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Aurora not transmitting power and Error re-enabling PA, Overcurrent Fault

Joe Bales
Joe Bales Member ✭✭

New Aurora AU-520 received June 5th. Working on 160 Stew Perry last night and after 15 minutes or so was met with zero output power and the following error messages. I had to do a reset of the AU-520 to get the radio going again which I was thrilled worked. I am still very concerned why this happened. My 160 Inverted L is resonant at 1.840 so SWR was not the issue. Anyone else had this troubling event?

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Answers

  • Mike58
    Mike58 Member ✭✭

    I had all the same warnings and was told to reduce the tuner value to 2-3 no more. Have not had any warnings since. My model is the AU-510

  • Joe Bales
    Joe Bales Member ✭✭

    the tuner output slider?

  • Mike58
    Mike58 Member ✭✭

    Yes, sorry.

  • David Decoons, wo2x
    David Decoons, wo2x Member, Super Elmer Moderator

    setting Tune power on all bands to 3% (15 watts) on Aurora disables the High SWR/Return Loss protection. This allows tuners to work without tripping when SWR exceeds safe limit.

    There should have been an errata sheet in the box with the radio.

    73 Dave wo2x

  • Joe Bales
    Joe Bales Member ✭✭

    Did that today on all profiles. Seems like that might have been what was happening. All good after the full reset

  • Mike-VA3MW
    Mike-VA3MW Administrator, FlexRadio Employee, Community Manager, Super Elmer, Moderator admin

    I just answered this in Facebook.

    I spoke with Tony, K1KP, the designer, and his assessment is that the radio experienced an open condition on the antenna port. What does that mean in practice? The fault could be anywhere downstream of the sensors: inside the radio itself, at the SO-239 socket, at a connector, in the feedline, or all the way out at the antenna. SWR tells part of the story, but this kind of event can happen so fast and at higher power levels that only the Aurora (like the PGXL) has the protection circuitry fast enough to catch it. Traditional radios simply would not see it coming. There are also signs that the operator attempted to return to transmit before the faults had fully cleared, which compounds the situation.
    The next step is to isolate the problem by changing variables and seeing if it can be recreated. The most practical starting point is to substitute a known-good jumper cable and dummy load for the antenna and existing jumpers, then attempt to reproduce the fault under controlled conditions. Joe, I would also encourage you to inspect any adapters in the RF path. A 1.84:1 SWR on a 50-ohm system puts the feedpoint impedance at either 92 ohms or 27 ohms depending on the nature of the mismatch. At 500 watts, that works out to approximately 214 V RMS and 303 V peak at 92 ohms, or 116 V RMS and 164 V peak at 27 ohms. Either way, that kind of voltage is more than enough to find a weakness in a marginal connector or a bargain-bin adapter very quickly.

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