[450] IC-207H repair

[K1FSY]

I was having intermittent power output problems with the IC-207H I
received in trade from K1MAL. Noticed 35w power output on 2 meters which
was reduced and then no output. After opening it up and desoldering the
antenna connector to get the board out I did some troubleshooting in the
APC circuit because the internet said it was a common fail point,
however it shares the same APC circuit for both vhf and uhf and the 70cm
side worked fine. Desoldered the PA module and popped off the plastic
cover as per this page that john will appreciate, and sure enough the
thing had microfractures in the ceramic board. Instead of going crazy
with tiny wires I just added a little solder and reflowed the traces
that the cracks were running under and buttoned it back up. Apparently
Icom didn't bother putting heatsink compound on the bottom of the
modules and just screwed them to the board, so eventually they heat up
too much and snap crackle pop.

http://www.dk7in.de/TM733.html