XTS3000 Power setting problem

[cahighwayman22]

On My XTS3000 it is only putting out 2 Watts on High Power, and not 4 Watts as thats where I want it. Could it be the P.A? I tried too raise the softpot settings in Tuner, and it does no good. And I set all the TX channels for High Power. What could be the problem?

Trevor KI6KGN

[cahighwayman22]

So I take nobody know's whats wrong?

Trevor KI6KGN

[jmr061]

Did you try lowering the tuning value? Are you using good test equipment, ie service monitor, etc.

Jason

[Jim202]

There is the possibility that you have a bad PA.

Another chance is that the tune settings are wrong. Have you tried to measure the current on TX?

Jim

[mike m]

Did it ever put out 4 watts ?

Did you try making a DC adapter and measure the current draw ?

Where did you get the radio from ?

The reason that I'm asking this last ? is because there were some VHF XTS3000's sold to Wulfsberg Electronics where the High power bias word in the codeplug was set to the same value as the low power Bias word in their factory and they were only capable of 2 watts maximum in both Low and High power settings.

This was done because their configuration ran the XTS3000 at ~ .75 watts output driving an external 12 watt Power Amp.

This was done so that even if the user cranked the high power softpot to maximum it would never overdrive and blow the 12 watt final up.

Most of these XTS3000 VHF's were scrapped and never got out of the factory when they changed over to using an XTS5000 module in their aviation radios, but I guess anything is possible.


The way you can tell if it's one of these radios is to set your High and Low power softpots to the same numerical value and measure output power in high and low power, if they are the same on high and low power then you may have one of these radios.

[cahighwayman22]

Softpot values are different, when I got the radio. It did put out 5 watts, and when I went too adjust the High Softpot is when the P.A shut itself off. and I originally assumed the P.A went bad, but it recovered sometime later, but it now only puts out 2 Watts.

[tvsjr]

Sounds to me like you let the smoke out...

[mike m]

Ok I had a similar thing in a few UHF low 3000's.

I was using one of our unmodified XTS in our bless out bench (operating in a nice 50 ohm load0, when my R2670 was sent back for repairs, and a tech ran the softpots to max, which was over 5 watts out.

A few days later the power dropped to ~ 1 watt in 2 radios and stayed there, I ended up swapping the Power modules from some other rf boards that had there controllers drilled thru, another demolished radio horror story that I won't get into.

As a result I never cranked a stock UHF or VHF 3000 up above 3.8 watts and never had a failure after this.

The reason I brought up the other subject on the Bias word resetting was because I learned that we may have scrapped some of these modified XTS3000's within the past 5 or 6 months and its possible that the scrap dealer could have resold the units.

usually our people commit total radio stupidity and drill thru the controllers and RF boards and then scrap perfectly good radios but I recently pulled 3 good XTS5000's from a scrap box and recycled them as engineering use radios.

Makes you want to cry when you see good radios treated like this.

[cahighwayman22]

Well unfortuently I'm now in need of a P.A, as the spare I had is also dead, so if anyone happens too have an extra P.A, or good spare R.F board (VHF) please let me know.

Trevor KI6KGN