[PVRCNC] Furuno 1503 autotuner

[Jim Jordan]

I know this is probably a very long shot, but I'm always amazed at the knowledge base within this club. Anyhow, here goes:

I bought a used Furuno 1503 marine 150W SSB transceiver, 1.6--26.0 mhz continuous coverage, on eBay for a friend in ZS. It comes with a separate fully automatic antenna tuner that is designed for use only with this radio. Everything about this top quality radio works perfectly with a dummy load and on ham bands with normal ham antennas that roughly match 52 Ohm. (Gets good signal reports, but alas, no key jack).  However, the AT doesn't even try to match to a random wire (which is the only tuner output). I've tried different frequencies, different random wire lengths within the specified range, different ground connections, etc. and of course checked the connecting cable. Looking under the hood it has about 20 relays plus coils, capacitors and a logic board similar to what one finds in a ham auto tuner. No signs of smoke having escaped from any components. Lifting the shield on the CPU section of the board there's a 3-prong jumper strip with two jumper positions, "Self-test" and "tune". Moving the jumper to "Self-test" and hitting the tune button on the radio it goes through a lengthy procedure in which each relay closes and opens in turn and at the end the radio display says "OK" which is what it's also supposed to say when it finds match. But in "tune" position it simply times out and sends a dididididididit error message back to the radio. There is an initial relay click, but no multiple clicking to indicate searching for a match. I'm wondering if there's a "system reset" command.  I've ordered a service manual from Furuno but that will take a while. And the radio alone is worth far more than what I paid for the full set so it's not like the end of the world but would be nice to get it working so he doesn't have to use the existing manual tuner on his boat. A new tuner is $500 which is also more than I paid altogether!

Does anyone have any ideas, or heavy-duty troubleshooting skills for this type of equipment?  

Reply off line, please.

73,

Jim, K4QPL