Intercom

I installed an XCOM in our 9A and to this point am very happy with it. While we are just taxi testing, it is clear and seems to pick up and transmit fine. The intercom works very well. The only problem I had was it picked up some cockpit noise on transmit and I had to turn down the mic gain from 60 to 50. Be aware that when receiving two freqs at once, the secondary freq has a slight "blip" where it turns off for a fraction of a second to check if the other freq is picking up a signal. I think this is common to all dual channel coms.

Bob Kelly
 
Watch out for XCOM

I have the XCOM 760 and yes, the intercom works well. The radio had a problem with not receiving strong transmissions from towered airports, so XCOM asked me to send it back (Australia) for repair. That was NOVEMBER! I still don't have it back and the company refuses to reply to my inquiries about when it will be fixed and shipped back to me. :(

Having the intercom connected to the radio...while it works well from this brand, puts you in a very vulnerable position if the radio needs to go out for repair. I'd never do it again...I'd also never deal with XCOM again unless I am forced to by my initial poor choice. :mad:

Ron
RV-4
 
Reply from XCOM Avionics

Hello all and thank you to the user of this group which allerted me to somebody with problems and pointed me here to assist.

Firstly, information regarding the intercom. As mentioned by one of the posters the mike gain needed to be turned down from 60 to 50, the default setting for our radio is 50 and this is how it is shipped from the factory. We find this to be an ideal setting for the majority of aircraft so when turned up to 60 the microphone would be much more sensitive than it should be and transmit a lot of noise. I'm glad this customer corrected the problem by returning the radio back to the factory default setting.

When in dual watch and receiving a secondary frequency there is a momentary pause in the reception to let you know that you are receiving on the standby frequency. The pause is long enough to let you know which channel you are receiving on but it is not long enough to actually miss any of the transmission. It actually works really well.

Poor customer service, I don't really want to get in an actual argument with this customer but to let you know the radio arrived at our premises on the 11th of December. From there was sent to engineering who have looked at the radio, made any adjustments or repairs that were necessary and have sent the radio back. I imagine the customer who is in the USA will receive the radio by the middle of next week. The problem and delay here would either be with replacement parts or the fact that everywhere is shut in Australia from about one week before Christmas until the 15th of January because this is the middle of our summer it is when most businesses shut down and take an extended break.

XCOM has a U.S.-based service centre and the majority of repairs are sent to this location. Sometimes however, especially with unusual problems we like to have the radio shipped to Australia so we can see what is going on. Our last correspondence with this customer was a reply to his e-mail on the eighth of January.

If anybody ever has any problems all of our contact details including my mobile phone number on the website. Because of the large amount of spam we are getting we now have a lot of filtering on our website and have recently changed the way customers contact us to using encrypted forms. We have found this a fantastic way to eliminate the SPAM and in the last three weeks since making the changes there has not been any reports of e-mails going missing which is really good news until the spammers worked out how to get around encrypted forms.

Thank you again for bringing this customer's concerns to my attention and I will contact him directly with this information. Kind regards Michael Coates XCOM Avionics
 
I can tell you from my experience in dealing with the guys at X-Com for the past 6 years they are hardworking, dedicated aviation "nuts", & electronics experts. I'm not trying to bash anyone here, but I can tell you 95% (or more) of problems caused by specific installation flukes, or user mistakes. Before sending the unit back, read the manuals and be critical of your intallation, antenna, leads, connections, ect. Every radio is personally tested before it leaves the factory.

As you can see, these guys will answer your questions and stand behind their products. There is a US service center in Tea, SD, and radios are sold by Aircraft Spuce (and many others) and installed by many OEM aircraft manufacturers (Light Sport) in Europe.
 
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