ic-255

I bought a IC-255E on Ebay for sentimental reasons. I used to own an IC-260E. That was my first transceiver. I worked during the summer holliday to finance it. 

The radio did not come with the  mic so I had to find one myself. Fortunately I have quite a lot of microphones for CB radio's. The Icom however needs an amplified mic. So I had to build a amplifier in the mic. Icom was kind enough to provide the schematic diagram. I did no have the transistor so I used a bc547 instead. It worked. Modulation sounds great.

The Icom was deaf when it arrived. No output was available either. It turned out that the tracks on the output filter PCB were damaged. Most of them were loose. That could be fixed easily.

Another problem was the receiver. It was 5 KHz off frequency.  Fortunately the manual provides some pictures of the internal controls. So I could fix that problem too.

The only remaining problem is the duplex switch. The control need to be cleaned internally as it cracks. The set switches back and forth between duplex and simplex. I have to find a some kind of spray.