Has anyone else been experiencing any issues with their TDL450H radios? Our's is hooked up to a continuous running base and after a month, it just stopped working. We had our radiio shop check the power source and the connections but those do not appear to be an issue. The radio at first was getting extremely hot, then the led display stopped working, then it quit transmitting and now it will not even turn on. Our supplier provided us with a rental, but now that one does not work either. I was thinking that there may be some interference with the transmission since we are an Airport, but we never had this issue with the old HPB 450.
Are the new TDL 450's junk or did we just get some bad radio.
Thank you,
Brad Luken, LS
(AZ, CA, NV & OR)
I have found it best when you buy anything Trimble, to buy it in 3's.
That way you have one that works, one in the shop and one ready to go to the shop at any time. Then its as easy as riding a merry go round :bored:
not positive of this, but I was told upon purchasing our new ADL radios that other than the branding, they are the same as the Trimble TDL radios (like previously with the HPB450's). Once we eliminated one bad receiver from our group, the new ADL's have been working ok for us - but definitley not the range we had before with the HPB450's. we do not run our continuously as you mentioned you do - maybe heat is the problem?
We have sold several TDL450H radios and have not experienced any issues. The range we used to enjoy will be slightly shortened due to the new 12.5KHz channel spacing requirement. I suspect this is due to the slower baud rate that is being transmitted. With the 25KHz radios were transmited at 9600 baud now they are transmitting at 8000 baud. On the positive side you should see better terrain coverage for hills, mountains and buildings at the 8000 baud rate.
I have been unable to get ours to work when the temps are under 30 or so. I had two on the job site this last week and neither would work. I did get one to work if I left it in a warm place and used it as a repeater. Not much good otherwise.
We have 2 TDL450H's and they both seem to shut down after 2 to 4 hours of operation. What happens it that it powers down the base receiver. We think it might be a heat issue but are not sure. I understand broadcasting at a lower wattages like 20W or lower instead of 35W should improve the performance but we are still running into the problem. We have tried new deep cycle batteries, cables and many more things. The only thing that seems to work it if we but a small camcorder battery into the GPS base receiver (Trimble) at startup it seems to make it last longer. We use a 1 db antenna on a 10+ mast. We hang the TDL on the broadcast antenna tripod legs to keep air flow around it. We are currently trying to rig up a system to shade it as well. We never had this problem with the Trimmark 3.
The question is, is there any one else experiencing shorter running time with the TDL450H's? We live in Phoenix where it obviously gets hotter but we have seen it happen in the winter as well.
Thanks,
Brian
I missed this forum in doing my recent post, but it sounds exactly like the issues that I am having. The TDL works fine in warmer conditions. We are getting our 6 miles all summer long in temps of 50-90 degrees. Once we go below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, our range seems to drop off dramatically. Just this week we were limited to 3 miles in temps of 20 degrees. This does not do much good if you have a vertically calibrated project and all the control points are over 3 miles out. The operating range published for the TDL is -40C to 185C. I just sent both TDL's in for a firmware update, but no significant improvement. We have swapped cables, bases as well as batteries. We have a dedicated battery for the receiver and for the radio.
I was told the range falls off with the 12.5 hz range. I get that, but how do I get 6-8 miles consistently in the summer and 3 or less in the winter? They say to run at 20 watts of power and that is not even an option that I know of? They say change this survey style or that, but how is it that by not changing the survey style we go from 6-8 miles in the winter to less than 3 in the summer?
I am investigating if a Topcon/Leica/Other brand radio will work with the Trimble GPS equipment. Has anyone else went to a different radio that works with Trimble GPS/GNSS? I believe the issue lies with the radio. I like my Trimble equipment, just need it to work. May as well bring this thread back to life.
Im also in mid investigation of a TDL 450H issue. Tuesday ours was running, then after a short while the head unit would shut down. We were using car battery and Dealer tech told us our older chords 66656-00 was to blame and that we should be using the new chord 66656-00 REVB (90945-00). Our older chords were the same for our old long range HPB 450's. Apparently we bought new radios but stayed with the old chords. Still digging into this issue.
