Radio Road

• two thoughts - mhardy6647 13:26:43 03/03/24 (0)
  In Reply to: RE: Amber Model 7 FM Problems posted by mawgui@aol.com on March 02, 2024 at 09:45:53

  Thought the first. The good thing about an intermittent problem that shows itself after a component "warms up": These are (often, not always!) easy to trouble shoot with a can of "circuit chiller".
  Acquire a can (e.g., see link below), pop the top of the tuner, and spray components (transistors, capacitors, chokes, even ICs). If chilling one of them brings the operation back to normal, that is probably the bad one.

  EDIT: Of course, it's also always possible that the "lesion" is a (slightly) cracked trace on a printed circuit board, or a poor solder joint (or even an unsoldered connection on one of the PC board).

  Thought the second. I had (have!) a Sangean HD (hybrid digital) FM tuner that had a somewhat similar symptom. It would work perfectly for a minute or less, then the reception would slowly fade away over the next minute or so.
  With the plan of doing the kind of brute force troubleshooting described above, I noticed a couple of multi-wire connectors, including one ribbon cable. I reseated them (all) and, lo and behold, ameliorated the problem. :) My guess is that the circuit's heating up caused the connection on one or more of the wires in one of the cables (in the power supply, in this case: see arrow in image below) to loosen up enough to cause the fault. This tuner is still working well without intervening interventions :) and sounds pretty darned good, actually.

  
  
  

  Offering these thoughts strictly "as is" and for what it is worth! I have never seen an Amber tuner -- although I did once have a rather nice little Amber preamp, which I passed along to the late, great AA alum "LWR" (Larry) when he was in need of one. :-|

  
  
  

  
  
  all the best,
  mrh
  

  • https://www.parts-express.com/Max-Pro-FRZE-1234-Freeze-Spray   (Open in New Window)

  
  

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  Edits: 03/03/24   03/03/24
• RE: Amber Model 7 FM Problems - 6bq5 17:20:11 03/02/24 (1)
  In Reply to: RE: Amber Model 7 FM Problems posted by mawgui@aol.com on March 02, 2024 at 09:45:53

  So, it is a digital tuner- meaning that it is tuning an FM station by generating a frequency and then matching what comes in from the antenna to that tuned frequency-
  a lot of places where a cold solder joint of aged resistor could create some mayhem-
  
  From TunerInfo.com, it appears that this unit is a rebranded/boxed Rotel RT-860 unit, and there is a service manual for it on HiFi Engine - I'd get the service manual and dig in
  
  It might need a tweak here or there- but starting w/ the service manual would be my first step-
  
  I will admit that of all the tuners I have, I listen to the analogue units mostly (MR-74)
  Happy Listening
  
  

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  • RE: Amber Model 7 FM Problems - mawgui@aol.com 15:52:37 03/23/24 (0)
    In Reply to: RE: Amber Model 7 FM Problems posted by 35 on March 02, 2024 at 16:20:11

    Thank you 6bq5 and mhardy6647. I apologize for not responding sooner but I set the wrong option for notifications.
    
    Had I re-read the FMTunerInfo item on the Amber 7, I would have been reminded to look into the Rotel RT-860 manual. Oversight resolved. I will be interested also to see what a can of cold will do to things. The Amber 7 cost me almost nothing but it is kind of cute and my basement is a sort of "land of misfit toys" and orphans so I really would like to bring it back to health.
    
    Mhardy6647, that is a very nice Amber preamp. Very clean looking layout inside and elegant cosmetics outside. 6bq5, I too prefer old school analog. My Onkyo T9 is a favorite and my MR65B sounds marvelous even as it cries out for alignment, caps, cosmetics... That said, my Hitachi FT-8000 does a very nice job.
    
    

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