[K3PZN-List] UHF repeater repaired

[Andy Leeds]

I finished repairing the UHF machine today. Turns out C817 on the 
repeater's control shelf which is a filter cap across the 9.6V input 
dumped its guts and shorted. In a sane world the corresponding fuse 
would have blown. In this case it did not. Further miracles occurred and 
the 9V regulator actually survived the dead short on its output. One 
would now expect the fuse on the A+ line to be blown but those were OK 
as well. After hunting around a bit it suddenly hit me - if the fuses 
are good but there was a dead short something else had to give along the 
A+, sure enough it was the connector taking the A+ from the PS to the 
repeater's intermediate PA board (the 9V regulator is actually located 
there). The 2nd A+ pin (there are 2 x 4A connections) was charred 
completely. The funny thing is it still made enough contact that when 
the load was disconnected I saw good voltage down on the end of the 
cable. If I connected any sort of load the voltage dropped to .5v or so. 
I made a jumper between the 2 A+ lines up at the PS connector to solve 
the problem (lovely odd connector up there) until I see one of these 
connectors at the hamfest.

Andy