What I was getting at is that the Microair is more
sensitive to a very slightly low battery voltage than
most glider instruments. When I press the PTT the LX160
does not complain about low battery voltage which means
it's not going below 10V.

My main battery is a 12V 12Ah Yuasa, it was new in
March and has only been charged about a dozen times
with an appropriate battery charger. It is expected
to run an Ipaq (up to 2A more likely 0.5A) an LX160s,
the radio and from time to time an artificial horizon
(peak current 2A, 1.6A when running) it will run all
of this kit for up to eight hours (tested in flight).
This probably causes the battery voltage to fall to
round about 10.5-11V after about 3 hours use. This
is enough to upset the Microair. The fin battery is
12V 7Ah made up of two 6V 7Ah Yuasa batteries, it also
was new in March but I keep it as a backup to ensure
I'm never without a horizon in the event of the main
battery going down, I've had to resort to using the
fin battery to power the radio because that's the only
way to get reliable transmission out of the Microair.

There could be two possible causes for this. The voltage
out of the main battery is down slightly under load
and the Microair doesen't like it. Or, another device
is putting electrical noise on the 12V line and the
Microair doesen't like that.

I'm not going to go for a 14V battery, strapping a
mismatched 2V cell to a 12V battery is a truly awful
solution to bady designed instruments that won't work
properly with a 12V battery.

We have similar problems with the Microair 760 fitted
to one of the club's Puchacz, if the battery voltage
is slightly low the radio won't transmit even though
the vario and turn and slip work fine.

At 14:54 01 September 2003, Cdubya wrote:
Here's a simple test for you. Put a voltmeter across
the battery terminals
of the fin battery and record the voltage when you
key the radio. Then do
the same on your main battery which you said works
fine. You will most
likely see a lower reading on the fin battery. If
the battery no longer has
the capacity to trade current for voltage than this
test will show that.
The radios have voltage regulators in them but they
need something to
regulate. Usually a volt or two above the desired
output. I am betting a
new battery is all you need. Craig



Andrew Warbrick wrote in message
...
My Microair seems to be very sensitive to low battery
voltage and to noise on its power supply. It receives
fine connected to either battery but I can only transmit
successfully when it's connected to my fin battery
and the main battery is running everything else. I'm
considering a 12 to 15V DC to DC converter to keep
it happy but at about 50 pounds it will be a pricey
fix (though not as pricey as buying a Becker).

At 19:06 30 August 2003, Dfkroesch wrote:
I traded in a Microair that I was unhappy with for
a Becker that I have been
very happy with...That was the expensive way to buy
a Becker.

Some people seem to have good luck with their Microairs
and a lot of others do
not.