Saber III weak TX audio

[N4UMJ]

I have a ham friends Saber III I am looking at and I have found the TX deviation to be extremely low when using the built in Mic. However, once the radio chassis is removed from the housing and powered up and tested again the deviation is perfectly normal.

It's also normal on an external Speaker/Mic. I tried cleaning and looking for obvious signs of blockage inside the housing but nothing was seen.

Not having another Saber III housing to try here I am really puzzled?

One more thing.......
I first attempted the Speaker/Mic replacement but this did no good.

Is this strange or what?

Eddie
N4UMJ

[Keygun]

I have a ham friends Saber III I am looking at and I have found the TX deviation to be extremely low when using the built in Mic. However, once the radio chassis is removed from the housing and powered up and tested again the deviation is perfectly normal.

It's also normal on an external Speaker/Mic. I tried cleaning and looking for obvious signs of blockage inside the housing but nothing was seen.

Not having another Saber III housing to try here I am really puzzled?

One more thing.......
I first attempted the Speaker/Mic replacement but this did no good.

Is this strange or what?

Eddie
N4UMJ

I have seen this before on a MX3000 (very similar to SABER). The problem was some dirt, which entered the small mike-grill and attentuated the audio from the outside. Some pressurized air was the solution for the problem.

Keygun

[N4UMJ]

I was sort of thinking the same thing and originally took the radio housing and gave it a good toothbrush washing with warm water and a Lab type detergent for electronics. I even tried some positive pressure from within the casing to try and drive any foreign debris out that might have been in the Mic opening.

Still have the problem. I am thinking the housing may have been molded incorrrectly or something like that. All this to go through just for a weak TX audio problem!

A further side note is this Saber had some sort of gold cloth baffeling material inside between the speaker and modules. I have never seen that used before? Usually just small squares of that gray rubber material.

Eddie
N4UMJ

[Keygun]

I was sort of thinking the same thing and originally took the radio housing and gave it a good toothbrush washing with warm water and a Lab type detergent for electronics. I even tried some positive pressure from within the casing to try and drive any foreign debris out that might have been in the Mic opening.

Still have the problem. I am thinking the housing may have been molded incorrrectly or something like that. All this to go through just for a weak TX audio problem!

A further side note is this Saber had some sort of gold cloth baffeling material inside between the speaker and modules. I have never seen that used before? Usually just small squares of that gray rubber material.

Eddie
N4UMJ

The gold and grey (conductive) material is there to solve one well-known Saber/MX1000-problem: crackling and popping noise on TX, caused by lots of rf-current floating inside the radio between the modules.

Maybe your problem is a fit-problem, but i still think, there is "something" between the mike and the outside world.

Keygun

[N4UMJ]

Just a further note on the low audio TX issue..............

Operator error ( in the "Align parameters" ) was the problem here.

"OO" as a value (bottom of the graph) as shown on the audio processing does not mean the audio processing is disabled.

It needs to show the graph at the bottom and "FF" for the value plus (disabled) in parenthesis.

Took several months but I figured this one out ............

Eddie
N4UMJ

[BO-105 CBS-5]

Eddie, I've found some of the HT's have seperate gain adjustments for internal mic and external (as in speaker/) mics.

Found this first with my XTS3500....

Is right in RSS, WITHOUT going into the alignment screens. If I remember correctly was in "radio wide" screen.

Not sure how you found the solution (assume on the S3 RSS 'twas in the alignment section.....) BUT....WAS there seperate gain settings for internal and external microphones? I'm curious....and haven't played with an S3 in a while.....

Thanks....Joe