Hello all.
I had a problem with the ORION recently, and I was originally
attributing it to grounding problems. My display started
getting dimmer and dimmer, whether Black on White, or White
on Black, and it finally reached the point where I had the
CONTRAST setting down to 1%, and I could only view it within
a few degrees of center.
I have been operating mostly PSK-31 at medium power levels,
and in a few cases, when the SWR was not optimum, the display
would almost 'go white' during transmit. I would then hit
the "TUNE" button, and this would minimize it, but it still
change a little during transmit.
I turned it off for one night, to 'give it a rest', and when I
turned it on again the next day, the screen was white and blank.
I saw no differences when I hit the "MENUS" or "AUDIO" buttons,
so there was little chance of even getting back to the setting
where I could use it, however annoying it was.
I called Ten Tec and was directed to someone named Alan
(Allan or Allen) in their Service Department. He suggested
that before I send it back, that I remove the bottom cover
and make a simple voltage measurement at the two-wire push-
on connector that feeds the display. This board is in the
compartment which is BEHIND the MIKE, PHONES and KEY jacks.
This board is all by itself, and the measurement point is
on the connector with the reference number of 36 on it.
This is the only board in this rather large compartment,
and the only white, push-down connector on the board.
Hard to miss!
This voltage should be between 20.5 and 20.7 VDC. This
regulated voltage feeds the display, and the board has some
kind of switch mode regulator, if I did not misunderstand
Alan. Mine was a varying voltage that never got above 10
VDC, and I had Alan on the phone when I measured it, to be
sure I was in the right place.
He said that we could do a board exchange, and that the
work of replacement was virtually nothing. He was right.
The hardest part was finding my TORX T-10 tool that is needed
for the 9 screws around the back edge of the bottom cover!
The replacement board arrived in a few days, and I made the
board exchange in about 3 minutes, and this includes the
removal of the four screws, lifting off the 'push-on'
connector and unplugging the old and replugging the new, and
replacing screws and connector. The cover replacement and
installation of the 9 TORX screws added to this time.
That was when the fun started! I got my display back, and
since Alan was so sure of this 'cure' I was not surprised.
The voltage now reads 20.5, a textbook reading.
When I got the radio back in the rack, I hooked up the various
connectors: Power, Antenna, Ground, Auxiliary output cable,
Remote VFO Pod, and key. I turned the radio on, and saw the
normal 'startup frequency' in the 20M band.
I got my series of shocks (not electrical) when I changed
bands, and every other band read, I swear, 0.000.000 MHz.
The VFO would not change this reading. The "B" VFO knob
would change the "B" readout, but the "A" VFO readings
remained at 0.000.000 MHz.
When I selected any band other than 20M, I heard my sidetone,
and got an almost full scale reading on the LCD 'S-meter'
(under the final '.000' of the VFO readout). The only way I
got any real signals on the remaining 8 bands was to use
the "VFOA button and enter a valid freq. in that band.
ENTER"
Once I did this, it was back to normal, but I was really
surprised at this strange turn of events.
One more thing, if you find that you are going to remove all
voltage from the rig for any length of time, be sure to jot
down all of your settings. It took me quite a while to go
through all the menus and restore everything. From what I
understand, the DXtra software can 'save and restore' most
of these settings in a few seconds, where someone doing it
'step by step' could probably spend up to a half hour, if
you include CW and voice memory settings. Having everything
written down would make the process faster than discovering,
one by one, the ones that you forgot to do, and interrupt
what you were doing to restore them.
The board which was replaced has an 8-pin connector on it,
that is a simple 'plug-in' arrangement, and one thing that
comes to mind is that if these 8 pins lose their voltages for
any length of time, perhaps that will cause the 0.000 readings
and loss of other MENU settings.
Sorry for the long post, but it may be of use to some of
you in the future.
Thanks for reading, if you got this far.
73,
Ralph - W8ROI
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