Pete KE9OA wrote:
That's the problem with second hand radios............if yours is having
that problem. Most of the stuff I've seen lately has been junk. It seems
that many of the hamfest folks (not all of them) are following eBay's
tradition. At the last hamfest I attended (Radio Expo), I ended up with a
100% average........................I had to repair everything. Of course,
everything was misrepresented as "working fine". On the subject of your
radio, I have purchased radios over the years that do hold their memory, but
they did have some of those weird problems. Replacing the backup battery
cured the problem. And then, there is the other side of the
coin.............this is the one where somebody replaces the backup battery
and subjects the uP to ESD. End of story, unless you are adept at replacing
quad flat-pack ICs (not too hard, but you need the right technique). It also
helps if you have a stereo microscope when replacing one of these devices.


Here is my take on the likely problem with the radio. I have a Kenwood
TM241a mobile radio that had a similar problem. It turns out that a LOT
of them did. The connector from the main board to the display has
problems in this unit. I took the unit apart, cleaned the connector,
with DeOxit, and after reassembly, it works fine. Some people have
written about using a soldering iron to beef up the connector pins on
the circuit board. I suspect that this may be your problem. It is about
a half hour job, if that.

Hope this helps!

- Mike KB3EIA -