The Future Of Radio Repair

[Bat2way]

Just looking at some CP200's whose 2 year warranty has expired and while some changes on the circuit board are for the better, there still seems to be the same old cold solder joints, PTT switch problems and loose parts that plague the HT750 sister design. As with the SP50, does troubleshooting now mean chasing manufacturing defects instead of diagnosing component failure?

[440roadrunner]

I don't know why you think "manufacturing defects" are anything new. One thing that sticks out in my mind, in ham radio, is stuff like the problems with the digital boards on Kenwood TS-930's. When these fail, it is almost always related to plated through solder joints that cannot be fixed without removing/destroying some chips that are no longer available.

The Icom amateur, what, IC730/735/740/745, and IC-751's that had the infamous trimmer cap problems in the VCO?

There are many, many others. Many failures are related to either design deficiencies or solder and board deterioration due to poor design, cost cutting, etc.

[mr.syntrx]

Nothing new about manufacturing defects.

Philips radios used to be infamous for dry joints. My dad's first job out of high school was fixing bad solder joints in Philips radios.

[AEC]

Don't forget the 'venerable' IC-2AT, those boards had horrible plating of the vias, and were all but impossible to repair properly.

The Kenwood TR-2400 had well known troubles with the LCD leaking.

The IC02AT was also problematic with defective LCDs and poor quality battery packs.

The KDK FM2055 was plagued with PA module problems and poor soldering of the main boards.

The Clegg had bad LEDs for the displays that always burned out.

The Yaesu FT-301D had LED problems, but the replacement LEDs were difficult to find but simple to replace as they did socket them.

How about the Swan 250, AKA Swan too drifty?
Horrible VFO that drifted all over the band until it was well above 'room temperature'.

Same goes for the Siltronix 10-11 C and D series....also horrible VFO stability.

The Yaesu FT620B and the FT-221 2meter all-mode....both suffered from VFO drift/stability.

And that's just the ham stuff!

[kb0nly]

I had a FT-620B and FT-221R that were actually rather stable. Later revisions to the 620B helped the problems in the earlier models.

The 221R was a lot better than the earlier 221.

As always, a design gets changed many times in a given models lifetime.

[AEC]

Scott:

You got the 'good' radios

I had to completely rework that FT-221 to get it operational, the PA was blown, the dial lights were out and the VFO would 'wander' as much as 100 Kc. from center.

There was a simple rework in the VFO with the addition of a FET insted of the switcher they used and shorting of the leads within the enclosure also helped stabilize it as well.

I didn't keep the FT-620B long enough to rework the VFO though.

[Bruce1807]

Have to admit that MOT seem to have got it right with the XTS/XTL series (3000 excluded of course)
Our failure rate is zero so far apart from some physical damage, dropped radios, broken displays and knobs and PTT breaking.

[Bat2way]

I don't know why you think "manufacturing defects" are anything new.

Apparently the post was a little above your psychological trigger point to make a "stupid comment". I state in the post "still seems to be the same old..."

READ and try to COMPREHEND.

[440roadrunner]

Be so kind as to not assume that you need to enlighten my reading and comprehension skills

[MTS2000des]

I think all the low to mid tier radios from EVERYONE (Mot, Kenwood, V-S and Icom) are all going for "throwaway" or "FRU" versus old fashioned repair. Most of these uniboard radios are stamped out and if a failure of a component occurs, it's just more cost effective to do a board swap (FRU) if in warranty or can it (out of warranty) as the only parts to buy are the main board. When the price point of these units is down to what they are, it just doesn't make sense to stock full parts inventories and reimburse for labor costs.

The rest of the electronics industry has gone this way. Who fixes their low end VCR, TV or even celphone anymore? Most of the "warranty repairs" involve simply swapping a board or even the entire unit. If it's OOW, than the consumer is told "not economical to repair".

Welcome to the age of disposable living...

[xmo]

Exactly.

When I saw the topic "The Future of Radio Repair", my first thought was: Radio repair has a future?

[kj7xe]

Amen.

It's one more reason for our management to move us techs into IT. Soon i'll need to pass my M+ certification to be qualified to program an XTL5000

[wavetar]

Just looking at some CP200's whose 2 year warranty has expired and while some changes on the circuit board are for the better, there still seems to be the same old cold solder joints, PTT switch problems and loose parts that plague the HT750 sister design. As with the SP50, does troubleshooting now mean chasing manufacturing defects instead of diagnosing component failure?

To answer your original question, yes it does. Mechanical parts have always been, and always will be the "trend problems" with any radio. They just tend to stick out more nowadays, as that's the only thing that tends to break. The microswitches for PTT & other buttons, the god-awful 2-prong speaker/mic jacks, solder connections, etc. The only actual component failure I see in most Motorola radios with any sort of frequency are the Power Amplifier modules, with the ocassional clock/synthesizer crystal.

Todd

[Wowbagger]

You think the current trend of "hamster" radios (they get sick, throw them away and get a new one) sucks....

Try building the equipment to fix radios for a living.

Back in the '90's, when cell phones were expensive (and repairable), just about every shop that sold phones needed a means to test, service, and align them.

Life was good.

Then the phones starting getting higher integration, and we started moving away from plain old FM type phones to GSM and CDMA - the market for service gear shrank and the cost to design and build service gear went up ENORMOUSLY.

Now that trend is *starting* to move into the PMR market.

Yes, sometimes I do wonder about the future.

[xmo]

So this new technology - let's say P25 digital - needs to be tested.

We look at available options and we spend $30,000.00++ for what appears to be the best new digital test instrument. Internet enabled. Lots of computing power. Download options when you need them in the future.

A couple of years later there is some more new technology IVD/HPD/HSD - lots of new buzz words. Surely the "soft" zillion$ test instrument will have upgrades available for this new technology?

No?

What?

Buy another new box? $30,000.00 to $50,000.00 or more? Say WHAT?

Oh, and just because these boxes look identical - why would they share a common user interface?

[Bruce1807]

I dont know I have a 2024 that I leave at our main site. It's handy for all sorts of things , sure it wont do Astro but how often do I want to test Asto on a base.
It works or it doesn't.
Sure you can test it but I've never found a base that works fine in analog that doesn't work just as fine in digital or the digital doesn't work at all
usually due to a bad cable or programming.

Sure I have my 2670 back in the shop with all the bells and whistles but it just mainly runs the autotest software for the subscribers. Go over , press a button make another cup of coffee but I can always take it out in the field if I want.

Now when the next generation Smartzone comes out it will be FDMA/TDMA, thats when it's going to cost.