McMurdo F1

[Nick]

Got a reply from McMurdo's product support manager re. my query about he radio (sent last night) before half past nine this morning - very impressed.

He said they don't support that model any more but would help me in this case if I sent them the radio, which I thought was very good of them. I'll send it as soon as we get home.

So for McMurdos . . .

[Nick]

Correspondence with McMurdo shown below.

I think it is some sort of progressive component failure with the radio.

-----Original Message-----
> From: Barry Lee>
Sent: 22 May 2007 09:59
> To: Nick Bowles
> Subject: RE: Problem with McMurdo F1 DSC Marine VHF with DSC
>
>
> Dear Sir
> Thank you for your reply , we will as you say take a look at it for you
> on your return.
> You may if you wish carry out a couple of checks to confirm that the
> problem is with the radio.
> Try unplugging the antenna ,If it remains the same then it is a problem
> with in the radio.
> But if the problem goes it maybe a noise problem .
> If this is the case try switching every thing off on the boat to see if
> the problems goes away.
> Best Regards
> Barry Lee
> Product support Manager
> McMurdo

Hi Barry,

We just tried the emergency VHF antenna - same result. Sometimes no interference with the squelch turned ALL the way up for a few seconds, but it comes back. It could be varied by moving the aerial, and the strange thing was when my wife gripped the end of the 'rubber duck' on the emergency antenna the interference stopped. This was the only thing that stopped it.

Interference on other channels is bad but can be cancelled with a lot of squelch. We switched everything off - even the gas alarm - but it made no difference.

When we reverted back to the masthead VHF aerial it was the same, the only difference being that when I tried switching things on and off to see if it made any difference switching on the masthead tricolour LED gave us the same interference on the other channels as well.

We have had this inteference intermittently on Ch16 before, on first switching the set on when leaving harbour, but previously it has always gone away after a few minutes.I had wondered before if it was a developing fault. Perhaps some component in the set has become defective, making the set much more susceptible to anything in the environment that could cause interference.

Anyway, thanks very much for getting back to us. Any more thoughts in light of these tests would be gratefully received, otherwise we will return the set to you in August for you to have a look at.

Best Regards,

Nick Bowles