Dittel Internal Battery Replacement Cost

[[email protected]]

My Dittel radio stopped working this spring so it sent it out. I was told that it was the internal battery had died and needed to be replaced. The final cost was $380 which included three hours labor and an inspection. I was quite surprised at that number. And three hours to replace a battery & inspect? Do those numbers seem reasonable? This was my first foray into avionics repair so maybe I'm just naive.

[Tim Newport-Peace[_2_]]

At 13:22 10 June 2015, wrote:
>My Dittel radio stopped working this spring so it sent it out. I was told
>t=
>hat it was the internal battery had died and needed to be replaced. The
>fin=
>al cost was $380 which included three hours labor and an inspection. I
was
>=
>quite surprised at that number. And three hours to replace a battery &
>insp=
>ect? Do those numbers seem reasonable? This was my first foray into
>avionic=
>s repair so maybe I'm just naive.
>
What Model?
Please be more specific than "not working". Internal batteries usually have
a 10 year life.

As I recall, internal batteries on radios are there to hold memory of
stored frequencies etc. Not sure if that qualifies as 'not working'.

Nonetheless, $380 sounds a lot, and it should not take 3 hours to replace a
bettery.

Perhaps you should mention the shop in question.

[[email protected]]

Dittel FSG71M. It was not working as in - nothing. No display, no transmit, no receive. Like the power was turned off. Peninsula Avionics in Florida was the shop. I heard they had a good reputation. The internal battery had not been replaced in at least 13 years and that wasn't by me. I thought that it wouldn't hold channels in memory with a dead internal but, apparently, it causes the whole thing to shut down.

[Ross[_3_]]

The 71M will still work if the memory battery is dead. It is only there to store channels.
By the sounds of it they did more than just replace the memory battery.
I can do that in about 20 mins. Open the top cover, remove the old one and solder in the new one. Replace top cover. Done.

Still the best and most reliable place to have any work done is with Anton Lang in Germany. He has all the spares you can ever need.