X9000 powerup gremlin, any ideas??

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:00 am

I got a weird X9000 problem that just started on a VHF that i recently acquired.

If the radio was off overnight and then i flip it on in the morning, and this is indoors so temp is not a governing factor, the radio will kinda chug to get going. The BUSY light flashes 3-4 times with corresponding bursts of static like opening the squelch and then everything works. During the time that it's bursting those 3-4 times if you push the PTT it will not transmit.

Anyway, after it does that then the radio begins to operate normally and won't cause any trouble again until it has been shut off and left off for a hour and then turned back on. For whatever reason it needs to be shut off for a long enough length of time for the problem to reappear. Bad capacitor perhaps? It gets fully discharged and takes some time to recharge? Can anyone suggest which component in the radio may be causing this?

It is NOT the control head. I have tried three different KNOWN GOOD control heads, even going as far as pulling my personal ones out of the mobile to test with. So it has to be in the radio itself. I'm thinking something simple is just failing from age but i have no idea where to start without a service manual.

RADIOMAN2002 · Post by **RADIOMAN2002** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:57 am

Try checking you power connections. It's possible, you have a corroded connection somewhere. other than that you may want to look at the voltage requlators in the radio.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:38 am

I'm going to use some contact cleaner on the control cable and front of the radio to shine them up a bit, and the rest of the cabling is good, the main power leads and the leads from the control head have all been hooked up by yours truly so i know the connections are good, mainly because i double and triple checked!

I will probe around a bit in the radio. I could use a schematic and parts list of the common circuits board to check everything.

WB6NVH · Post by **WB6NVH** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:39 pm

You might try re-seating the CPU and firmware / user mode eeprom chips on the personality board along with some contact cleaner on the pins.

Otherwise you may have a failing component in the VCO. During the time this is happening, is the VCO unlock light on?

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:51 pm

Last night before giving up and going to bed i replaced the firmware and EEprom just in case, i have had various problems with them before so i figured what the heck, i cleaned all contacts, reseated everything possible and then put it all back together.

Today, before powering it up, i removed the top cover and watched it. The VCO unlock light was on, then when it chugged a few times the VCO light flickered on and off, then finally went off and now the radio functions fine again.

So, it must be something in the VCO then since it doesn't lock correctly. I thought it might be due to ham band frequencies being programmed in so i put another codeplug in with just PS stuff in the rated bandsplit of the radio, still does it. I then modified the tuning strips on the VCO like i did with my other VHF to make it more forgiving of the ham band stuff and it still has the problem. The only other thing i can think of doing would be swap the VCO and filter assembly from my other VHF into this radio and see if the problem follows the VCO. I'm starting to bet it will though.

Any suggestions as to what might be wrong with the VCO to cause this behavior?