mobilepolice
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I have a King KY-197 in my panel (two, actually)
This one was dropped by Carpenter Avionics of KMQY (Smyrna, TN) last year.
Story goes I took my PA-28-140 to them to have the Nav/CDI Diagnosed and while there I asked them if they could look at my KY-197's (both, from my seneca) and determine why I had short range receive on them. I figured the squelch needed to be adjusted and I didn't have much other option around town than them.
While they were looking at my PA-28-140 a few things happened. First, they were dishonest about the problem with my CDI and I posted about that here. After some back and forth they started talking about settling up to the tune of $400 for a "tune up" on my KY-197 and diag labor on my 140's CDI.
The next day I found out that they dropped one of the KY-197's (I made sure to get SN's and mark which one) and had to replace the faceplate dial/knob and after bringing it back to them a second time, another internal gearing component related to the face.
Completely unhappy at this point with owning a now-dropped radio and a half-ass fix, I figured it would be fine to get away from this whole deal owing $0
After getting the PA-28-140 back I learned that they completely ****ed some frequency selector wafers or somesuch in the KX-170B nav/com in the panel and had to bring the plane back to them because I had no audio at all on the COM.
They made good by finding some refurb unit from somewhere and stuffing that in the pa-28-140.
Ultimately I paid $0, for a faulty diagnosis on a CDI, a dropped KY-197, and a otherwise perfectly normal KX-170B that had to be replaced because of their goof. The only "service" I received that I didn't pay for was having the squelch adjusted on the KY-197s.
That being made better, I still feel owed.
Two weeks ago I made an IFR flight with my instructor and on startup we noted Com 1 (the dropped radio) had basically nothing but static/garbled/distortion as Receive and same for Transmit.
All the instruments being fogged over in the plane, we dismissed it as the radio having moisture in it. Sure enough with the defrost going, a little heat and some patience the receive on the radio cleared right up and the problem was dismissed.
I did not recheck transmit.
I did some beautiful VFR flying today and on startup (no moisture, etc) the Com 1 receive was just as faulty as before. It cleared up again, and somewhere in my mind I was screaming that there was a problem but by the time I got to do my runup, I could hear on the radio just fine. I failed to check transmit, as I had been using my Com 2 as my primary for awhile now and just using Com 1 for weather, etc.
Figuring the radio would one day give out on me because it had been dropped.
I ended up switching from Center to CTAF by going to Com 1 and I made radio calls all the way to the ground apparently transmitting nothing but distortion and static. What I could hear in my headset was perfectly fine. I could receive perfectly fine. The guy waiting at the hold short line couldn't hear a word I was saying !!
Thank god he decided to stay put and not take the runway while I was on short final.
The guy on the ground called me while I was short and told me he couldn't hear me and I switched over to Com 2 on the rollout and confirmed it was me I was talking about.
So, all that backstory behind me, here are my questions.
1. Given that the recv on the radio performs when warmed up, this sounds like broken/fractured soldering joints. Is that fair?
2. If the above is true, the transmit is probably screwed in the same way since I would guess they're the same circuit/lead to the antenna. Has anyone heard of this sort of failure mode and/or had any direct experience with it?
3. Given that a repair is probably not cheap ($200-$500) and used ebay units are generally $500-$900 and an ICOM IC-A220 is pennies more and fits in the same rack space -- should I just go ahead and replace this and eat the labor for it?
On one hand, I love the idea of having an all-Avidyne panel. On the other, I've seen and had GPS units fail in ways that leave the COMM inaccessible, so I also find value in having my comm be a separate unit.
Appreciate any and all feedback. I've considered small claims court against Carpenter Avionics, Inc. and it's probably what they deserve given the absolute fiasco this has been -- but at the end of the day, that would only get me a KY-197 with an unknown history or another half-assed fix, and I don't want to revisit this topic ever again if I can avoid it. So instead, I'm going to go around giving them all the bad word of mouth press I can absolutely do so and they'll wish they had just bought me a replacement on the spot.
It'll be a couple years before I can look at a whole panel swap, so I probably need to do something relatively quickly instead of letting this drag out and limping along with one and a half comm radios. Plus it will probably complicate my IFR training. And I'm assuming that the status of the unit will only get worse.
