[TenTec] check your repairs / pegasus leaky finals

[Ken Brookner]

[this was written in 2 parts, before I returned the Pegasus to TenTec
for the second repair, and after.  the later comments are noted with
brackets.]

some months ago there was a thread about receiving tentec gear, either
new or back from repair with things rattling around in them.  I read
that thread too and figured that it was really much to do about
nothing..  [until last week.]

a few weeks ago I posted that my pegasus had low power on the upper
bands, but was close to full on 20M and below.  tentec told me right off
the bat on the phone that I probably had leaky finals and gave me a way
to be sure.  I wanted them to just send me a matched set and I'd install
them, but the rep convinced me that they needed to be torqued down just
right or they go bad, and since I wanted to avoid the possible future
argument about bad replacement transistors I agreed and sent the rig in.
bad plan.

when I got it back, i could hear the rattle before I even opened the
box--it was like a marble in a clothes dryer.  I called tentec before
opening the unit and the service rep told me to open it up and see if I
could fix it.  I'd used ups blue both ways since I wanted it for JARTS.
he figured I could get it working and then send it back in after the
contest if I still needed to.

so I opened it up...  the thing that was rattling around is a tuning
tool made from a large piece of plastic about 4" long and a half inch in
diameter for about half the length and then tapering down into a flat
tuning blade.  hard to miss and it was loud.  I figured that I'd look
around and hopefully, since it was mostly plastic, I wouldn't find any
damage and I'd just screw it all back together and that would be that.
but it wasn't.

the first thing I noticed was that the rubber grommet that protects the
small coax going into the final assembly had not been replaced--the
cable was resting against bare metal with the grommet about an inch from
the hole on the coax.  I knew the tool banging around would not have
caused that grommet to pop out.  next I found the white coax from the
final assembly was not plugged into the board--the one with the
relays--as it should have been.  closer inspection found that only 2 of
the 4 screws that hold the final assembly in place on the chassis had
been replaced!  the other 2 screws were not in the unit, not in the
plastic surrounding the unit, nor in the box.  various connectors had
been partially unplugged and I suspect the tuning tool banging around
during transit was responsible for that.  several axially mounted
components on various boards were bent over.

so, I took a lot of photos of this then called the tentec service rep
back and explained what I'd found.  he wasn't particularly apologetic.
so, it's on its way back for another repair to fix their repair.  [it's
now on its way back to me, see below.]

I know mistakes happen, but this is a pretty big one.  very hard to miss
that hunk of plastic banging around inside an almost empty case!  I
don't think that the white cable was ever plugged back in, or the
grommet seated correctly, though tentec tells me that maybe this
happened during shipping.  maybe...  I wonder if they even powered it up
before they dropped it into the box for shipment.  and *then* someone
HAD to hear it rattling.  I mean, you could *feel* it rattling around
inside the case!

[as a postscript to the repair, even though TenTec's service rep agreed
on the telephone to ship it back to me prepaid UPS 2nd day, they've sent
it ground.  I hope it's repaired properly now and that I can use it for
next weekend's contest--we'll see.  TenTec did agree to pick up my UPS
2nd day charges *to* them and the ground shipping back to me.  I have
received no explanation of how this sloppy repair happened, other than a
very short comment from Jack Burchfield (TenTec's president, to whom I
forwarded a copy of the photos) apologizing for my inconvenience and
hoping that I'll remain a TenTec customer.]

here's my point:  

first, maybe you should check your tentec repairs closely if you don't
already.  even if you don't hear anything rattling around, it might be a
good idea to open your unit up and do a good quick visual inspection.
the repair on my unit was so sloppy with multiple screw-ups that others
may have problems and not know it.  

second, if you have a pegasus and your heat sink gets warm or hot from a
cold start and you have just been receiving, then according to tentec
you have leaky finals.  they say that the heat sink should be "stone
cold" when tested in this manner.  I have a friend with a pegasus and he
has the same problem I did with that.  tentec seemed to know a lot about
this failure when I initially spoke with them on the telephone about it.

just fyi...

kenb, ky5g