Peter Gottlieb wrote:
A Cheetah I fly has a couple of these radios. The radios have been to the
factory and supposedly meet specs, and the installation has been checked out
by two different avionics shops with no problems, yet these radios sound
terrible. They garble, distort, flutter, sometimes one or the other can't
be heard, etc. Yet at times they sound just fine.

Is this par for the course with these radios?

No. Our experience: it has less power than the KX-170B
but is otherwise fine.

Or something to do with this particular installation?

It's either the radios, or the installation, or something else in
the plane. Gee, that's helpful. Do both radios sound the same?
Do they have problems at the same time? Do they have the same problem
with different brands of headsets? What about if you shut other
avionics off when they're having problems -- intercom for example.
Any change?

We were having some radio problems a few months back. Tracked to
1) bad intercom ground 2) malfunctioning ANR headset. Still some
occasional problems but it's not the MX radio, that's for sure.

Cleaning the antenna grounds also seemed to improve reception

Next year they are getting replaced but until then is there
anything I can do?

Can you borrow a KX-170B to replace one of the two and see if
you have the same problems? It would help you isolate the
problem.

Another question: if you have a handheld, does it have problems
at the same time the MX's have problems? RF interference from
something on the ground is another possibility...

It's probably worth some effort tracking it down since one
would hate to spend thousands on a new set of radios only to
have some of the problems follow along...

Cheers,
Sydney