REFLECTOR:Headset Heartache

[Chuck Jensen]

John,

The deafening Reflector silience on this problem is probably confirmation
that we're all stronger on mechanical than electrical. Sunday, I did a
follow up test flight (to my bad Saturday trip) and isolated the alternator
and every system I could think of per Brian's suggestion to be methodical
and systematic.  Nothing affected, reduced or eliminated the crackling. 

So, this morning, I got the av shop to commit a tech and I agreed to go down
to the aerodome so I could run the engine for him to aid in the
troubleshooting, since it is quiet running on batteries.  I fired it
up...nothing.  Not a snap, crackle, or pop.  I couldn't take it out for a
hop, which sometimes induces or aggravate the problem, since we were 1/4 and
100. I'm going to try again this afternoon.  The only time the problem is
intermittant is when the radio guy is looking at it!

I concur with your guessestimate that it's related to a short (or
non-ground) somewhere.  Because, after I had the wiring cleaned up and it
was definitely isolated from the metal fixture, my magic touch no longer
worked.

Then again, maybe through prayer, it healed itself!

Chuck Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-admin@tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-admin@tvbf.org]On
Behalf Of RJohn15183@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 10:03 AM
To: reflector@tvbf.org
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR:Headset Heartache


In a message dated 9/20/2003 7:37:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
cjensen@dts9000.com writes:

> I endured an hour of it during which I could just barely 
> make out Flight Following.  After about an
> hour, the crackling paused occasionally, then stopped 
> altogether for the next hour. Then, after landing, it 
> started up again. 

I want to start off by saying Avionics/electrical is my weakest area.  Since
there has not been many responses I'll just throw out some ideas. 

As I read at first I thought it was classic static build up until you said
"Then, after landing, it started up again." I never heard of static starting
after landing? if it was though then I would think you have a bad ground
somewhere in the system. Static aside for some reason I keep thinking it's a
grounding problem. Weird electrical problem often are on grounding problems
on spam can's sine they normally just ground to the closest chunk of
aluminum. over the years contact get corroded or loosed then all kinds of
weird lighting or fuel gauge etc problems occur. 

I would check your forward grounding block connections and confirm they are
getting all the way to the engine just to make sure??

However, other than the part about touching the jack point CONSISTENTLY
making it better it sounds exactly like a problem I had few years ago when I
bought a new radio. It was an intermittent problem and it drove me and the
radio shop nuts. (and sometimes it did seem like wiggling the jacks helped
which kinda threw us off for a while) It turned out the mounting tray was
bad. It was not making a good, solid connection with the radio.  

Hope this core dump helps in some way...

DM Rob
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