So while chasing DX all over the bands tonight, and after a great QRQ session with KC0VKN down in Iowa City, my 590 went deaf. Like super deaf.
As you would, I checked everything - antennas still up? yes, selector on right antenna? yep, RF gain up? Squelch off? RX antenna selected? everything was in order but still no received signals. I even got my MTR hooked up and couldn't hear that in the 590's receiver just inches away. Something was definitely wrong.
I came up and told my wife the bad news. This was not going to be a cheap repair, several hundred bucks for sure. There goes the Dayton budget!
So while I moped and we watched TV, I did some searching. I found a reference to a failure mode that caused the receiver to "die". It looked promising but it was limited to certain serial numbers - B0AXXXXX being the last of them to have this problem - a tiny surface mount fuse opening up for no good reason. Kenwood replaced the 325mA fuse with a 500mA fuse in the B0BXXXXX serial numbers.
A glimmer of hope!
I rushed down to check and sure enough, my serial number was in the right range for this to maybe be the failure. I did some more searching and found pictures locating the fuse on the board and when our program was over, I ran down and sure enough, the fuse appeared open and it was one of the early 325mA ones. I quickly tacked a component lead across the fuse and the receiver came back to life!
Of course you can't just go buy a new SMT fuse so I hit up Digikey and put in an order for a few of them. A whole 23 cents a piece! And to think I was almost ready to box it up and spend several hundred dollars to get some puny little fuse replaced. Crazy.
The new fuse(s) will arrive in a couple days and I'll try to take some pictures while I repair the rig, but for now, off to bed!
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