[TenTec] Eagle minor woes

[Michael Tortorella]

Hi John,

 

I forgot t mention I was on CW so fairly short duty cycle, an anyway the
problem only started happening in about the last hour of operation (when I
was exhausted and least able to deal with it calmly).  I don't think it's RF
getting in, I have pretty well bonded and ferrite-beaded everything and
again it does not happen all the time.  Next contest is the IOTA in 2 weeks,
we'll see what happens there because it's also 24 hours (but I usually only
operate 12).  Then we pack up the vacation QTH and go back home.

 

All said, I do like the Eagle a lot but I might have made other panel design
choices to make split operation more intuitive.  But as has been pointed out
before, all manufacturers have their own approach to this and if you get
used to one (I had used Yaesu for a long time at home and they too have
their own approach) then switching to another manufacturer has a learning
curve.

 

Well let's see how the IOTA goes.  I agree the Eagle is a fine transceiver,
especially in so small a package (easy to travel with).  If you have access
to the June 2016 CQ you can see a picture of my vacation setup antenna on
the cover.

 

73

Mike

 

  _____  

From: John Bescher [mailto:n4dxi at aol.com] 
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2018 5:56 PM
To: w2iy at verizon.net; tentec at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Eagle minor woes

 

Mike, 

 

I'm no expert but I have an Eagle and it has never let me down.  Then again,
16 hours straight, I'd be malfunctioning, not only the transceiver.

 

Were you using a digital mode that has long duty cycles?  As a preventative
measure, why not direct an external fan on the transceiver?  Noisy, yes, but
maybe that will eliminate the timeouts.  I'd also check the vents on the
Eagle are clear and non-blocked by any external gear. Yes, I know, obvious,
but a lot of problems are due to obvious reasons.

 

Lastly, yes, the behavior you mentioned could be caused by excessive heat to
the Eagle's boards but it could also happen due  to RF entering the
transceiver.

 

If this continues, not a good sign, as  you know, excessive heat can damage
your transceiver.  When is the next 16 plus  hour contest for you?

 

Good luck.  The Eagle is a fine transceiver.  I'm sad Tentec is no longer
producing Amateur Radio products.

 

73....John Bescher, N4DXI



-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Tortorella <w2iy at verizon.net>
To: tentec <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Sun, Jul 15, 2018 4:27 pm
Subject: [TenTec] Eagle minor woes

Folks, I ran my Eagle for about 16 hours straight in the IARU contest
yesterday and as the hours wore on it got warmer with the fan coming on more
often. Of course here it is doing exactly what it is supposed to. What I
did notice is that towards the end, it began to lock up (tuning dial had no
effect, would not transmit). I was able in each case to bring it back to
life by power cycling with a brief off period, but of course that sends the
COM port in the laptop into never never land and it took several gyrations
with enabling/disabling/enabling the port, pulling an reinserting cables,
more power cycling, etc., to get the radio to talk to he PC again (N1MM+
logger, about which I can't say enough nice things). Anyway, sort of under
the heading of first world problems, what's the list wisdom on why the Eagle
is going kind of brain dead now and then, apparently when warm? Is this
"normal" behavior, "to be expected" of a complex hardware/software system,
or is there really a cause we should be looking for? Thanks for your
thoughts and 73, Mike W2IY


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