Maverick et-73 mod


 
I just got my Maverick and reception is poor. I am at least going to contact them, hopefully Doug, so they know this problem appears to be all units, not just a hit & miss deal.

I haven't decided whether to get inside mine and take a chance of breaking it or not. Has anyone tried adding the antenna to the transmitter also?
 
I opened up my Mav receiver this afternoon, and there was no antenna wire. I added an antenna using a piece of 18 guage wire at 6.5", and my reception is noticably better. I would loose the transmitter signal regularly while sitting in my favorite chair. Now, I have held the signal for two hours. I can't quite get to the front of the house, but I really don't need to. i was just testing to see how far I can go.
 
Anyone yet find out anything about an antenna in the transmitter? Is it there, and not obvious? Or is it missing also?

I just checked my receiver. No antenna. This unit is a replacement of my first purchase about a month ago. The first unit was erratic, and I got incredible service from Maverick. They replace it before I even returned the original unit. The replacement at least is consistent and I can get a signal up to about 60 feet with no obstruction, but only about 20 feet away from outside to the inside of my house.

I'm contacting Darren early next week.
 
I opened mine to find no antenna also. Cut a piece of wire 6.5" and soldered it on. Wrapped it around the inside, much like the pic with the factory antenna-but shorter for some reason. Why does the factory antenna seem to be about 9"?

I get no better reception than before. What can I try now? Don't really want an external antenna, but that may be where I'm headed.
 
I've been a casual admirer of this long post for a week or two now. Have one comment/question.

Virgil asks a good question. Everyone is saying that there was an antenna missing. Is that really the case? Or is the antenna just integrated somehow into the unit, so it doesn't look like an antenna. If people are getting reception - albeit poor - it would seem the antenna is, in fact, intact, just inadequate. Seems the mods people have made has been to improve the antenna, rather than to replace a missing one.

Anyhow, just a thought/question. My Mav gets good reception, so no need to modify. But good on all of you for figuring this all out.
 
Darren seemed to be surprised to hear there were no antennas. Maybe a poll on when you bought your ET-73 and if it had an antenna would help.

I bought mine a year ago when the "problems" were supposed to have been fixed.
 
phil - I bought mine in Noevember or December last year.

To my point... my guess is that no one was actually missing an antenna (not sure, but who knows). Antennas can be hard to find and seem integrated into the circuit board. Rather, I think most folks' antennas were just inadequate, so the modifications talked about in this thread amplified it to make it useful.
 
Anton, the guy who started the thread HAD an antenna wire in his and complained about the range he could obtain.

I think his was newer (by batch or lot code) and perhaps Maverick added the internal wire to address the problems, but it wasn't adequate to meet the 'up to 100' range' to Anton's satisfaction.

Be the antenna issue an oversight or just a serious product weakness, to do it again I would opt for the Nu-Temp. But the ET-73 is what I have now ... trying to make the best of it.

I used it for a spares cook yesterday and was suprised to see how frequently I was getting updates when the temp was fluctuating in the WSM, somewhere in the realm of 1 per second at times. Not that this will help me cook better but I think it's another indication of the weakness of the receiver.

Have any of you other modders noticed receiving more frequent updates?
 
I took apart the transmitter, it does not have a wire antenna like the receiver does. I think the antenna is built into the circuit board. It has a broad "U" shaped cutout in the circuit board, which is a simple two sided circuit board. The "U" is near the top of the board, and has no discernable function that I can see for being there, except that it is probably some sort of air gap antenna. Each side has a solid plane of copper, both edges on one side, and one edge on the other. I'm not enough of a radio guy to pretend to know how this works, but all the little inductor coils one would expect in the transmitter are connected to these planes, and there are very very few components on this board (which one would expect). The cutout width is about 1/4", and is about 2.5" or 3" long if you made it a straight line.

As far as one of the posters noticing more frequent updates, that is how to tell when you are or are not in range. The update frequency is dependent on the rate of change of the temperature, if it is stable, it will update very infrequently, maybe once a minute, when it' changing rapidly, it updates frequently. It helps conserve power to not transmit except when there is something to say. The receiver has a timeout in it where if it doesn't receive an update in that time period, it assumes it has lost the connection. This timeout is fairly long, maybe 10 minutes or more. I watched mine yesterday stay very stable for a long time, then I went outside and read the transmitter display, and it was very different. I moved the receiver (which had been working fine for hours in that location), and it changed to match the transmitter display. I assumed that my batteries were getting weaker or something.

Anyway, my pork butts finally got done after a 12 hour smoke. The ET-73, despite its quirks, is still a very valuable tool to have!

-gbeck
 
I forgot to add, if you do take apart the transmitter, make sure you don't lose any of the little rubber o-rings on each of the screws that hold it together. These keep it water proof.

