CQ-18T Aerial Replacement

I’m sure I read somewhere the aerial was easily removed and can be replaced. Mine just spins round (with some light resistance) but no sign of it unscrewing? Should it come off?!

Grab the bottom, right at the bottom, below the hinge point. Then you should be able to unscrew it.

So the bit below the hinge point is just about visible / accessible using a pair of thin, long nose pliers, but that just spins round with the rest of the ariel. Can’t see how you’d get lower than that without disassembling?

Hopefully someone else will help. I have a CQ20. I am sorry I could not help.

No worries, thankyou for trying!

I opened a support ticket in the end - A&H have just confirmed removal is not supported and could void the warranty.

Haha, classic. Send it back to us, wait 3 months, meanwhile you don’t have it for shows, then we’ll say it’s not covered in warranty and give you a price that’s almost as much as buying a new one to fix it. The warranty is only one year, IF they determine it’s covered. And I’m not really ragging on A&H too much for this, it’s pretty standard practice.

I bet it’s got a screw ring on the bottom of it that’s loose, so it spins. Spinning will break the wires, so don’t do that. Probably have to open it up and see if you can get to the place where it’s attached.

I would open it up and see if I could fix it. Or you could use an external router and wait out the year warranty and then do it. But then again I have repaired many things over the years. YMMV, I take no responsibility for whatever happens. :slight_smile:

I have some good news for those with broken antennas. I had the same issue and was about to bring my mixer in to the store I bought it from when I came across a video that showed a screen shot of CQ18-T with it’s side panel off. Turns out once you remove the side panel where the antenna is it’s easy to access and replace the antenna. Check out the photo I took below. Once the side panel it was a breeze to unscrew it.

I can confirm removing the 5 screws from the antenna-side panel is the way to go:
*30 seconds to pull 5 screws.
*1 minute to realize I need thin needle nose pliers to get to the threaded fitting.
*1 minute to carefully turn the fitting counter clockwise.
*30 seconds to button it back up.
Done and dusted in about 5 minutes.

(The extra 2 minutes were spent looking for a suitable pair of pliers) :blush: