Hoping someone can help me track this down. Over the past couple of days, my new Kenwood TM-D710a saw its first heavy use operating 2m simplex between four vehicles in a caravan.
The issue I'm seeing is that on a fairly regular basis (maybe every 3-4 transmissions) I am getting about one second dropouts in RX audio. The S-meter also goes to zero during this time. Someone will just be talking, then nothing, then the signal and audio will come back about a second later. Highly annoying.
We have been fairly close together, and none of the other folks are reporting any dropouts, so I'm pretty sure it's on my end.
Other things I've been trying to eliminate: It does not appear to be correlated with physical vibration, bumps in the road, etc. It happens fairly consistently from the time I turn the rig on, so I don't think it's a thermal problem, though my cooling fan does sound a little gimpy. Besides, it's mainly an RX problem, which seems less likely to be caused by heat (right?). I believe the power to the unit is clean, though I do have it running through a relay so I can switch it with the ignition. I do not see any other symptoms that would indicate flaky power (display stays fully illuminated, etc.) The other units in the caravan are a Yaesu FTM-350 and two other identical Kenwoods.
I'm not really sure where to start debugging here. I would greatly appreciate any leads anyone here could provide. Thanks a lot in advance!
The issue I'm seeing is that on a fairly regular basis (maybe every 3-4 transmissions) I am getting about one second dropouts in RX audio. The S-meter also goes to zero during this time. Someone will just be talking, then nothing, then the signal and audio will come back about a second later. Highly annoying.
We have been fairly close together, and none of the other folks are reporting any dropouts, so I'm pretty sure it's on my end.
Other things I've been trying to eliminate: It does not appear to be correlated with physical vibration, bumps in the road, etc. It happens fairly consistently from the time I turn the rig on, so I don't think it's a thermal problem, though my cooling fan does sound a little gimpy. Besides, it's mainly an RX problem, which seems less likely to be caused by heat (right?). I believe the power to the unit is clean, though I do have it running through a relay so I can switch it with the ignition. I do not see any other symptoms that would indicate flaky power (display stays fully illuminated, etc.) The other units in the caravan are a Yaesu FTM-350 and two other identical Kenwoods.
I'm not really sure where to start debugging here. I would greatly appreciate any leads anyone here could provide. Thanks a lot in advance!
