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Warning Harris/Gates Air DAX owners

H

hdradioeng

Recently found out that if you have a DAX with firmware older the 10.5 on the exciter/controller it WILL FAIL. There is a eprom that has a definite lifespan and the older firmware writes to this chip too much and prematurely wears it out.

In some cases you can get the transmitter back on the air but not in the case I am involved with. So i just wanted to pass along this info so no one else in our community gets stung by this. Gates Air does have these in stock both new and refurbished, and will do a refurb swap with a rebuild able return.

This particular transmitter was a DAX5 03 vintage.
 
And a clear example of why you ALWAYS purchase the GatesAir spare parts kits. Seems like just about every Harris/GatesAir transmitter I've ever dealt with, has one or more EPROM or processor that is known to fail. I have one Harris Z-series solid state box that has gone through a half dozen EPROM's in about ten years.
 
Prime example of crappy code writing. And the customer gets to pay for it since it's long out of warranty. No notification was sent to customers about it - found out about it by chance looking up something else on their support portal. If it was a car, it would be recalled and fixed at no charge.
 
I do like those boxes, my first Canadian was an FM - Q20 nice box lotsa fans. not really a single point of failure if you had 2 exciters the box basically will always make some power.
 
premature failure of U24 EEPROM, due to excessive
write cycles. Failure to implement this upgrade may result in the failure
of U24 after approximately 6 years..

Harris Service Bulletin AM-621-LEM / PN-773-5000-025 9-23-2011

and where it says "may" result should read "will" result in failure
 
In the case I was involved in the transmitter would do everything but make RF, I will strongly urge DO NOT WAIT to address this, this particular station sold it's aux transmitter and was off air for 6 days
 
I forgot to update this...the problem with mine was also U24. The transmitter would make power, but only about 15 watts with distorted audio. U24 swap plus calibration brought it back to life. Thanks to the original poster for the info.
 
My DAX 3 died because of this issue..the LCD was blank and all LEDs were on...no RF power out...the EEPROM costs less than a dollar but that doesn't fix it in a lot of cases..there is a firmware upgrade on the FTP site at Gates Air that was issued in 2011..it reduces the cycles thru the EEPROM to once every couple of minutes. Still ridiculous IMHO..if replacing the U24 does not fix the issue, you MUST send the entire board to Gates .. no other way to fix it in the field

Good luck.. I'll never buy a Gates AM again
 
kf4rca said:
They've lost their way.
Click to expand...

Aka; they've made a business decision to not spend on R&D or support of providing transmitters to a dying medium that might be in the market for a new transmitter once or twice a year.
Supply decision based on demand.
 
ContinuousWave said:
My DAX 3 died because of this issue..the LCD was blank and all LEDs were on...no RF power out...the EEPROM costs less than a dollar but that doesn't fix it in a lot of cases..there is a firmware upgrade on the FTP site at Gates Air that was issued in 2011..it reduces the cycles thru the EEPROM to once every couple of minutes. Still ridiculous IMHO..if replacing the U24 does not fix the issue, you MUST send the entire board to Gates .. no other way to fix it in the field

Good luck.. I'll never buy a Gates AM again
Click to expand...

Where can I obtain a pre-programmed U24 with the latest firmware?
 
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