Icom 718 rx is fine. Tx isn’t working. Key up and it just “thumps” repeatedly. Had a lightning strike close to me and I assume static hit me. Might’ve been some lightning I dunno. Radio was off but antenna was hooked up. Any ideas
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Icom 718 issues after static hit
- Thread starter nfsus
- Start date
A lightning strike near your antenna is kinda like having a 100,000-Watt channel 6 mobile key up in your driveway. A lightning strike isn't just a burst of static electricity. It's a broadband burst of RF energy, literally "DC-to-light". Your antenna will pull in enough RF energy to damage whatever it's plugged into, even if what got struck was a neighbor's tree across the street.
73
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Call Cal at hamrepair.com in Texas & speak with him about it. He's an Honest guy & he will give you the straight answer so you will know what you are dealing with. He's repaired several radios for me over the years & several friends as well & we trust his judgement & services. Tell him I said, HELLO.
W4KVW
Florida
W4KVW
Florida
Even if everything is properly grounded it really pays to disconnect. I downloaded My Lightning Tracker on my phone, it alerts me to lightning within a 20 mile radius. My setup lets me disconnect coax and rotator control cable at both ends, leaving my antennas grounded. I really don't want to buy all this crap more than once if I don't have to.
I second this. Same thing happened earlier this year to my 991a, they had it back in right at 3 weeks total time. And their labor rate was about 40 an hour cheaper then Yaesu in CA.
Used to repair a lot of rotator control boxes. Lightning would enter the building through the electric service. Naturally it's looking for exactly one thing. The lowest-impedance path to ground. The best ground in the building would be the tower. Surge path was up the control box's power cord, back through the rotor cable to the tower.
That's what came up the line cord and smacked this Tram D201.
Adopted the habit of recommending you plug all the station equipment into one outlet strip. That way you only need to pull one plug out of the wall when you disconnect the coax. I've seen my share of kabooms that came down the coax.
Like this one.
The rear panel was bowed outwards visibly from this angle. The top cover was bowed upwards to boot.
Arc-flash scorch marks on the rear.
The connection from connector flange to the chassis metal got pretty hot.
UNPLUG!
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As I stated earlier antennas and rotator get unplugged but also PS's, computers, etc. Paranoia maybe......safe than sorry. It's not that hard.
Not paranoia but good sense. Just unplugging the antenna coax isn't enough. I unplug everything when I hear thunder, this stuff is too expensive to sacrifice to ignorance. I leave the TV hooked up tho, that thing deserves whatever happens to it.
I haven't read this entire thread, BUT......
I suggest you get the manual out for that radio and do a complete CPU reset.....
I have brought two ICOM 718 transceivers back to life just by doing that.......
______________________________________________________________________________________
ICOM 718 Manual
Resetting CLEARS all entered content in Memory channels and returns entered values in the set mode to their defaults.
_______[PWR]_________________[Z DN][UP Y]
When the unit is new and you are applying power, or if the function seems to be displaying erroneous infor- mation, reset the CPU as follows:
q Make sure transceiver power is OFF.
w While pushing [UP Y] and [Z DN], push [PWR] to turn ON the power.
• The internal CPU is reset.
• The transceiver displays its initial VFO frequencies when resetting is complete.
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It was slightly Overcast here & it had not rained in over an hour. The nearest rain was over 35 miles to my south. We had one lightning strike which was what hit our home or near our home & not another one the remainder of the day or night. It's very difficult to operate with the antennas & rotor disconnected. The lightning tracker showed some storms with the rain that was south of us but far enough away that you could not hear any thunder or see the lightning. Zero Warning & the strike sounded like a Large Bomb went off in our home. It was so Loud that our American Bulldog was Deaf for a week afterwards & she still does not have most of her hearing now about 2 years later. It was a random strike from out of the blue. No way anyone can prepare for something like that.
