Internal ATU

[hal2720]

Hello everyone.

Happy New year 2025 !

I'm new to the forum, so hello my name is Michael (Mick), greetings from Liverpool UK. The home of The Beatles.

I've got myself a Flex 5000a which is working great. I got an internal ATU. I've made an RF shield plate and installed the ATU

It isn't recognised by the Flex ?

What am I doing wrong ?

I'm on the latest version 307 of Power SDR by KE9NS

Best wishes and 73 to all

Mick
M7HAL

[ke9ns]

Mick

Happy New Year!

If you go to my webpage and look for the: "Manuals, Repair info, Technical info, Folder locations" section towards the top of the page.

Open the section up and scroll down to the Flex-5000 area, and you will see a ATU install guide PDF
Now there are 2 ATU units. The PDF is for the FlexRadio unit. There is also an older internal LDG ATU, but I dont have an install guide. For that you would need to contact Toby at troyradio.net

73
Darrin

[hal2720]

Hi Darrin,

Thanks for the info. I've got the Flex-5000 Debug form up but when I press CTRL-ALT-A nothing happens. No ATU Install button. The ATU LEDs come on on the board,so I presume it's got power.

Please help

Mick

[ke9ns]

The debug screen needs to be in focus before you hit the keyboard, otherwise your keystrokes are just going to whatever application is in focus

If you do it correctly the button will appear on the debug screen (it just appears in the upper left section of the debug screen).
This has nothing to do with having and ATU plugged in or not, The button will appear

[hal2720]

Ok Darrin,

I checked the Auto Focus PowerSDR.

I've got two monitors running and that fixed it thanks.

No next problem is that the ATU will tune if I do a Full tune but says

Tune Failed: No RF Detected

If I do the Full tune again it will complete but say the SWR is 2.4 or a bit less depending on how many times you do it. This is into a 100w dummy load.

If I tune up into a known good antenna with good SWR match I get the same issues AND I see that for 50w set on the radio 1w is being read on the external Power/SWR meter.

Do you think the ATU is faulty ?

I've quadruple checked all the connections and taken it out and put it back in several times and always the same problem:- No RF Detected and or very little RF Detected on the power meter.

Thanks again,

Do you know of anyone who can repair it in the UK ?

Mick

[ke9ns]

There is the ATU service manual PDF on my website as well.
I have never installed one, so I dont have any experience.

NOTE: the Flex-5000 PA board has its own SWR and FWD/REV watt meter. So the SWR may not line up with the ATU SWR meter even when the ATU is calibrated.

When your tuning, what does your PowerSDR WATT meter show for output?
Also, make sure the Pulse tune is not enabled. (setup->Transmit->Pulser (needs to be unchecked to use the ATU)
I know the ATU automatically sets the TUNE to 10, but if 10 is not putting out at least 10 watts, the ATU will not function.
You may need to up the TUNE power to 20, and make sure the power meter on the radio reads at least 10 watts out

What does the setup->general->Hardware config->Flex-5000 config show? (just to make sure it has your config correct for the ATU).

You may want to do a setup->factory defaults and start with a fresh database just in case its causing an issue?

After that, I would contact Toby and troyradio.net. He does all the service on Legacy Flex radios, so could probably help you via emails

Darrin

[hal2720]

What does the setup->general->Hardware config->Flex-5000 config show? (just to make sure it has your config correct for the ATU).

Hi Darrin,

I read the above quote.............? Well I looked and it says ATU Present, then sometimes its says ATU Present (52B)

In the ATU manual it says to make sure that the ATU serial is registered and shows correct model ! More chin scratching...........

I searched this Forum to see if anything would shed more light on this issue and I came across this POST viewtopic.php?p=854#p854 I've downloaded the EEPROM.zip file and set it up as per your instructions.

#BINGO

The program shows all my Radio config details correctly but in the ATU section, Revision was 255, C and Week Year Sequence was 255 255 65535

Now my ATU is the old version made by LDG with the BNC pigtails. Ive edited the ATU section and now it reads 52 B, 07 11 2710 and I write to EEPROM and reboot.

Now in PowerSDR Setup/General/Hardware config/ ATU: 0711-2710 (52B). Bad news, I tried the ATU and It still didn't work I read more about the LDG ATU and of course it is the OLDER version ? (OLDER) I change the EEPROM config to 52 A (not 52 B) just to try it and.............SUCESS

Now in PowerSDR Setup/General/Hardware config/ ATU: 0711-2710 (52A) ATU works fully and full power in Bypass AND after FULL Tune or Memeory Tune. Fully working 100 watts with or without ATU on/off. I'm so happy and what a relief. I can't believe how good the ATU is. It tunes everwhere.

Thank you Darrin was all your efforts and this great website and ALL the info contained within.

Best wishes 73 and hope to get you in my log.

Mick (M7HAL)

[IK8HCG]

this was my Tuner in my old Flex 5000 which has always worked without any problems from day one
lou

LDG Tuner flex 5000.jpg (2.32 MiB) Viewed 181 times

[ke9ns]

Glad you got it working!!

I was hoping that the Debug screen "EEPROM firmware update" was going to automatically populate the serial# and rev#, but obviously not. My next step was to tell you about the EEPROM.exe, so I am glad you found it (for future reference: The EEPROM download is also located on my website under the technical info section).

I didnt realize the LDG version works as a rev 52A, so that is good to know.

My original Flex-5000 has the LDG ATU, and my current Flex-5000 with the 2m/70cm option has the FlexRadio rev52B ATU

For future reference:
If your using a Dummy load, the ATU SWR should match your Flex-5000 SWR, so you may need to slightly adjust the var-cap (next to the sensor on the ATU) to get the 2 independent SWR circuits to match. I had to adjust my LDG to match in my Flex. Thats why I added a "TUN Check" button in the ATU screen, so you can re-check for a SWR on the LDG. But note that if you check SWR on non-resonate antenna, the SWRs will most likely never match up since the 2 SWR circuits are in different locations inside the radio.


Darrin