Fearless Tower
Touchdown! Greaser!
So, my xpdr appears to be acting up again. Went flying early Friday morning and MYF tower wasn't picking me up as I was heading out of the delta (I had planned to fly over to Brown field to do some stop and goes on the long runway). So, not being able to go flying around the San Diego Bravo, I elected to just stick around in the pattern. After the first trip or two around the pattern, tower informs me that they were now picking up the xpdr and it squawked normally throughout the rest of the flight. I joked with the controller that maybe the box just didn't like the cold (For San Diego it was fairly cold - about 39-40 degrees that morning).
So, being a bit fed up with this box (I've had it repaired about 3 times in the last 5 months (a couple hundred bucks each time), so I started thinking that maybe I should just buy a bloody new box.
My current one is a NARCO AT 150 TSO.
Now, as I'm searching online, looking at some newer xpdrs, I noticed that some of the solid state xpdrs do not require 'warm up' time. I went back and did some digging and found that the AT 150 is indeed a vacuum tube based box.
So, for the experts out here...does it sound plausible that the temperature was the reason for my box's lethargy?
I guess I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should pull the plug and buy a new box or if I should just wait for warmer days and save the money for a future comm radio upgrade.
So, being a bit fed up with this box (I've had it repaired about 3 times in the last 5 months (a couple hundred bucks each time), so I started thinking that maybe I should just buy a bloody new box.
My current one is a NARCO AT 150 TSO.
Now, as I'm searching online, looking at some newer xpdrs, I noticed that some of the solid state xpdrs do not require 'warm up' time. I went back and did some digging and found that the AT 150 is indeed a vacuum tube based box.
So, for the experts out here...does it sound plausible that the temperature was the reason for my box's lethargy?
I guess I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should pull the plug and buy a new box or if I should just wait for warmer days and save the money for a future comm radio upgrade.