Denton,
I would definitely power off, unplug the DC power cord at the rear of the Orion
and take a good look at the contacts. There is a very good chance that display
and your sub receiver issues are being affected by insufficient current flow
from the power supply, at this connector.
The molex-type connector pins were in my opinion, a bit light-duty for the
application. On the other hand many Orion radios have run for years without
issues but it is very common in recent years to have all sorts of issues
because the pins have gotten weak and are not making good contact.
Unplug, clean and if the female pins in the cable connector appear to be
slightly enlarged, you can carefully try to slightly reduce their
circumference. You can easily make them worse so be very careful. Nothing much
you can do or even should try on the male pins on the radio side. Maybe
lightly scratch their surface with the very small tip of a jeweler screwdriver
is about the best you can do.
I do not even bother servicing these connector pins myself. I remove the
connector mounted on the radio and install a pigtail with fuse holders on both
leads and add power pole connectors. This is not an easy task to do on the
radio side because the inside of the radio back in this corner has very little
room to work in. For most people I think the best choice is to leave the radio
alone and simply put together a new power cable with brand new connector pins
and shell. And go up one size in wire size will not hurt, especially if you
need some length to reach the power supply terminals. But if you can, keep as
short as you can. Orion’s are sensitive to the range of voltage supplied to
them. Keeping the voltage in the factory spec range and allowing full current
demand to flow through clean and good fitting connectors is paramount.
You do not need a fan inside the Orion at all by the way. The radio is large
enough that in my opinion, it does not have any heat issues. The LCD puts off
the most heat, at least all the time and it is not that bad. The power
regulation PCB board that feeds the display can require new capacitors over
time. If you do put new caps on this board, get quality capacitors. I cannot
confirm that the quality of the ones sold at Radio Shack (if they still do) are
good enough but just order some decent ones from Mouser, Allied, etc. and wait
for their delivery.
I would not open up the radio just yet- look at and service the power connector
pins first and check operation again. It may not cost you anything and if it
helps without diving into the radio itself, your done. And you continue with
an utterly quiet radio instead of another whirring fan in the shack, hi hi.
Gene / K7TXO
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