KX-155 repair history

[Dave Butler]

We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently stops
navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has a KX-155 that
won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs on his KX-155.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard in
NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there is?

Thanks,

Dave

[Newps]

Dave Butler wrote:

>
> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard
> in NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there
> is?

I wouldn't say the 155 is the gold standard. They were 15 years ago.
Now King is getting dangerously close to Narco territory. They have
been so hopelessly outclassed the last decade in GPS and Comm technology
I'd be suprised if they can come back. I have an Apollo SL40 in my 182
and love it, the SL30 is the same thing with a Nav. Now however they
are a part of the Garmin family and are still being sold.

[Dave Butler]

Newps wrote:
>
>
> Dave Butler wrote:
>
>>
>> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold
>> standard in NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the
>> best there is?
>
>
> I wouldn't say the 155 is the gold standard. They were 15 years ago.
> Now King is getting dangerously close to Narco territory. They have
> been so hopelessly outclassed the last decade in GPS and Comm technology
> I'd be suprised if they can come back. I have an Apollo SL40 in my 182
> and love it, the SL30 is the same thing with a Nav. Now however they
> are a part of the Garmin family and are still being sold.
>

I thought they were attractive and have seen some good reviews of them. They are
listed on the Garmin web site under "discontinued products".
http://www.garmin.com/aviation/products.html#discontinued

[Roy Smith]

In article >,
Dave Butler > wrote:

> We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently stops
> navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has a KX-155
> that
> won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs on his KX-155.
>
> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard in
> NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there is?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave

The KX-155 was the gold standard 10 or 15 years ago. These days,
they're getting pretty long in the tooth. My club has stopped doing any
repairs to our KX-155's, and is replacing them with newer stuff when
they need any kind of repair. If you finally solve whatever problem is
vexing you now, 6 months from now, you'll lose a couple of segments on
the display, or something else will go wrong.

Our radio of choice these days for a stand-alone nav/com is the
Apollo/Garmin SL-30. Even if you don't take advantage of the system
integration features which let it talk to a GPS, it's got a bunch of
really nice features like dual frequency monitor, built-in CDI, auto
ident for navaids, etc. And it takes up about 1/3 the space in your
panel that the KX-155 does.

[Roy Smith]

In article >,
Dave Butler > wrote:

> Newps wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dave Butler wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold
> >> standard in NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the
> >> best there is?
> >
> >
> > I wouldn't say the 155 is the gold standard. They were 15 years ago.
> > Now King is getting dangerously close to Narco territory. They have
> > been so hopelessly outclassed the last decade in GPS and Comm technology
> > I'd be suprised if they can come back. I have an Apollo SL40 in my 182
> > and love it, the SL30 is the same thing with a Nav. Now however they
> > are a part of the Garmin family and are still being sold.
> >
>
> I thought they were attractive and have seen some good reviews of them. They
> are
> listed on the Garmin web site under "discontinued products".
> http://www.garmin.com/aviation/products.html#discontinued

Huh? The SL-30 and SL-40 aren't discontinued. The list of discontinued
products is at the bottom of the page.

[Newps]

Dave Butler wrote:

> I thought they were attractive and have seen some good reviews of them.
> They are listed on the Garmin web site under "discontinued products".
> http://www.garmin.com/aviation/products.html#discontinued

I saw that too and thought they were discontinued but then I looked at
the other products on the page which clearly are not discontiuned. So
it's a poorly designed site. The SL30/40 are still available.

[Dave Butler]

Roy Smith wrote:
> In article >,
> Dave Butler > wrote:
>
>
>>Newps wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Dave Butler wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold
>>>>standard in NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the
>>>>best there is?
>>>
>>>
>>>I wouldn't say the 155 is the gold standard. They were 15 years ago.
>>>Now King is getting dangerously close to Narco territory. They have
>>>been so hopelessly outclassed the last decade in GPS and Comm technology
>>>I'd be suprised if they can come back. I have an Apollo SL40 in my 182
>>>and love it, the SL30 is the same thing with a Nav. Now however they
>>>are a part of the Garmin family and are still being sold.
>>>
>>
>>I thought they were attractive and have seen some good reviews of them. They
>>are
>>listed on the Garmin web site under "discontinued products".
>>http://www.garmin.com/aviation/products.html#discontinued
>
>
> Huh? The SL-30 and SL-40 aren't discontinued. The list of discontinued
> products is at the bottom of the page.

