Micro Air transmission-garbled

[[email protected]]

We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This is the 5th one we
have installed. All have worked great except this last one receives
perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled. The boom mic is a
Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?

Thanks

Kurt

[Ray Lovinggood]

Do you have enough power delivered to the radio?

There are two privately owned ships in our club with
Microair's. Mine is one. Sometimes, my transmissions
were garbled, so I was told. Also, the other ship's
transmissions were garbled. Both of us had our panels
rewired by a professional avionics shop ('Sparkchasers'
located at KJNX, Johnston County Airport, North Carolina,
USA). Since doing so, I have not heard of any complaints
about my transmissions and my friend's transmissions
from his Microair are nice and clear now.

BUT, that's not all of the story. Our two club ships
had Microairs. 'Had' is the operative word here.
I think each radio was sent back to Oz once and maybe
twice. While not 'professionally' wired, the ships
were 'competently' wired (as opposed to mine, that
was originally wired by me....bad mistake!) It just
seems that some Microairs work and some, well, maybe
don't.

I'm currently happy with mine.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

At 02:42 05 June 2007, wrote:
>We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This
>is the 5th one we
>have installed. All have worked great except this
>last one receives
>perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled.
> The boom mic is a
>Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?
>
>Thanks
>
>Kurt
>
>

[1sl]

Mine had the same problem when first installed. There was too great a
voltage drop using the old wiring through the glider's master power
switch. Once I bypassed this switch, the unit worked very well. Of
course, I didn't discover this until I had rewired the unit a second
time, thinking I must have made some mistake on the first attempt.



wrote:
> We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This is the 5th one we
> have installed. All have worked great except this last one receives
> perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled. The boom mic is a
> Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?
>
> Thanks
>
> Kurt
>

[Michael Ash]

wrote:
> We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This is the 5th one we
> have installed. All have worked great except this last one receives
> perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled. The boom mic is a
> Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?

You might try adjusting the mic gain. If it's like the one I was working
with last week there's a mic gain adjustment under a sticky label on the
side. If it's turned up too high then there can be problems with garbled
transmissions and feedback.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

[Bill Daniels]

I think the previous respnders got it right. The Microair is not tolerant
of low voltage nor mis-set mike gain. Mine came with the mike gain set for
an airplane which had to be increased for a quiet glider cockpit. Mine
garbles at about 11.5V.

This is not to say that there might not be other problems with your radio
but it's a place to start.

Bill Daniels


"Michael Ash" > wrote in message
...
> wrote:
>> We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This is the 5th one we
>> have installed. All have worked great except this last one receives
>> perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled. The boom mic is a
>> Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?
>
> You might try adjusting the mic gain. If it's like the one I was working
> with last week there's a mic gain adjustment under a sticky label on the
> side. If it's turned up too high then there can be problems with garbled
> transmissions and feedback.
>
> --
> Michael Ash
> Rogue Amoeba Software

[Discus 44]

On Jun 4, 7:37 pm, wrote:
> We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This is the 5th one we
> have installed. All have worked great except this last one receives
> perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled. The boom mic is a
> Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?
>
> Thanks
>
> Kurt

One other possibility is a bad microphone. I bought an XCOM and the
boom mic which is the same microphone as Microair where the core of
the microphone was bad. No amount of adjusting the gain or any other
normal adjustments woud fix it. The XCOM engineers and Paul Remde at
Cumulus Soaring sorted it out and replaced it with a new one and the
problem was solved. They also grounded the shield of the microphone
cable right at the mount and at the radio end which helped with the
"noise" level in the line.

Tom

[[email protected]]

On Jun 5, 9:42 am, Discus 44 > wrote:
> On Jun 4, 7:37 pm, wrote:
>
> > We installed a new Micro Air in a sailplane. This is the 5th one we
> > have installed. All have worked great except this last one receives
> > perfectly, but when transmitting it sounds garbled. The boom mic is a
> > Micro Air. Anyone have an idea what this could be?
>
> > Thanks
>
> > Kurt
>
> One other possibility is a bad microphone. I bought an XCOM and the
> boom mic which is the same microphone as Microair where the core of
> the microphone was bad. No amount of adjusting the gain or any other
> normal adjustments woud fix it. The XCOM engineers and Paul Remde at
> Cumulus Soaring sorted it out and replaced it with a new one and the
> problem was solved. They also grounded the shield of the microphone
> cable right at the mount and at the radio end which helped with the
> "noise" level in the line.
>
> Tom

Thnaks for all the advice!

Kurt

[rhumcat]

I have just received my Microair 760 back from repair by Rick Lord at
Erie Aviation. It too had garbled transmissions. Had the opportunity
to use it on Saturday and the reviews are in. "It sounds like you are
in a radio studio." "The transmission has fidelity! More base
response than an AM radio." "Loud AND clear."
Apparently it had a faulty ground and poor FM shielding. I have no
idea what that means but Rick Lord is a radio wizard and the fix was
inexpensive with a turn-around time of less than a week. ( I also
replaced the original electret mic with an Amplified Dynamic mic. I
thought I try that before sending the unit in but it didn't help the
garbling. It probably helps with the "fidelity").
My 2 Cents
Gene