ICOM -820 repair :-(

[Alvaro de Leon Romo]

Hi , after several years my IC820 have some problem , the radio not respond to instructions about to input the high and low power level and now not transmit :-(
 
Some one here know what is the better way to fix this radio ? ICOM AMERICA is the best choice ??
I will fly to Tx so I need the info where  to send the radio to reapair ...
Is the cost too high ?
 
Many thanks for your valious time
Sincerely Al
XE2AT

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[Jim Garver]

I had one of those radios, an IC-820h.  It came to me with a dead 432 band.  I found a bad solder joint in the oscillator section.  Then it worked okay but I  had problems with the power level adjustments for HI/LO and it had a bad sounding speech compressor.  Also picky about the microphone. 

 Very sensitive receiver on 144 band.  Surface mount components make for better RF circuits but harder to work on.  Maybe you have a bad solder joint somewhere.

The IC-821h is better with a front panel RF output control .  I had trouble turning down the power on the IC-820 to limit input to 10 watts for amplifier.  The ALC and power level adjustment pots inside the radio are not meant for that and are hard to adjust.

Also, these radios only have one TX output line which keys from either band.  If you hard key your amplifiers you should probably turn off the unused amp.

Otherwise a nice and compact twin band all mode with good power output.

 

Good luck with Icom America, I have not tried them:

 

http://www.icomamerica.com/en/support/partsandservice/default.aspx

 

Jim K7YO