I got the 746 back!

Well, it's back. Instead of sending it to the mothership in Bellevue, Wash, as I did when lightning bit it, I sent it to the ICOM Service Center Michigan. Matt, the tech there (I think he's the proprietor) couldn't have been nicer or more helpful. As they say on eBay, "would do business again!!!!!"

This all started a couple of Wednesday nights ago as I was getting ready for our local 10 m net. Pushed the tune button and got ... nada. Uh, oh. Fiddled a bit more: nada. Called one of the regulars who lives about a mile away. He could hear me, but could tell something was wrong with the transmitter.

Dang.

Even before I bought the IC-746Pro ($1050 on eBay in 2004, with the PS, which I sold for about $125!), I knew of the dreaded IC746Pro Sudden Death Syndrome. Full details at the link, but suffice it to say, there is an issue with IC-151, "a broadband medium power amplifier IC", and it occasionally pops.

Some folks have hit this within months of buying their radios, so I figure that nearly 4 1/2 years of trouble-free operation is pretty good. As a result, I'm not sore at Icom the way some are.

So, off to Michigan it went.

Talked to the tech after he'd had it a few days and found that repairs to IC-151 were covered under an "extended warranty" and that they'd also do modifications to "increase the transmitter's reliability".

Cool!

I figured that while the tech had the patient open, I'd see about getting the CR-338 high-stability crystal oscillator installed as well. It's only money, right?

The crystal oven gives the radio a stability of 0.5 ppm versus the stock radio's "< +/-7 ppm" for the first hour and after that, +/-1 ppm. At 3.6 MHz, that's 25 Hz, but at 144 MHz that's over 1 kHz of drift. And I like 2 m SSB DXing. So the tech put one in.

When I talked to him again a few days later and guess what? It wasn't the usual IC-151 issue, but failed transistors in the final amplifier stages. Neither of us had an explanation.

Nonetheless, he applied all the factory modifications to improve reliability (see the link above, many are related to ESD which some hams dispute as the reason for the failures) and had replaced the finals.

So, now it's back in the radio room. Listened to some DX station on 20 m this morning(I think it was RL6-something), but didn't have time to try to bust the pile-up. Tonight. :-)