On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:52:18 GMT, G wrote:

Howdy Ray.....I don't know your radio specifically but would suggest
initially determining whether you are looking at a bad power circuit
connection which fails under transmit load OR whether there's an
abnormal heavy current condition occurring during transmit. Does the
receiver otherwise work ok?

Yes, all functions work fine except for the battery pull down problem.
If I pull the battery real quick and test it, it's not down for
voltage much and recovers to full voltage in a few minutes so maybe
the battery state LED display is just haywire. It has 2 transmit
settings, 1W and 5W. The 5W is good for about 5 seconds and then the
readout gives a blinking error and transmission stops. It does
transmit well enough to another unit across the yard on the 1W
setting.
It's difficult to get to the battery contacts as they are a recessed,
spring loaded affair and the external power is the typical 1/8" dodad
popular in miniaturization these days.

One place you might look is at any
switching contacts part of a connector for external power or for
external charging. I've found many times particularly with the coaxial
type power connectors that when they use a contact to disconnect the
radio during charging, that this will fail under load.

It's a waterproof hand held for use in salt water environments with
some type of brown paste on all the connections and pass throughs.

You didn't mention whether you experienced a heavy current condition
while testing with your bench supply so I tend to think the situation is
a poor connection. IF it seems that you're into a heavy current
condition during transmit, you might check for a shorted
stage....disconnect power at the final for example to isolate that and
work backwards.

No, I didn't see any indication of a big load. Usually the bench
supply will groan and the voltage meter dips if there's something
exciting about to happen.
Now that I have it open there really is nothing to test or fix or
examine inside- just a maze of surface mount resistors and a central
proprietary chip half the size of a postage stamp. Probably just good
for the CG weather channel now.

Hope this helps get you started.

Gord VE1AJF
Thanks, Gord.