HF radio woes

[RobMichelle]

Gday, we have a codan 9323 with auto tune aerial.
2 nights ago I was having a lot of trouble getting it tune to a frequency kept coming up with tune fail, whilst trying to contact vks 737.
Tonight tuning was good but kept getting low battery beeps.
Battery showing 12.7 before using radio 12.6 after using radio for a few minutes does this sound ok or do I need to check something?
Any help greatly appreciated
Rob

[Graeme]

The change in voltage is minimal so I assume that by using the radio you meant listening, not transmitting which uses significantly more power so would lower the voltage more quickly. However 12.6V doesn't seem low enough to warrant a low battery warning.

Edit. I wonder if the tuner is drawing excessive current which is causing the low voltage warning whilst tuning but the voltage recovers once tuning has ceased. Have you monitored the voltage whilst tuning? Maybe the tuner's drive is partly seized causing both excessive power consumption and lack of tuning sometimes.

[87County]

I think you'll find that auto tuning antennae need to be regularly functioned through the range of frequencies to the keep the mechanism in gwo.

Auto tune antennae are quite repairable.

On transmit, which usually is not for extended times, is when power is heavily consumed.

[RobMichelle]

Yes was transmitting for a few minutes.
I did have aerial internals checked in lara victoria when I purchased radio probly a year ago thou.
I did notice the radio internal light dimming whilst transmitting so would it just be power draw as normal?
Il see if I can watch voltage tomoro whilst transmitting.