Killed 3 Digirigs - All with the same problem - max 34% audio input before cut out

K0TX et all,

I seem to be having a consistent issue with several Digirigs. I’ve now somehow killed 3 of them, all with the same problem. One of them I had already sent back to you, Dennis, probably a little over a year ago and you replaced it no questions. Thank you!

But it’s just happened again, this time while I was rearranging my desk…

Under 34% input level (Windows slider 34% or less), everything is great. 33% I have audio. 35%, the audio completely cuts out and a bunch of junk appears on the waterfall. What junk seems to vary. Today it looks like this:

Top half of the image is windows volume slider over 34, bottom half is under 34. I’m ignoring those lines every 1000 Hz because I don’t use WSJTX with this Digirig, I primarily use it for SSTV, soundmodem, and Vara FM on a dual bander.

Since this is the third one I’ve killed… What’s happening here and how can I prevent this from happening in the future?

This one also is more unique than the other 2 I killed in that now I can’t get any audio in a linux environment at all… Only in Windows does moving the volume slider under 34 make the audio return. In linux, no audio, no junk, just nothing.

Halp!

And thank you.

Jay NT0Y

New evidence from the Linux front:

Using alsamixer to move the mic volume up and down, it appears as though anything greater than or equal to flat gain on the mic input causes the audio to cut out.

Here’s the first setting where the audio still works (-1.00 dB gain):

And here is where it cuts off (0 dB gain):

I use zero db gain on linux in alsamixer, but before I knew what I was doing I was way overdriving these sound cards a lot and I never murdered one (just for feedback).

You can send your damaged Digirigs in for service using the same address/RMA. Considering the repeated longevity issues, I would recommend adding USB isolator in case there is some ESD happening.