[TenTec] check your repairs / pegasus leaky finals

[Rich McCabe]

Ken,

Nothing to worry about. Leaving the white cable unplugged is standard
operating procedure. When mine went back to get the leaky finals fixed it
came back the same way :)

That said,  their service is still GREAT..... compared to the Japanese rigs
I have had.

73,

Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Brookner" <kenb@brookner.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 4:35 PM
Subject: [TenTec] check your repairs / pegasus leaky finals


> [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
>
>
>
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