Icom ic745 ram battery voltage ?

[bongo1]

just picked up a very lightly used IC 745 at a hamfest in nh and the first thing i did was ck the ram battery voltage which read 3.5 volts which i checked twice w/ 2 different meters. I thought these lithium cells were 3 vdc. the battery has an 07 on it..kinda looks original but i am no expert. the radio powers up and works fantastic on receive not sure on transmit as i dont have a license. serial # is 08918. my 2 ?'s are is the battery ok and what year is the radio?

 

[gfiber]

3.0 volts or so. That ram board only draws current in micro amps and those batteries will last a long time. I worked at Icom America from 1989 until 2001 in Product support and some bench work. I once did a personal survey of the ram unit service orders and mostly the letter started out telling of changing a battery as general maintenance and the power leads slipped off thus loosing the programming.
The IC-745 was out of production when I started at Icom America in 1989 and Icom did not then keep track of serial numbers and production as we could not find out from the factory. These days they do a much better job of doing that.

73' Gary K8IZ

 

[bongo1]

Thanks for the reply..i think i will leave the existing battery for a while.

 

[W7WXV]

I agree with gifber on the battery voltage. I also have a IC-745. When I received my radio I could not tell how old the battery was and I did not like the fact that it would lose itself when the battery went dead and Icom does not service most radios that old anymore, not even to service the memory board so I purchased a replacement board from Piexx. Their memory board does not use volatile memory so when the battery goes dead all you have lost is the 16 channel memory settings.

73, Carroll KF7ELY

 

[bongo1]

I have seen several postings on battery replacement by soldering in a 3 volt battery in parallel...i have no problem with this if needed . i know this radio was in storage for several years and maybe the battery was changed....still if it wasnt and the radio is mid 80's.......