6600 no received signals and S9 +10 noise floor

Jon_KF2E

Let me start that I have already opened a support ticket on this. In the mean time I thought I would see if anyone else had an idea.

Yesterday my radio was working fine and at the end of the day I shut it down. This morning I started everything back up but it appears the radio has gone deaf. All I get is S9+10 noise on all bands. I have three antennas and have tried them all. I have also tried my antennas on my old FT-847 and it sees plenty of signals. I tried a power off reboot and a reset to defaults with no results.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Bill -VA3WTB

So not to complicate things I suggest you wait to hear from Flex so as not to change anything. They will work through this with you.

Paul W5PF

Sounds like the SCU heatsink problem that is the subject of the PEN Flex recently released for the 6600 radios. Check the PEN info online.

73, Paul W5PF

Jon_KF2E

Paul is correct, only the heatsinks are on the ADC's. Tim had me open the case to check the heatsinks and one was rattling around loose in the case. They are shipping me the new heatsinks and I will hopefully be back in business. 

Jon...kf2e

Cal N3CAL

Jon,
Have you tried cycling through your antenna gain selections?  What if anything does the noise floor do when you cycle through them?  You may also try cycling Diversity  on and off to see if you get any changes in the noise floor?  I had this issue and was directed to send my 6600 in due to the SCU thermal issue. 

Cal/N3CAL

Marc Lalonde

that quite strange or disturbing  AD9467 usually generate no more that 1.4W
whit chip solder to a multi-layer PCB and good thermal pad , it must not heat at point to degrade  up to S9+ signal ???   , all AD9467  development board supplied by analog device for show off chip performance don't even use any heatsinks on it  

must be something else 

Jon_KF2E

I was skeptical as well. The original heatsink is quite small only about 12mm square and are stuck on the ADC with what looks like coax seal(I'm sure it's not). The replacements are huge in comparison maybe 40mm square and instead of sitting on top of the ADC like the original heatsink they are mounted to the back of the circuit board. I've never seen a heatsink installed on the back of a circuit board before but I am not an expert.

Jon_KF2E

Cal,

Tim recommended I try this procedure...

"Also since the other heatsink is still attached, you can force the radio into using the 2nd SCU. The easiest way to do this is to open a panadapter.  Delete the slice in that panadapter.  The in the Panadapter menu (on the left).  Click on the ANT menu option and set the antenna to RX-A.  This will force that panadapter to use the ADC that does not have a heat sink.

Now open a new panadapter and slice.  Set the RX antenna to anything but RX-A or XVTR-A (ANT-1, ANT-2, RX-B) and you should have a reasonable noise floor since the antenna is now connected to the 2nd SCU."

I tried this and it worked. I can operate on the other ADC. I'm going to leave the radio off until the new heatsinks arrive but hopefully that will be a final fix.

Jon_KF2E

Here is a picture of my radio showing the two ADC boards one with the heatsink missing.

Jon_KF2E

The heatsink on the one on the right seems to be sagging.

David Decoons, wo2x

Jon,

Had the same issue and the new heatsink kit fixed it. You will be back in business once you get it.

Dave wo2x

Marc Lalonde

just hope the copper heatshink not make short on the PCB when if fall or move ... 

Tom Teague

Now I see that both of my epoxy glued copper heat sinks fell off.