I have two of these switches and they worked reliably for about 6 years.
Then, one prot at a time, they fell into the "tap with cw to bring to life"
mode. I could also bring a position back to life for a while by turning the
box on and off or slipping through the positions. A look at the relay
contacts showed they were bright, and the armature was not visibly
misaligned. Checks with an ohmmeter showed the path through the contacts to
be close to a dead short. Cleaning, using Caig gold, and reseating the
armature would cure the problem for a few days, but it would reappear
eventually. Like Kelly, I moved to another port. Last year both switches
became erratic in this way on nearly all ports, and by spring I more or less
abandoned them in place and worked around them. My guess is that nothing I
can do will salvage them, though the relays still look like new. If anyone
has found a cure, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
Bob W2WG
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Kelly Johnson
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 7:38 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] More possible RCS8V problems
I think I resolved my issue of a few weeks ago whereby the signal
would just start dropping out and a tap on the CW key would bring it
back to life. It was either a relay problem OR a bad PL-259 solder
joint. I replaced the PL-259 and moved to another output port on my
RCS-8V and the antenna is working again. Now, I have a new problem.
After sitting for an hour or two I start getting S7 or S8 noise. This
is similar to the signal dropping out, but this time instead of having
the signal drop out I get S7 or S8 broadband noise. The strange part
is that it affects ALL the antennas this time. I can switch from
antenna to antenna and I see the same S7 or S8 noise, even on antenna
inputs that have no antenna connected to them. A tap on the CW key
once again fixes the problem. This time I'm thinking it is some relay
that is common to all of the antennas (ie. connected to the input) OR
it is yet another bad connection but this time on the feedline that
goes from the shack to the remote switch. I don't understand what
would cause this noise. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
I'm just about ready to junk this remote switch. This is the second
one I've owned and it seems unreliable.
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