Ahhhh. Good. Thanks.

[Ken Pruchnick]

Dave Butler > wrote in message >...
> We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently stops
> navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has a KX-155 that
> won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs on his KX-155.
>
> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard in
> NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there is?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave


Hi Dave
The first thing you can do is to swap out your KX-155 with a known
good one and see if the problem stays with the aircraft or the radio.
Perhaps your friend that has the transmit problem.

[Dave Butler]

Ken Pruchnick wrote:
> Dave Butler > wrote in message >...
>
>>We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently stops
>>navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has a KX-155 that
>>won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs on his KX-155.
>>
>>The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard in
>>NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there is?
>>
>
> Hi Dave
> The first thing you can do is to swap out your KX-155 with a known
> good one and see if the problem stays with the aircraft or the radio.
> Perhaps your friend that has the transmit problem.

Hi Ken,

Yes, exactly, thanks. We're working out how to do just that.

My reason for posting was thinking more long term. We probably have a panel
upgrade coming up in the next year. I was looking for input on whether to stay
with the KX-155 or jump to some other technology. We'll probably have a NAV/COMM
integrated in whatever GPS we buy, but I'd like to have one NAV/COMM that's
standalone, not integrated with anything. Just for simplicity of operation. So I
was wondering whether that should be a KX-155 or something else.

Dave

[[email protected]]

Just curious... Are you asking about the KX-155 or the newer KX-155A?
The 155A came out about 4 years ago. The KX155 is no longer sold.


Dave Butler wrote:
> We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently stops
> navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has a
> KX-155 that won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs on
> his KX-155.
>
> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard
> in NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there
> is?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave
>

[Dave Butler]

wrote:
> Just curious... Are you asking about the KX-155 or the newer KX-155A?
> The 155A came out about 4 years ago. The KX155 is no longer sold.

KX-155. Is the repair history answer different for the KX-155A? ... and what's
the difference (I guess I can google for that part).

>
>
> Dave Butler wrote:
>
>> We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently
>> stops navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has
>> a KX-155 that won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs
>> on his KX-155.
>>
>> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold
>> standard in NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the
>> best there is?

[Doug]

Intermitant problems ARE hard to fix. Hard to fix it if it isn't
broken. I have a KX155 and it has been pretty solid. Also, avionics
techs KNOW them and like to fix them. They know how to fix them. They
are built to be repairable. They have individual components that can
be changed. You don't have to "swap out a board".

70% of failures in electrical equipment are CONNECTIONS. I'd look
there.

Dave Butler > wrote in message >...
> We're having some problems with our KX-155 where it intermittently stops
> navigating. Several attempts at repair have failed. A friend has a KX-155 that
> won't transmit. Another friend had a series of repairs on his KX-155.
>
> The conventional wisdom seems to be that the KX-155 is the gold standard in
> NAV/COMMs, but I have these anecdotal gripes. Are they the best there is?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave

[Ron Natalie]

"Dave Butler" > wrote in message ...
> wrote:
> > Just curious... Are you asking about the KX-155 or the newer KX-155A?
> > The 155A came out about 4 years ago. The KX155 is no longer sold.
>
> KX-155. Is the repair history answer different for the KX-155A? ... and what's
> the difference (I guess I can google for that part).
>
About 10 years or so. Ever look inside them?

[Dave Butler]

Ron Natalie wrote:
> "Dave Butler" > wrote in message ...
>
wrote:
>>
>>>Just curious... Are you asking about the KX-155 or the newer KX-155A?
>>>The 155A came out about 4 years ago. The KX155 is no longer sold.
>>
>>KX-155. Is the repair history answer different for the KX-155A? ... and what's
>>the difference (I guess I can google for that part).
>>
>
> About 10 years or so. Ever look inside them?

No, I haven't. Is it a different generation of technology?

I see the KX-155A is 28 volt only, so not very useful to me, anyway.

DGB