Tuner Genius Failure.

Mike Steventon

Hello.

I received my TGXL on 8 February 2022.

I have had my Tuner Genius really successfully working, and have been thrilled with it until this morning. I have it on LAN to PC, FlexRadio 6600M, NO amplifier, all the correct utilities and software etc.

Suddenly, as of this morning, it will not tune to 30M, 40M, 60M, 80M, 160M. All the higher bands i.e. 30,17,15,12,10,6 are working excellently. I have eliminated as far as I can see anything I am doing wrong. I have replaced the antenna with a dummy load for testing. I have the tune power set to 20 Watts, and the TX Delay set to 30ms since I installed the TGXL. The tuner behaves exactly correctly on the higher bands, but it will not "tune" the dummy load on all the lower bands, nor even my antennas. It shows a very high SWR, which of course it should not do. I have tried re-configure, I have tried re-installing Firmware 1.1.6 to the instructions in the manual. I conclude there must be a failure in the TGXL, quite possibly mechanical in nature.  

Has anyone else had a similar problem? Or could shed light onto what to do??

Thanks. Mike G4GWH.

Mike Steventon

Sorry, that should read 20,17,15,12,10. NOT 30,17,15,12,10. Oops!

Mike

David Decoons, wo2x

Are you sure radio didn’t get changed to wrong antenna out on lower bands?

WX7Y

What Antenna are you using, Feedline, Balun with Power Rating Ect? I don't see you commented on that.

What is the SWR on the bad bands with the Tuner bypassed?

Do you have the Radio Antenna tuner enabled or disabled when the Tuner Genius is inline?

You definitely can't have the Radio Tuner enabled with the Tuner Genius!

With the Tuner Genius disabled out of line does the 6600M Tuner tune the Antenna on those bands.

Sometimes a bad tunning solution is memorized and you have to do a Manual tune so it can overwrite the bad memory.

I don't know if just reloading the same firmware will reset the memories so I would load version 1.1.1 then Power the tuner down and back up and reconfigure it and then try tuning hopefully it will tune those Antenna's If it does then Reload 1.1.6, Power the Tuner down and turn it back on and reconfigure.

The Power Cycle in my station is very important to have everything come up right.

Mike Steventon

Inspired by the comments received, I had another go this morning, checking, double checking, and checking again setting up the TGXL. I really hoped that it was me at fault. However, I got exactly the same response from the TGXL. Immediately prior to the setting up, I had wired in my trusty Palstar AT2K just to confirm the antenna is behaving correctly on all the bands I am interested in, as it always had been anyway. Palstar manual tuning was, as usual, excellent, and I also checked it into my dummy load, with excellent results. So, using all the same gear except replacing the AT2K with the TGXL, I am afraid gave me the same problem as advised in my discussion topic. Even into a dummy load, the TGXL would not tune, and the L!, L2, and C values sat at 0,0,0., with a screamingly high SWR on the lower bands. I tried to manually tune, but there was no way on the lower bands that I could tune out the red-led line on the display. As this issue only appears on the lower frequency bands, I am wondering if somewhere in the TGXL circuitry there is a split point in the logic that sends the signal down two separate paths, one for above 20M, and one for below 20M.??? It is only two weeks old so I may have to return it for replacement or fix........

The TGXL at all times was successfully tracking all frequency and band changes at all times, so I know that I have correctly configured via Utility, and LAN etc etc. The 6600M is set specifically bypassing it's internal ATU. I am quite paranoid about that am am frequently checking the setting!!! It was supplied with Firmware 1.1.6, and I searched for 1.1.1 but could not find it. As it was working fine for the first week or so and then stopped working on switch-on in the morning, I do not think it could be bad firmware, could it?

My antenna is a half-wave 40M end-fed inverted "L" with loading coil and tail for 80M and a 1KW 49:1 UNUN. It is fed with Messi and Paoloni Ultraflex 7, I have two, not one(!) Balun Designs 5KW Common Mode Chokes in the feed at start and end. I have a 8Ft. copper grounding rod at the bottom of the antenna instead of radials. I do not run QRO, the most I ever put out is 100W. The antenna gives really good results and using my RigExpert Antenna analyser shows very acceptable low SWR's on all the main bands, so the ATU is there just to tweek the final bit at band-edges etc.

I have written direct to 4O3A so will see what they have to say about it.

Thanks for your responses

73 de Mike G4GWH

Mike Steventon

Post script:

I have downloaded the FlexRadio website TGXL utility and the device has now reset to Firmware 1.1.1. Unfortunately I still have the same problem as with firmware 1.1.6.

Mike.

WX7Y

I would send an Email to 4o3a support and see what they have to tell you as well as a FLEX trouble ticket then.

Flex may or may not require you to have their 1.1.1 version loaded to do trouble shooting with them so you may want to have it ready if you need to install it.

Sorry I should have told you about going to the FLEX downloads for version 1.1.1

Good luck and kind of sucks having a NEW tuner crater but better then not being in warrantee and FLEX is wonderful on their warrantee service side of things.

Mike Steventon

Good call, Bret. I have raised a support ticket with Flex.

Thanks for all remarks and sympathy!

Mike.

Mike Steventon

Just an update; Flex helpdesk-desk support again proved itself worthy. Very quick on the up-take, and decisive. I doubt we would get such after-sales support from many other organisations.

TGXL being returned to Montenegro for hopefully a trivial repair.

If I find out what was wrong, I will post the info here, so that others can benefit just case it may happen again.

Mike.