6400M v2.4.9.155. Display occasionally locks up or develops a hiccup.

Woody Hester

Have had rig several months.  No problems.  Recently, display started freezing up or developing hiccups.  Shutting the rig down and restarting it always fixes it.  Seems to want to do it once a day.  Rig is not hooked up to the internet, have been on this same release since it became available, no recent changes to any settings.  Ideas?  Thanks / **** / WD9F

Bill English

I have a 6600M and on 2 occasions in the 2 months or so I have owned it, it has crashed. Anyway that's what the code says. I get 2 red flashes and it reboots. Now I had a 6300 for one year and it never crashed. But I am not too concerned, it's a fairly new radio there will be hiccups. I am sure they will sort it out. It is so random it would be very hard to find I would imagine. But I can assure you, you are not alone :-)

Bill K4FX

Ted VE3TRQ

I have had my 6600M crash once or twice, but only when I did something silly that created RF where I didn’t really want it. No problems any other times. (I only run barefoot.)

Woody Hester

Thanks Bill!  Glad to have some company :-)

Jerry WA3GYG

Jerry  WA3GYG

I had a shut down issue early on and it turned out to be the power supply. When the supply was under load the voltage was dropping and the flex did not like that. I had been sharing the power supply with other equipment also,  but I got a new power supply and dedicated it to the flex. No issues since then.

Good luck
Jerry
WA3GYG

Woody Hester

Thanks Ted.  Should have included this, but I also do not run an amplifier and my display freezes when I am just listening.  Not related to transmitting and my feed line and antenna are clean. No RF in the shack.

Woody Hester

Thanks Jerry.  Power supply is dedicated to 6400M and of more than sufficient amperage, but will check it out just to be sure.

Tim N9PUZ

Mine was not crashing but it developed several quirks with some Dax related controls that seemed to get worse with time. A few weeks ago I did the full reset procedure and it has been solid ever since. It'd be interesting to know what operating system or framework they are using.

Woody Hester

Hi Tim.  Thanks.  Haven't done the full reset yet.  Just opened a ticket with Flex so will see what they suggest.  Hope you had a great weekend! / **** / WD9F

Bobby Pace

My display on my 6400m freezes when I transmit but comes back on after I unkey after a few seconds, sometimes it blacks out for a for a few seconds then will come back on also, I was thinking it was RF related but I’ve tried everything replacing jumpers etc ?

WX7Y

Sure sounds like 1 of 2 things, RF getting back into the display on the radio if this only happens on Transmit, I would go on a hunt and track that down, Does it do it when running low power like 5 watts?

OR it could be your Power Supply and wiring NOT having enough voltage / current, Put a Volt meter across the Power Pole connectors on the back of the radio and see if the voltage drops more then 1.5 volts when you Transmit at 100 Watts if so then I would go on the search as to why it has so much voltage drop.

Bobby Pace

Thanks, I’m still thinking RF it only does it with my amp on, I should have said that from the beginning, I might need to move the amp away from the radio

KD0RC

Hi Bobby,

How close is your operating position to the antenna? How is the antenna fed (end fed, OCF, center fed dipole or beam, etc)? Does the problem happen on all bands? Answers to these questions can be clues as to how the RF is coupling in.

RF gets into gear in the strangest ways. Before moving the amp, I would look at all the station wiring. I have had success in the past by unplugging everything not essential to the signal path. One time it was my mic cable, another time it was my PK-900 TNC (back in my Pactor days...). The RF can run along ground wires, so try removing them temporarily as well (or add them if you are not grounded). If you can get it to transmit with everything possible removed and you still have the issue, you can be fairly sure it is getting in through whatever is left. You can then try clamp-on ferrites on the remaining cabling to see if that solves the issue.

73,

Len, KD0RC

Bobby Pace

Thanks for all the suggestions, I moved the Amp as far away as I could, but also added ferrites on everything other than my antenna feed lines and jumpers even my Mic cables, it worked I’ll maybe do a eliminating test at a later time, Thanks again, W4TSH

KD0RC

Glad you got it working!

Len