I get an external antenna short alarm on my PM2s almost evey time I use them. I make sure the connections are as tight as I can make them short of getting out the vice grips and stripping the threds. I wind up with a short gap in the info gathered by the unit which shorted. Not usually a problem unless I am doing a topo and the shorted unit is the base. I had thought it was one particular unit doing it, but yesterday I wound up with the alarm on two separate units. Anyone out there with similar experience ?
Thanks, Bruce

You may have been getting a little too strong with your antenna cable connections.

The antenna short error message indicates a short circuit with crossed wires in the cable or cable connections.

It is often just a broken antenna cable but the short can happen in the antenna or the receiver. It is easy to figure out which one is the problem by swapping cables, antennas, and receivers until you figure out what is broken.

If it is a broken cable get a new cable. If it is a broken antenna or receiver it is time to complete that RMA request form on the Thales Navigation web page at

http://products.thalesnavigation.com/en/support/rma.asp

Bought 3 PM2 units in January. First time out, had one unit shut down after gathering enough information and I just thought it was my neglect in tightening down the connections (although they were plenty tight). The next time out, had no problems whatsoever. The third time out, had 2 units show the external antenna short. Nothing I could do would make the units work. Later, I did a test in my parking lot with all 3 units set up, switching the antennas, units and cables around and found that the problem was definitely in 2 PM2 units. I sent them back to Randy Black at Hayes and he graciously sent me a couple of loaners. Used the loaners on a survey with no problems at all. Got new replacements for my 2 PM2 units from Thales and have used them several times with no problems at all. I still find it hard to believe that 2 brand new units could fail like they did. I am definitely glad to have gotten Thales equipment from Hayes Instruments, though.
Modified By J Opperman on 7/16/2004 at 5:02 PM

Thanks for the input. I got mine from Hayes also, back in March, I think. Haven't had much opportunity to use them until lately. I had it happen on one of them the first time it came out of the box. I didn't start tightening them way down until it got to be a regular event. Happened again yesterday. Maybe a call to Randy is in order, I hope I haven't had them too long already. I am already having a difficult time convincing my employer they were worth the investment. He would rather pay another firm $1000 a day to set control when we need it.

Bruce