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SL30. What's it going to sound like today?

Redbud40

Well Known Member
Sometimes it sounds great, other times sounds like, well, not so great, borderline unreadable. Unit seems to get really warm but just did a theee hour flight with it feeling " hot ' sounded fine the whole time. Today in pattern sounded horrible. The send if off program for 5 -600 bucks sounds like allot. Thought it might be at high power settings, but disproved that today as well. Seems to always sound good on the ground taxiing out. Thoughts?
 
I have the exact same problem with my SL60 (COM/GPS). A couple of years ago I sent it to Garmin for the flat rate repair (~$500) simply because Garmin announced the unit would no longer be maintained. It doesn't work any better (or worse) than it did before I sent it in.

I assume my problem is within the wiring or antenna installation, though I have never been able to diagnose it.

Good luck,
 
Just a quick, rule this out, trick. When its sounding crappy, grab your headset conncectors and move them around. if there are any other headsets plugged in, unplug them.

Gotta do it while its actually happening. So, it might be good to have a safety pilot.

I had this same gripe. Turns out a USB power supply (non-certified) was causing audio intereference. Moved the connectors around and moved the USB brick, problem solved.
 
Sometimes it sounds great, other times sounds like, well, not so great, borderline unreadable. Unit seems to get really warm but just did a theee hour flight with it feeling " hot ' sounded fine the whole time. Today in pattern sounded horrible. The send if off program for 5 -600 bucks sounds like allot. Thought it might be at high power settings, but disproved that today as well. Seems to always sound good on the ground taxiing out. Thoughts?

My SL30 use to do the same thing. It would intermittently sound like it was slightly off frequency.

It went to Garmin AT in Oregon for a flat rate repair. They had a hard time finding the issue and even phone me to ask questions. The radio came back and has work perfectly since.
 
I had a similar issue with my ICOM 210.

The solution was to remove the screws, one at a time, holding the Comant antenna on and gave the screw hole a couple of turns with my deburring tool, put some dielectric grease on the screw and put it back on. Problem solved.

This trick makes sure your antenna is getting a good ground.
 
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