R8600 Issue with my ic-r8600

palmerjrusa · Dec 9, 2018

Has anyone noticed the following with their ic-r8600?

First thing in the morning I power up the radio tuned to 6000 kHz centered on the scope (5 MHz span), squelch is set to zero. Initially, it's as if the radio has no antenna connected (I have an external antenna hooked up to the radio) there's virtually no RF activity. This despite being able to receive signals around 6000 kHz on my handheld Yaesu VX-6R sitting next to me with its original rubber duck antenna.

Then, after a few secs or it could be several minutes, the receiver roars into life and the spectrum scope becomes active with signals present.

iMONITOR · Dec 9, 2018

Time required for tubes to warm up?

Ok, seriously are you using the proper power supply, 13.8vdc, 2.0 amps?

palmerjrusa · Dec 9, 2018

iMONITOR said:
Time required for tubes to warm up?

Ok, seriously are you using the proper power supply, 13.8vdc, 2.0 amps?

Yep, the receiver's powered by a Yaesu FP-1023 (13.8 VDC at 23 Amps).

RFI-EMI-GUY · Dec 9, 2018

sounds like a sluggish reference oscillator..

AOR-262 · Dec 9, 2018

Is your Firmware upto date? If not, get that updated to the latest version which I believe is v1.33.

I'd make a full backup of the receivers memory and settings to an SD Card. Then do a Full Reset. See if that makes any difference. If not run tests on the power supply your using -- check the output voltage and run an ammeter in line to check how much power (amps) the PSU is delivering to the receiver. It should be drawing around 13.5v @2A.

palmerjrusa · Dec 9, 2018

Thanks for the input guys.
I'm gonna follow what happens in the next few days, see if it's consistently reproducible.
I'm sure it's not the power supply.
Gonna try the doing a full reset as well.
Will report back the results.

palmerjrusa · Dec 9, 2018

AOR-262 said:
Is your Firmware upto date? If not, get that updated to the latest version which I believe is v1.33.

I'd make a full backup of the receivers memory and settings to an SD Card. Then do a Full Reset. See if that makes any difference. If not run tests on the power supply your using -- check the output voltage and run an ammeter in line to check how much power (amps) the PSU is delivering to the receiver. It should be drawing around 13.5v @2A.

Forgot to mention, yes the firmware is up to date, I'm running v1.33.

Ubbe · Dec 9, 2018

Isn't it like a mobile phone that when it powers up reads a lot of stored information and moves to RAM memory? It takes almost a minute before you can use the phone if you had it switched off.

When starting up a very cpu hungry process like a bandscope it probably takes a long time before every process have been started and running and the order of processes will determine when the actual RF receive process are up and running. Can you compare to when you leave it in some other mode that doesn't have a bandscope when turning it off and see what that will do to the startup process? I think this is a normal behaviour for any device, especially Linux driven ones but do not know what the 8600 uses for its OS and how powerful its cpu are.

/Ubbe

palmerjrusa · Dec 9, 2018

Ubbe said:
Isn't it like a mobile phone that when it powers up reads a lot of stored information and moves to RAM memory? It takes almost a minute before you can use the phone if you had it switched off.

When starting up a very cpu hungry process like a bandscope it probably takes a long time before every process have been started and running and the order of processes will determine when the actual RF receive process are up and running. Can you compare to when you leave it in some other mode that doesn't have a bandscope when turning it off and see what that will do to the startup process? I think this is a normal behaviour for any device, especially Linux driven ones but do not know what the 8600 uses for its OS and how powerful its cpu are.

/Ubbe

Thanks for the input, that's an interesting angle to consider.
For the next few days I'm going to try and reproduce the effect to see if there's any consistency then alter one variable at a time. It is strange, the receiver powers up fully, but the spectrumscope looks almost as if there's no antenna connected, then anything from a few secs to several minutes later it bursts into life.

Will report back my findings.

n2pqq · Dec 9, 2018

palmerjrusa said:
Has anyone noticed the following with their ic-r8600?

First thing in the morning I power up the radio tuned to 6000 kHz centered on the scope (5 MHz span), squelch is set to zero. Initially, it's as if the radio has no antenna connected (I have an external antenna hooked up to the radio) there's virtually no RF activity. This despite being able to receive signals around 6000 kHz on my handheld Yaesu VX-6R sitting next to me with its original rubber duck antenna.

Then, after a few secs or it could be several minutes, the receiver roars into life and the spectrum scope becomes active with signals present.

I would think the yaesu is hearing stuff that is not there,
First thing in the morning translates to what time ?

This might help
Shortwave - Worldband Radio Stations - Best Time To Listen to Shortwave Frequencies

Try turning on the radio on that frequency when it is dark outside .

Problem solved ?

palmerjrusa · Dec 9, 2018

n2pqq said:
I would think the yaesu is hearing stuff that is not there,
First thing in the morning translates to what time ?

This might help
Shortwave - Worldband Radio Stations - Best Time To Listen to Shortwave Frequencies

Try turning on the radio on that frequency when it is dark outside .

Problem solved ?

Around 0600 EST.

Been listening to the HF bands since I was around 8 years old, the signal on my Yaesu VX-6R is real. It also appears on the ic-r8600 when the spectrumscope bursts into life.

ridgescan · Dec 9, 2018

Mine has done this thing twice since I got it in August. On the second occurrence, I just hit the MScope button twice and it came in immediately. Has not happened since. But here, I had Rx at power up but no scope.

n2pqq · Dec 9, 2018

I have been using the matching power supply since day one
and have had no problems.

https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/widerxvr/66850086.html

For such a nice radio I think it's worth the investment.

palmerjrusa · Dec 10, 2018

Well, this morning I powered it up and everything looks fine, it immediately came to life.
Will check again every day this week.

palmerjrusa · Dec 10, 2018

ridgescan said:
Mine has done this thing twice since I got it in August. On the second occurrence, I just hit the MScope button twice and it came in immediately. Has not happened since. But here, I had Rx at power up but no scope.

The only other glitch I've noticed with my unit is after having it set to scan the memories in group 19 it refused to start scanning again after stopping on one of the stored frequencies. Turning it off and powering it back up again resolved this issue.

palmerjrusa · Dec 15, 2018

Carefully monitored the situation all this week.

After checking various settings a few days ago this issue has not resurfaced. In fact, I swear it was adjusting the RF gain control one morning a few days back that appeared to cure the problem, i.e. I reduced the RF setting slightly (it was at 100%) and the spectrumscope burst into life.

Coincidence?
I've no idea but since then there's been no recurrence of this problem.

R8600 Issue with my ic-r8600

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