My Omni-V (updated to v.9 firmware) has been in continuous use for years. I
have replaced the lithium keep-alive battery B1 and its probably due a new
battery by now, but will that solve my immediate problem ?? Read on ....
The memories are now virtually all full of sheer garbage. But is a battery
swap enough to fix this ?? According to the manual, memory info is stored in
U8, an X2404 non-volatile RAM chip. Changing the battery, or resetting the
CPU apparently does NOT affect the contents of that chip. And even if it did,
there may still be a problem ... see below.
Now exactly the same chip is used in the 253 auto tuner (with no keep-alive
battery) where it very definitely has a finite life cycle before it becomes
unusable (i.e. full of garbage that cannot be over-written.) Thats why I
bought a pack of ten spare X2404s from a trade outlet because getting them
one at a time was a real pain in the butt (and pocketbook.) As it was, they
had to be imported specially from the US for me.
Commonsense suggests that U8 in the Omni-V is equally vulnerable to the
ravages of time and repeated rewriting.
Question: has anyone out there had this "memory full of garbage" problem and
had to swap U8 ?? No mention of it in the manual for either the Omni or the
253. I'd hate to have to drag the Omni out of of the rack twice when I could
fix it at the first go.
73 John G3JAG
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