Icom IC-208H Arrival

Recently, South Eastern Communications through up a used Icom IC-208H for sale for a reasonable price.

It just so happens that I was chasing a dual bander with a removable face plate. 

Sadly, I'd committed just before I realised that someone else was selling a complete kit for a similar price. But anyway..

This was a quick pic put up by SE Comms.

Anyway, it arrived yesterday. Yes. Sunday. 

As promised it was just the radio, a new mic and a new power cable. 

Looked fine. Plugged it in, it turned on. Pointed to a local repeater, keyed it up.. low and behold, the "Low" setting at 5w, put out.. 5w through the meter. Nice. I also noted that the SWR on my X200 is atrocious (I really don't use VHF that much). It was nearly 3:1. I need to do some investigating with that one. The only things between the antenna and the radio is the meter and the RF switch. I might need to start with the NanoVNA at some stage. 

When I took the face plate off, I discovered a lot of sticky residue. For some reason I knew that the previous owner had used something sticky to attach the head remotely. 2 minutes with some orange goo remover and that was all clean. 

What the radio didn't come with is the separation cable - it's hard to come by now, and when you do see it, it's worth as much as the radio cost. It's also only 4 pins. 

I've heard of a few people soldering tails to each end then using CAT5 in between. There's a plan. 

I've got a couple of prepaid RJ45 extender cables coming - just for the enclosed sockets. I'll cut the RJ45 plugs off and solder to each end. I've found a mounting plate for this model that I can print. I'll solder the tail on, then attach this plate over it. I'll then make a rig up to mount in the car attach this plate to that. A little fiddly, but this is why I own a 3D printer. To make stuff. It's printing in PLA+ at the moment. 

PLA+ isn't appropriate for the car. It is however the easiest material to work with.. and the cheapest, so I'm happy to use that for test prints to make sure designs work, then I'll reprint them in ABS (as soon as a new roll arrives). Quite simply, in this case, it's not going to cope with the heat of the car in summer. You can print with this stuff at around 190C - at that point it's effectively liquid. It's soft at a lot lower temperatures. I've had components I've made with PLA for the printer itself start to distort being in the enclosure at around 50C just because they're under some pressure.  It's not unrealistic to expect the inside of a car to get to 70C - and it's going in the boot where it'll lack the same opportunity to cool off. ABS tends to be worked around 250C. Significantly warmer and it's quite simply a stronger material. It's harder to work with (and stinks), but that's what you need when you need to make stuff to go in cars if you want it to last.

I also had to make a new radio mount. I found a pre-designed mount for an IC-229H, pulled it into a designer and noted that the dimensions looked pretty close... so I printed one in PLA and stuck it on the radio. Close enough.

I had hoped that a cable I had floating around for the IC706 might do the job interfacing this radio to program it. Nope. I've had to order a new one. They're cheap enough. 

I'd like to connect to CHIRP and setup a full configuration with all the repeaters I want on it. Manually configuring it I've found to be tedious and I can't do it that way it's already been done. I'd also really like to reset it, but I'd like to pull off the existing programming first so I can work around that. 

Getting around the memories seems to be a little tedious so I probably need to put some more time into learning how to drive this radio. I don't plan on having the faceplate where it's always in my face - it'll be down in the centre console below the sound system and aircon controls, so I really need to get my head around driving it blindly just between the repeaters I most commonly want to use.

Other than not quite having my head around the interface of this radio yet, it seems to be pretty good. It's built like I expect for an Icom. The screen is easy enough to read, it's tidy enough, the sound quality is pretty good and it's fairly no frills... which is fine for an old radio. 

The only disappointment with it is really the method they used for separation cables - this really could have been done with a common connectors rather than overpriced proprietary stuff that they've since taken off the market.  Not impossible to work around, but compared to Yaesu who seem to go with modular options that can be made DIY cheaply, it's annoying. I did however know about this in advance, so it's no shock - it's just an annoying Icom-ism. My IC706Mk2G is the same - it uses some ludicrous separation cable - I haven't bothered and I won't. 

I managed to get this past the XYL without too much drama. In fact I opened it in front of her, and she surprisingly commented that she's impressed with the restraint I use and my inclination for seeking out affordable options (oh dear..). I also listened into ESTA for a bit which is something that tends to pique her  interest  - I really don't know why. When she's at work, it's not like she doesn't have her own radio that does the same thing. 

Right now this radio is on my desk where it'll stay until the ABS and RJ45 tails get here. I guess that means I should probably do something about investigating that SWR issue a little more.