Batboard

I have a UHF Astro Saber II that has been giving me fits. I've had it since 2/97. I'm having oddball problems:

1. The low battery icon comes on after only three or so hours of scanning (no TX). The radio will continue working for hours after that - as an experiment, I was able to continue using the radio normally for about seven hours (including at least 25 minutes of TX in high power) before shutdown occurred. It's like a false low battery reading.

2. After the radio has about three hours on the battery, I'm getting intermittent "Fail 09/10" codes on powerup, which (I think) is a key fail code. However, after recharging, the key is still fine.

In every case, a recharge fixes the error code. Most times, wiping the battery contacts in the base of the radio and top of the battery will clear the error, too. (My bottle of contact cleaner is lost somewhere.)

The radio has always exhibited the low battery symptom, but the error code is new. I thought is may have been due to a crapped battery (I was severely overdue for a new one), but I have the same problems with a brand-new OEM 1800 NiCad, too.

I think this may be one of three things:

1. The radio needs to have a minimum voltage parameter tuned (secure hardware was installed about a year ago - would this affect power management & tuning data?) I can't find such a perimeter, though;

2. I have a bad new battery; or

3. My radio is possessed.

Help? Ideas?


_________________
Whack your porcupine.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Astrosaber on 2001-09-23 14:04 ]</font>

I had a similar problem of false low battery warning on an xts3500... I disabled some of the batt warning options in the software and that solved the warning led coming on "early"... I dont know about your fail message though.....

The low battery threshold softpot needs to be adjusted. Probably. Or you might have a problem with the battery voltage sensing circuit.

I assume that you have tried different types of batteries with the radio. Intrinsically safe batteries can give a premature low battery alert condition.

The low battery softpot adjustment isn't accessible in the standard RSS, unfortunately. But if your radio is lab readable, lab has that adjustment.

Elroy

Thanks, guys.

I think this IS an intrinsically safe battery - it's a NTN4596D.

I guess I need to visit my tech friend and see what can be done with the softpot. Is this a read/write function, or a service mode function? (A clumsy way of asking if the codeplug needs to be read and written with the Lab, or if it's like accessing the other tuning softpost.)

Elroy, do you think that could be the problem with the fail code, too?


_________________
Whack your porcupine.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Astrosaber on 2001-09-23 14:48 ]</font>

Dredging this up again - how do I access the softpot? Lab? A Service Tool?

It has been "reported" that versions of the LAB software can do this. Most likely it is in the hidden menus...

Also, is your key erase setting set to the option that allows the it be retained unless a new key is loaded or the battery disconnected? I forgot the exact name of the option, but its under the radio wide screen.

Yeah, I think it is - I didn't want to blow out the key by accident. A lot of good it does me - I think I've gone secure maybe twice in the last year!