This one was dropped by Carpenter Avionics of KMQY (Smyrna, TN) last year.
Story goes I took my PA-28-140 to them to have the Nav/CDI Diagnosed and while there I asked them if they could look at my KY-197's (both, from my seneca) and determine why I had short range receive on them. I figured the squelch needed to be adjusted and I didn't have much other option around town than them.
While they were looking at my PA-28-140 a few things happened. First, they were dishonest about the problem with my CDI and I posted about that here. After some back and forth they started talking about settling up to the tune of $400 for a "tune up" on my KY-197 and diag labor on my 140's CDI.
The next day I found out that they dropped one of the KY-197's (I made sure to get SN's and mark which one) and had to replace the faceplate dial/knob and after bringing it back to them a second time, another internal gearing component related to the face.
Completely unhappy at this point with owning a now-dropped radio and a half-ass fix, I figured it would be fine to get away from this whole deal owing $0
After getting the PA-28-140 back I learned that they completely ****ed some frequency selector wafers or somesuch in the KX-170B nav/com in the panel and had to bring the plane back to them because I had no audio at all on the COM.
They made good by finding some refurb unit from somewhere and stuffing that in the pa-28-140.
Ultimately I paid $0, for a faulty diagnosis on a CDI, a dropped KY-197, and a otherwise perfectly normal KX-170B that had to be replaced because of their goof. The only "service" I received that I didn't pay for was having the squelch adjusted on the KY-197s.
That being made better, I still feel owed.
Two weeks ago I made an IFR flight with my instructor and on startup we noted Com 1 (the dropped radio) had basically nothing but static/garbled/distortion as Receive and same for Transmit.
All the instruments being fogged over in the plane, we dismissed it as the radio having moisture in it. Sure enough with the defrost going, a little heat and some patience the receive on the radio cleared right up and the problem was dismissed.
I did not recheck transmit.
I did some beautiful VFR flying today and on startup (no moisture, etc) the Com 1 receive was just as faulty as before. It cleared up again, and somewhere in my mind I was screaming that there was a problem but by the time I got to do my runup, I could hear on the radio just fine. I failed to check transmit, as I had been using my Com 2 as my primary for awhile now and just using Com 1 for weather, etc.
Figuring the radio would one day give out on me because it had been dropped.
I ended up switching from Center to CTAF by going to Com 1 and I made radio calls all the way to the ground apparently transmitting nothing but distortion and static. What I could hear in my headset was perfectly fine. I could receive perfectly fine. The guy waiting at the hold short line couldn't hear a word I was saying !!
Thank god he decided to stay put and not take the runway while I was on short final.
The guy on the ground called me while I was short and told me he couldn't hear me and I switched over to Com 2 on the rollout and confirmed it was me I was talking about.
So, all that backstory behind me, here are my questions.
1. Given that the recv on the radio performs when warmed up, this sounds like broken/fractured soldering joints. Is that fair?
2. If the above is true, the transmit is probably screwed in the same way since I would guess they're the same circuit/lead to the antenna. Has anyone heard of this sort of failure mode and/or had any direct experience with it?
3. Given that a repair is probably not cheap ($200-$500) and used ebay units are generally $500-$900 and an ICOM IC-A220 is pennies more and fits in the same rack space -- should I just go ahead and replace this and eat the labor for it?
On one hand, I love the idea of having an all-Avidyne panel. On the other, I've seen and had GPS units fail in ways that leave the COMM inaccessible, so I also find value in having my comm be a separate unit.
Appreciate any and all feedback. I've considered small claims court against Carpenter Avionics, Inc. and it's probably what they deserve given the absolute fiasco this has been -- but at the end of the day, that would only get me a KY-197 with an unknown history or another half-assed fix, and I don't want to revisit this topic ever again if I can avoid it. So instead, I'm going to go around giving them all the bad word of mouth press I can absolutely do so and they'll wish they had just bought me a replacement on the spot.
It'll be a couple years before I can look at a whole panel swap, so I probably need to do something relatively quickly instead of letting this drag out and limping along with one and a half comm radios. Plus it will probably complicate my IFR training. And I'm assuming that the status of the unit will only get worse.
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