Has anyone had a problem with a King 165A that takes about half an hour to come to life?
Is it repairable, or do i replace, maybe Garmin 255 or the KX200 when it comes on the market.
That is very unusual, having owned a few of these units I am of the opinion they are not King’s finest hour ! So not a unit that I would wish to own long term.
If you keep the unit or fit a Garmin or Trig ( both very reliable ) depends on if you intend to keep the aircraft for the long term.
If long term ownership is expected the new unit choice is dependent on what other equipment you have fitted to interface with your new NAV / COM.
Is the display slow to work and the rest of the radio works right away, or is the actual radio dead for half an hour?
Hi Peter,
The instructor said it was all dead for half an hour, i’ll be going down tomorrow to check for myself.
I have flown the aircraft a few times since the report, and it did shut down once, after about twenty minutes it just stopped working, display dead, no tx no rx. but the illumination to the knobs was there, but came back to life again and then three further trips with no fails.
i’ll get it re-racked, probably damp conditions.
This kind of thing is often fixable mechanically. Clean up connectors, check any large components which can be affected by vibration (large/tall electrolytic caps in particular), resolder solder points on components which can be affected by thermal cycling (power transistors, etc).
A freezer spray can be invaluable in locating the problem part(s).
The illumination for the knobs is powered by the aircraft lighting bus bar not the unit its self.
