perstromgren wrote

Quad servicing - unlike most others - is still available
and at a
reasonable price. Contact them for details. I'd be most
surprised if you
could buy anything new approaching its quality for the
cost of fixing it.

You are probably right. Perhaps I am just trying to talk
myself into
buying new gear! But I do like the Quad remote, the only
one my old
mother can operate without any instructions!

I am nonetheless very interested if anyone has any insight
into what
might be the fault of the unit.

No special knowledge (be warned!), but it seems to me that
the problem must be in whatever the knob on the remote is
attached to.

This assumes that the buttons and knobs are inputs to a
microprocessor. From what you say, everything after those
mechanical controls is working OK, and very unlikely to
suffer intermittent faults peculiar to one control function.
Similarly, if a key on your computer keyboard fails to
excite a response, the fault almost certainly lies in the
key mechanism itself, or in its connection to its circuit.

The Quad remote is peculiar in that one user control is used
for both volume up and volume down. Is the control attached
to a pot or a rotary encoder? Whatever, the pole, or
connection common to both directions, is likely to be open.
Maybe a broken circuit track or loose pin connection, or a
worn out controller. In any case, Quad should be able to
deal with it in a jiffy. If it's a broken track or pin
connection you might be able to find it and repair it
yourself if you can solder. Look at how the relevant rotary
component is attached to the board, and check its
connections and tracks for continuity. Wiggle it and look
for wobbles or cracks. Use a magnifying glass if you have
one.

A replacement Quad controller might be worth looking
for...how much do Quad charge? Or they may be able to
repair, perhaps on an exchange basis. Check out the options
before you dump (!) it. Even if you decide to get rid, it
may be worth fixing the problem so you can sell it.

Finally, a brief googling reveals quite a history of folk
having difficulty getting learning remotes to grasp whatever
the Quad control is on about. Perhaps they have difficulty
with the rotary controls because their use presumably
results in streams of data packets, rather than single
blips. Or maybe the Quad coding system, or carrier
frequency, is simply outside the scope of some learning
remotes. Whatever, you wouldn't be the first to have
problems.

Ian