, dirty transistor sockets, or dirty switch contacts. I know, soak the whole radio in a sulphuric acid bath for about 24 hours, and I guarantee you the noise will be the least of your problems. 73, John S., W3IKG