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Thread: Becker Radio and Transponder Issues

  1. #1
    Member rlinford's Avatar
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    Default Becker Radio and Transponder Issues

    Put a Becker AR6201 Com and 6410 transponder in my project. Com failed after 2 hours, sent it back to Becker in Florida and had the choice of accepting a refurbished unit or waiting a month plus for it to go back to the homeland for repairs. Took the refurb. Have not had any trouble with it since except the occasional FAILURE message which supposedly is a sign of a serious internal failure. Cycling power seems to make it go away. Hopefully it will continue to work.

    Yesterday after 43 hours the transponder started failing with an E10 code. Recycling power would bring it back for a few seconds and then the same thing. Sometimes it will work for 20 minutes, sometimes it's 20 seconds or less. Was not able to find E10 in the manual so no idea what it means. No response from Becker yet.

    Checked the wiring, antenna, coax, and all looks good. Only potentially questionable thing is the location of the rudder retract tube - it's about 1/2 an inch from the top of the antenna but definitely not touching. I could see that interfering with the signal being broadcast but have trouble believing it could cause an error code.

    Anyone else had this much trouble with their Becker avionics and/or seen the E10 code on the transponder and know what it means?

    Also deciding if I want to throw both of them away and put something in I can rely on. Seems like for $4000 you should get a couple radios that work better than an old Narco with vaccuum tubes.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Dan L's Avatar
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    Default Re: Becker Radio and Transponder Issues

    I've seen the same E10 error on my Becker transponder. Oddly it was much worse in the winter. Cold temperatures seemed to be involved. I took it to my avionics shop who couldn't find a problem but sent it to Becker in Florida. It came back much better but I still get the occasional E10 error. Maybe once in 25 hours of operation now rather than every 15 minutes like it was prior to Becker working on it. Of course they charged me somewhere around $500 too.

    At some point in the trouble shooting process we changed the transponder antenna too and that helped some and was a cheap test.

    No one ever did say what the E10 error meant. Becker lists some error codes but the E10 isn't one of them.

    I have a Becker comm too and the transmit output was a couple of watts under the rated power. The avionics shop fixed that for me and didn't charge much to do so.
    Flying Carbon Cub EX #11 since 2011

  3. #3
    Member rlinford's Avatar
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    Default Re: Becker Radio and Transponder Issues

    Thanks Dan, that's good to know. I didnt mention it but cold does seem to make it worse. It was about 30F when I took off Saturday and it was pretty much unusable but as it warmed up it seemed to work longer and longer until near the end of the flight it worked for 20 minutes continuosly. Odd behaviour for a solid state device. Becker says the E10 code is a transmission error code so it could be the antenna but when I asked them if it could be an internal fault their response was "oh yeah" which makes me think it's a problem they know about. I have trouble believing there is a problem with the antenna or wiring if it works sometimes for 20+ minutes and is worse in cold temperatures.

    I hate to toss it in the trash but also dont want to spend $500 to get a crappy unit "repaired". I supose if they repair it under warranty it's worth having done.

    Thanks -

  4. #4
    Senior Member Springloaded's Avatar
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    Default Re: Becker Radio and Transponder Issues

    Good luck ,I had A Becker Transponder that did that in my S2.It was under warranty I sent it back no less than 4 times think it was 5 they kept giving me loaners ,every time I would get back it would run for days sometimes 15-20 min and get E10 code and eventually it would never come back on Like in the middle of Class B . Never had a loaner give me a problem but they wouldn't give me new one even being under warranty. Ended up keeping one of the loaners is the best they would do. My Com was a pain if you didn't turn the dial Really- Really slow it would just jump back and forth on Feq. Glad to not have them anymore. I would give there customer service a 2 at best.
    Chuck

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