You may recall that I bought and received an 8" LX200 as a present for
my wife a few weeks ago. Since it was not supposed to debut until Xmas,
I had not set it up completely with all electronics in place until
tonight. After reading and re-reading the manual, I plugged it in and
turned it on.

Immediately a high-pitched electronic tone comes from the keypad! I can
hear and see the RA motor going through its initialization, but cannot
detect any activity from the DEC drive - perhaps I can't hear it due to
the LOUD scream of the keypad. The display on the keypad shows all
squares on the top line and never anything else.

I have checked, examined, and "worked" all plugs and connections
(including the DEC drive plug in the fork arm), checked the fuse on the
power panel, everything I can think of. No change. The keypad never
shows any indication other than the top line squares, and never stops
the tone.

The ammeter appears to show normal function - cycles all red initially,
then 400 ma during the RA init, then settles at 300 - 400 ma (4th bar
cycling from dim to moderately bright).

There is no change in the kepad display when any buttons are pushed, nor
can I detect any reaction in the ammeter when buttons are pressed.

I've scanned the MAPUG archives and Doc G's site and don't see any clues
other than the "hot-plugging" discussion. I did NOT "hot-plug". Possibly
a blast of static fried something?

I'll call Meade on Monday, but thought I'd post here to see if anyone
has had a similar problem, or if perhaps I've just done something really
stupid.

Thanks,

Chuck

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