12/19/2023The ICOM IC-208H is a great radio. I’ve had two of them for about 20 years. They are solid performers and used heavily in my travels while working. Over time, they both drifted and the deviation needed to be increased as ICOM is notorious for low deviation.
The IC-208H’s are tuned by software. You do NOT have to remove the cover.
In my haste to align my IC-208H’s, I did not write down ALL the current settings so if I messed anything up, I could get back to where they were set by the factory. I did this to BOTH of my ICOM IC-208H’s and ended up with under 5 watts output as the power kept folding back due to misalignment in the Protect Voltage [PV] adjust setting! I won’t make that mistake again!
Beside my mistake, ICOM has mistakes in their manuals! All of this made BOTH my radios boat anchors for 9 months! I thought I’d replace my radios with new dual band radios until I looked at the prices. Instead, I bought another 208H off ebay and THIS TIME wrote down EVERY setting to compare against the other two and find my error!
ICOM had at least 3 service manuals. Two for the U.S. Market and another for Japan, even though it is in English… go figure! The manual instructs you to build a “Jig” (a resistor to put the radio into service mode when certain keys are pushed.) They printed 2.2K in some of the service manuals. Some have it correct at 22K. THE CORRECT VALUE IS 22K!
The next mistake is on page 5-2 of the USA Service manual. Under “Adjustment Item Explanation” they have the second item in the table labeled [rF] when it should be labeled [rE]. It’s the abbreviation shown on the radio display for the Reference Voltage adjustment on page 5-3. Everywhere else in the manual has it correct.
There is a warning of what you can and cannot adjust in the service manual. Make sure to NOT ADJUST ANY ITEM shown in the table on page 5-1 and repeated on page 5-2 in the “Adjustment Item Explanation” that has a “*” leading the adjustment abbreviation. ie, *[Fr1] through *[Fr8], *[rE-], *[rE+]. The easy way to make sure you do not adjust those by mistake, use a red highlighter and mark them or draw a line through them in the alignment procedure to make sure you do NOT adjust them!
When you get to the “Protect Voltage” [PV] adjustment on page 5-3, make sure that you are transmitting when you push the [BAND] key. You should see a reading on the radio display between 50-75. If you see “4D” on the 208H display, you hit the [BAND] button without transmitting. This will fold the power back to about 3-5 watts. This is where I made my mistake.
If you have a IC-208 that is only transmitting about 3-5 watts after trying to align your radio, there is a good chance the Protect Voltage [PV] is not correct.
Attached is a PDF spreadsheet of my 3 radios and all their Hex settings for alignment to help get your radio back in alignment.
Good luck and 73,
Lyndel, N7LT
