Tuner build work

Please note that from now on, Patrick Arnold will be accepting no further enquiries relating to the build or repair of tuner kits.

All repair and build requests will be handled ONLY by the appointed builders. Please check the FAQ and take the time to find out who provides this service: contact them directly with your queries.

Please realise that, as hobbyists, repairs and build work is done in spare time and as a result can take some time. Be prepared to accept this, or you must simply undertake to do the construction work yourselves.

Sorry folks, that's the way it is from now on.

And I'm sure everyone knows how good Rob's workmanship is but I'd still like to mention what a fantastic job he did assembling my tuner. 1st class

Does he have any more kits to sell? How would I get one if I wanted to purchase one? Guess I'll check his site. I think he has only responded to one or two of my emails, so I quit emailing.

The pcats site is broken and you will not be able to place an order there.

The kits are on run-out, and although still available, there are few left as Patrick will be dumping all the parts soon to cut his losses. If you want one, now is the time.

Actually, while the site is broken pretty horribly the ordering is about the only thing that DOES work. So feel free to use it.

The machine that site runs on is constantly getting hacked (as in about once a month), and after the latest attack all the pictures are missing. I also no longer seem to be able to access it at all to upload or alter the site I am slowly working on moving everything to a new host, but there are a lot of problems with reclaiming the pcats.co.uk domain from the current captors.

I still have tuner kits left, but since sales have dropped to about one every six weeks or less it won't be worth keeping the remaining stock for much longer. Unfortunately, I'll lose about 3-4 grand on it, since there is no real market for the stuff and it will have to be sold as surplus at about 15% of it's purchase price (if I'm lucky). Bummer.

Oh well, live and learn.

pca

Patrick,
If all you need is the graphics back, there is a simple solution...
go to your site, go to a page where the graphic is suppose to be, copy the URL, then go to
http://www.waybackmachine.org/
then paste the URL you copied in...it'll take you to a selection of dates that you can pick from (archive). I tried it and got an excellent graphic of your tuner module...I am sure you already knew about this cool site, but their is the slight chance that someone might not...

PS. You want to barter anything for one of your kits or parts?

Thanks


Are you telling me that EVERY empeg owner already HAS one tuner installed, and one backup as a spare??? I Find that hard to believe!

Speaking of tuners..

I spent this afternoon and some of this evening assembling two PCATS tuners: one for myself and one for another BBS member. Both worked first try and sound just great!

But I did notice a few minor nits since the last couple (early batch PCATS) that we handled here.

The assembly manual isn't up-to-date for the new improved antenna coax assembly -- just a minor issue, as it's pretty obvious what to do with it all, and there's a thread here somewhere describing it as well.

Fitting the RF PCB is impossible without slight modification -- I shaved a little bit off of the PCB tabs so allow inserting it with the coax in place.

The inter-PCB spacers are wider than in earlier kits, so the external hole for the wiring loom is no longer usable -- lies in the middle of one of the PCBs! Similarly, the two VN02 tabs now fall in the wrong place, so I had to add plastic spacers to prevent them from shorting out circuitry on the main logic board.

I drilled a new 25mm hole for the wiring loom, placing it exactly on the seam between the box and its lid, which worked out quite well in the end.

Both tuners are fantastic, pulling in most of the area stations even without an antenna of any kind attached!

Cheers!