How to deal with...?

[Hawkeye351]

Hi all,
Got a question for all those out here that work on other people's radio equipment (can't call them TECHS, the college degree holders may get offended):

After you're done with a radio and it works perfect, then you get it to the owner only for them to experience strange noises or strange behaviour and you look the radio over again but see no issues whatsoever but they have issues, how do you guys deal with circumstances such as these?

Twice with the same person. Once with a cobra 2000 that I fully recapped, fixed, aligned and worked perfect on my desk only for them to get it back and state the AM receive was weak but SSB receive was awesome. Then a practically brand new 2547 he wanted me to just check out, worked perfect on my desk, all I did was a complete alignment, worked perfect in all modes only for him to get it back and state that it makes a strange noise when he flips to SSB. But I put both the radios back on my desk and there are no issues whatsoever, no signs of the issues he's complaining about.

I told him I think he has jumper, coax, antenna or AC line issues because the radios work fine on my desk with no issues whatsoever.

How would you guys handle this?

 

[Pioneer621]

I think some folks have a weird idea there will be some magical difference after an alignment or recap, but if the radio was working okay prior, it may not be a big difference, or any at all. If it was working okay on your side, alignment went fine, it’s likely a noise issue on his end. You’d have to go over there and hear what he is talking about as it is happening and he is showing you exactly what the problem is. I've had so many electronics over the years that added weird noises into my radios receive, there is a big chance it is something like that. When we had power outages and I hooked up a radio to battery power, it was almost unbelievable how low the static level was, and zero weird noises, until the power came back on. The low receive could be as simple as the S-meter was too high and got adjusted properly, now it looks like the receive is weak, but its just the S-meter showing correctly now.

The occasional radio work I did for locals was either free, cost of parts, or whatever they tossed me when they came and pickled it up, so wasn’t really any headache other than not wanting to work on stuff sometimes. I mostly tried to not accept any radios in, to minimize headache dealing with people. Most knew I worked on stuff, but also knew I'd probably say I didn't want to, lol. I preferred buying radios non working, repairing, adding variable power, that sort of stuff, running on the bench for a week or two, and reselling, much less headache than doing work for people.

This might sound mean, I’d just tell that guy I was backed up with work or not taking in any radios if he wanted more work done in the future, so I didn’t have to deal with anymore radio work from him. Assuming you check out the radios again and find no issue. Alas, this is something you have to deal with when doing work on peoples stuff. If you are confident in your work and that it is working properly, it is what it is. There is that occasional person that isn't happy with any work done on anything they own, and find something wrong even if it's in their own head; not saying that's the case here, but you run into people like that sometimes.

 

[SuperLid]

Hi all,
Got a question for all those out here that work on other people's radio equipment (can't call them TECHS, the college degree holders may get offended):

After you're done with a radio and it works perfect, then you get it to the owner only for them to experience strange noises or strange behaviour and you look the radio over again but see no issues whatsoever but they have issues, how do you guys deal with circumstances such as these?

Twice with the same person. Once with a cobra 2000 that I fully recapped, fixed, aligned and worked perfect on my desk only for them to get it back and state the AM receive was weak but SSB receive was awesome. Then a practically brand new 2547 he wanted me to just check out, worked perfect on my desk, all I did was a complete alignment, worked perfect in all modes only for him to get it back and state that it makes a strange noise when he flips to SSB. But I put both the radios back on my desk and there are no issues whatsoever, no signs of the issues he's complaining about.

I told him I think he has jumper, coax, antenna or AC line issues because the radios work fine on my desk with no issues whatsoever.

How would you guys handle this?

Unfortunately, this does happen. I reluctantly tell the customer to bring it back in and I will check it again. However if it's an issue at their station and no trouble is found there will be a diagnostic fee. This typically deters someone from blaming you when it's actually their station which is at fault.

 

[Hawkeye351]

Well, he did get back with me just a few minutes ago with an update.

He said it was his bad because for one he was drinking, two he was also smoking weed, and third he's old and couldn't see the writing for the knobs. He said he got up this morning, turned it back on and now there is no strange noise on SSB. He said the radio works perfect and he asked how I got it to drive his amp harder than it did before, I told him it's all in the alignment, no secrets.

I feel much better, but still, why do they always resort to blaming the radio instead of their jumpers, coax, amplifier, antenna, AC line source.

That's what I charge, just for the parts and maybe a little gas money for picking up and delivering. It didn't cost me a dime to learn this stuff, the equipment did but I got the equipment mainly to keep my stuff aligned, then decided to use the equipment to help others also. If they don't give me anything, I don't sweat over it because my satisfaction comes from hearing my work on the air.

Remember operators, just because your radio is acting up doesn't necessarily mean it's the radio itself. You have other factors in the chain to think about, mic, antenna, jumpers, coax, AC line source, etc... Any of those can go out and cause problems at any time, fooling you into thinking it's the radio when it's not.

My advice, keep a TinySA, oscilloscope, maybe a cheap signal generator, antenna analyzer, volt meters around close by to check all factors before determining it's the radio. AND LEARN HOW TO USE THEM!!!