I don't have a very good explanation of how this happened, but I brought an Eton E100 back from the dead. This particular E100 (based on the Tecsun PL-200) has had a rough life. I bought it used, and kept it in my bathroom. So, it endured humid conditions due to the shower and a weak ventilation fan. And it went through a few gravity incidents.
At one point, it would act very confused when powered on. The LCD would show corrupt or blinking characters, and no sound was produced. I couldn't tell what band it was on, and the numeric keypad, up/down buttons, and tuner knob weren't responding. I removed batteries for lengths of time, tried different sets of batteries, tried the reset switch on the bottom, and nothing was working. So I took the batteries out and stuffed it into a dresser drawer to be forgotten.
I saw the radio again a few days back, and wondering about radio electronics, I opened up the case to look inside. Everything looked normal, except for a large capacitor that showed evidence of leaking. When I reassembled it, I put in two batteries just for fun. When the radio powered on, it started...behaving normally! Honestly, I didn't make any internal modifications more extensive than gently removing a small amount of debris. I'm not taking any credit here; this E100/PL200 has crazy super self-healing powers. Honest.
3 comments:
I have had much the same experience with a Degen 1103. Erratic behaviour, buttons failing to operate and then it wouldn't go at all. Like you I tried resets, left it without batteries, gave up and then tried it again a month later. It worked then but failed again after 4 days. You lose faith in radios that do that sort of thing. It was only 20 month old. Maybe it will come back again but I don't expect it to last. My Phillips 765 has gone perfectly for 30 years and is still going. I have ordered a Tecsun 9012 so lets hope it is better than the Degen.
Ian
My 3 week old Kaito KA1102 is dead :(
Oh no! Here's hoping for a prompt exchange or refund.
Mine is still going strong over here.
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