-gbeck
 
Originally posted by Gary B:
...As far as one of the posters noticing more frequent updates, that is how to tell when you are or are not in range. The update frequency is dependent on the rate of change of the temperature, if it is stable, it will update very infrequently, maybe once a minute, when it' changing rapidly, it updates frequently. It helps conserve power to not transmit except when there is something to say. The receiver has a timeout in it where if it doesn't receive an update in that time period, it assumes it has lost the connection. This timeout is fairly long, maybe 10 minutes or more. I watched mine yesterday stay very stable for a long time, then I went outside and read the transmitter display, and it was very different. I moved the receiver (which had been working fine for hours in that location), and it changed to match the transmitter display. I assumed that my batteries were getting weaker or something....
Click to expand...

Gary, I agree with your description of ET-73 functionality (and I've spent more time than I care to admit watching my receiver in the last year
icon_rolleyes.gif
) but my point is that I think the receiver caught and displayed more updates with the new antenna when the temp was fluctuating(as in some or more update transmissions were previously being lost). I'm attributing this to a better antenna and looking for possible confirmation from other modders.
 
Originally posted by Jim Burmeister:
Phil I know Darren from Maverick read all the posts cause I was on the phone with him after giving him the URL and went thru the list of posts with him live time.
He was very pleased to get the info as he had been pulling hair to figure the problem of range also.

Al Sivermans post also confirms Darren is ready to help anyone with the no Ant Problem ... even those who broke the switch.

I think Maverick is sincere on our issues.
Click to expand...

Page three has the above quote ..Like I said Darren was reading the posts with me while on the phone live time with him.
He said he was aware of a crystal ( freq match ) of some units effecting range but not the ant wire issue.
Well many of us have added the 6.5 inch wire and have greatly improved results ...mine included. Mine is about two years old.
Some others from different ages may or may not have the Crystal Frequency problem Darren said the Factory people told him may have been the problem.
Trust me Darren is very aware of this forum and the posts here. I have Emailed him several times keeping him updated on the now 5 pages of comments. So you may have two problems or one or none . Now What ????
 
Originally posted by Jim Burmeister:

Trust me Darren is very aware of this forum and the posts here. I have Emailed him several times keeping him updated on the now 5 pages of comments. So you may have two problems or one or none . Now What ????
Click to expand...

It would nice if Darren could tell us how to see if we have the "Crystal Frequency problem", would at least let us rule out that as an issue. It would certainly help Maverick save money by letting us do initial diagnosis before sending any units back to them. This kind of thing is probably far beyond what most consumer device companies would do, but it is common in many industries to notify customers of manufacturing issues so they will know if they are impacted or not with the equipment they have.

-gbeck
 
New Redi-Chek thermometer arrived yesterday. Before I even had the batteries installed, I took it all apart to find....NO ANTENNA.

I soldered a 6.5 inch wire (red...looks nice) in the hole and ran it through a little grove I cut, reassembeled it, installed the batteries, and tested it out. Reception from the back patio to every room in the house. Makes me kind of wish I had tried it without the antenna...

Just curious...how do people here know that these devices transmit at 433 MHz?

Jeff
 
Gary

I suppose you could take the back off of your reciever and check to see if you, in fact, have the antenna wire as shown way back in the thread somewhere. If you do and your still getting poor reception then you just might have the crystal problem. Maybe ??

Al
 
Originally posted by Al Silverman:
Gary

I suppose you could take the back off of your reciever and check to see if you, in fact, have the antenna wire as shown way back in the thread somewhere. If you do and your still getting poor reception then you just might have the crystal problem. Maybe ??

Al
Click to expand...

I've already added an antenna wire. Reception is still dodgey. Next step is to load new batteries in the transmitter. I don't know how to check for the crystal problem, does anyone have details?

-gbeck
 
I took apart my receiver again, it originally no "antenna wire". From what I can tell, where we are all putting the wire, it has absolutely no effect on anything.

I took of the little circuit board where we are connecting the antenna wire, and if you look at the back, there is no connection of that hole to anything. There is a pad there, but that's it. Who knows why that hole is there, but a wire in that hole will have no effect, there is no connection. Maybe someone else can verify this, but I sure don't see any connection.

If you look at the photo that was originally posted, this little circuit board, I think, is the antenna. There is not much on here, a few small capacitors, a couple of coils, and a lot of what is a big fat trace that does a little partial circle on the right side. I think this trace is the antenna. Not sure why Anton's unit had a wire, his may be the exception?

My little tag in the unit has "05C4". I would guess that the "05" is 2005, the C may be for the month, and the 4 the week or day of the month. I assume this is a date code when the unit was manufactured. My transmitter has the same sticker in it. It's possibly a revision code of some type, or a mixture of revision and manufacture date. I noticed Anton's photo has "05A4". So I guess the other piece of info to find out is has anyone else found a wire in their receiver, and what's on the sticker?

Maybe Darren can get back to us on if the wire really has any function or not. I'd put $10 on "Not".

-gbeck
 
Just tested my new Mav and I have about 20 feet of range with line of sight transmission. No reception beyond that.
 
From the other posts on this issue, it appears that some folks are reporting greatly increased range by adding an "antenna". Others are reporting either little gain or none at all. There very well could be 2 issues involved and we could be seeing the results of attempted fixes by the factory.

If the wire is not needed, then I have to wonder why some units have one and some don't.

antenna.jpg


It would be nice if Darren could find his way here and give us some details.
 
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