philb@shark.UUCP (Phil Biehl N7FWL) (08/20/85)
I purchased a IC-27H about 8 months ago and installed it into my cassette slot of my dashboard. The +12V cable is directly attached to the positive battery post and the ground to the chassis. The antenna is a motorola 1/4 wave mounted on a through hole mount in the center of the roof. Here's the rub: over a period of about one month I have noticed a drop in the low power level. I drive out of town every day and when talking to fellow hams noticed that they complained about noise and flutter on my signal at progressivly closer points to the repeater we frequent. Upon getting very frustrated with this I attached a wattmeter and found the high power level was ~40 watts. Good enough, checking low power showed ~3.5 watts. Again, good enough. Now this was with the engine turned OFF. When I fired up the engine (big 1600cc Toyota) the high power reading remained the same but low power went to 0.1 - 0.2 watts!!!! Thinking a power line noise problem existed I checked the battery line with my trusty Tek scope and found noise but nothing over 1/2V. Nothing to worry about in my book. Now I'm about out of ideas. Does any one else have this problem and if so HOW DID YOU FIX IT??? Anyone have any other ideas?? Any help is appreciated!! TNX, 73 Phil Biehl, N7FWL