Corsair II Intermittent LED Fix

From the Ten-Tec Reflector March 28, 2004

Several of you have asked what I did on my readout to fix it.

It was simple in this case.

I asked:

The readouts on this radio are intermittent, too. Sometimes they are just fine and sometimes some of the segments fade out. One time I "banged" the side of the rig and they came back on. Do you know if I take off the front panel (and all those 300 knobs) can I get to the LEDs and are they plug-in such that I can exercise the devices in and out of a socket? … I have the screws out right now but am loath to pull all those knobs and such.

From Harry Freeman, NK9R:

No, you don't have to take off the knobs. Just unscrew the top of the aluminium enclosure. The led board is right under it. Unplug it and put a little contact cleaner in the connections and you should be good to go.

I opened it up and found there was a cable of sorts with plugs than ran from the LED boards to a horizontal board. I pulled the plug, noting which way it came off, and cleaned the pins and the sockets on the cable. Plugging it back in, the readouts work perfectly now. It did not look like the LEDs themselves came out but I supected plug to pin contact from the start.

Take care.

73, Jim

Jim Larsen, AL7FS
Anchorage, Alaska

Gang,

I posted this to the Ten Tec group on Contesting.com regarding the fix for my digital display issue on my Corsair II. The original problem was a "frozen" display…ie the tuning knob did not change the frequency on the display, but it was obvious that the receiver was receiving properly and was varying the frequency while I tuned the main tuning knob. On power off, then power on, I was left with a completely blank display, except for the decimal indicator, otherwise the radio was normal. The repair involves replacing a faulty capacitor, C6 (2.2 uf electrolytic), on the digital redout logic board (81246).

The follwoing post to the Ten Tec reflector was in July of 2007, and the fix described in it has been totally successful…(now Jan 1st, 2008 and the rig is still perfect). The original fix was described by KG6TT, so all credit goes to him. I found his information by doing an archive search for "Corsair II display problem" on http://lists.contesting.com/archives//html/TenTec/

Moderator, if this deserves a separate listing from the Intermittent LED fix, please feel free to move this post…it seemed appropriate here for those seeking repair suggestions on the digital display. I hope this helps someone in need.

To: tentec@contesting.com Subject: [TenTec] Thanks to KG6TT, Corsair II display problem solved From: VE5AEA hutchinson@yourlink.ca Reply-to: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment tentec@contesting.com Date: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:32:29 -0600 List-post: <mailto:tentec@contesting.com>

Jerry (and the list),

You've saved my Corsair II a trip back to TN with your writeup on the replacement of the C6 capacitor. I recently had the display freeze up just after the RAC Canada day contest, and powering off the Corsair and then back on left me with a blank display (save for the decimal point). A quick scan on the list archives revealed the identical problem and potential solution. Trying the easy fixes first (cleaning the jumper connections) didn't help. What did work was replacing C6 on the logic board with a fresh 2.2 uf cap. Solved the problem and its been perfect now for the past few days. Kudos to you sir…

73 Dave VE5AEA, N5XL