[ICOM] ICOM AT180 dropping out - ideas anyone?

[Jim Miller]

(BTW - I don't have the SERVICE manual for the radio itself.)

The tuner may be OK now.but I will need to get some more time on it to see.
Sometimes it was OK and then later it is not.

What happens is that I use it to widen the band a bit in my mobile with the
40 meter Hamstick.  Turn the tuner on (706 button), it stays, transmit,
(sometimes, most of the time) it starts flashing the tune light on the
706Mk2G and the swr shows about 1.2 or so and then after a few seconds it
drops out and the swr is very high.  If it would just STOP flashing and stay
engaged, all would be fine but it drops out.  Press it on again and it goes
back to flashing.  They say that when it drops out that I "go away".  I
watch it and turn it right back on and they tell me I am back but they
missed a few words or a sentence and "where did I go".  (Holding the tune
button to force tune doesn't find a good match and it disengages, it also
doesn't change the symptoms.)

The internal switches were set to default and I changed the AB switch from
the A position to the B position (AB switch position B is called "Through
Inhibit" and is described as:

[the tuner tunes the antenna even when the antenna has poor SWR (up to VSWR
3:1 after tuning). In this case manual tuning is necessary each time you
change frequency although the tuner automatically starts tuning when the
VSWR is higher than 3:1.  This setting is called "Through Inhibit", however
the tuner is set to "through" if the VSWR is higher than 3:1 after tuning.]

The CD switch was and still is in the D (default) position  (CD switch not
used for SSB operation).

It seems to be MUCH better but I won't know until I get more time with it.
Would anybody think there is a problem with the "bypass" RF path through the
tuner?  Sounds to me like the next step if this thing still has problems.
The antenna does work just fine within a much narrower range without the
tuner in line.

Thanks es  73, de Jim KG0KP