Saturday 6th July 2013

After brunch I went down to the transmitter building to perform some tests on my Flex 5000 transceiver only to confirm what I already knew. Several weeks ago now, after taking off my fleece I picked up the external PTT cable and a large static spark zapped across to the centre pin taking out the cmos I/O chip destroying the PTT function on SSB. I performed many tests and checks to see what was working and what was destroyed. I diagnosed the fault to a very small surface mount PCA9555 16-bit I2C-bus I/O port chip. What a bloody shame. I have contacted the manufacture to see if they would be kind enough to send me a replacement board on the first flight in some time around November, but I won’t hold my breath on the answer. So now my amplifier and transceiver is kaput. On a positive note I can still use the transceiver for moon bounce, CW and digital modes so all is not lost. Static electricity is a real problem down here caused by the extremely dry air and constant blowing snow. It's a common problem and we are always getting zapped and equipment blowing up. I always try and discharge my self on a door frame as I enter a building but strait away you start charging up again. After dinner we watched “Meet the parents”, a sequel to last weeks movie.

That's it right there, IC26 pin 7