Sony ICB-2010

[TM86]

I did have a sacrificial mic after all. Swapped out the element, modulation restored.

But the meter's dead. Needle is loose. Moves when I shake the radio. Doesn't move with changing input voltage. Stroke of luck, Sony's meter seems to be the same one used in the Cobra 148 GTL. Or it's close enough that they fit in the same hole. And I happen to have a spare of those. Now I need to figure out what to turn to get it to not say I've got 7 pounds of static on a dummy load.

So now I have a functional ICB-2010. I just have no idea how to adjust it.

 

[TM86]

Played around with some of the coils and the one pot in this radio. Found that keeping the coils right where they were was the best policy. The one pot is for adjusting modulation, so I set that a little below 100%. I can crank it up until I get boxcars, but then I've made a splatterbox out of a nice radio. And who wants to do that?

Pic of the inside now that the work is done:

Yes, I had to replace pretty much every jumper. They put that nasty corrosive glue on all of them. I've never seen a jumper pull itself away from a board, so no idea what they were thinking.

Here's the jumpers, the resistor I fried, and the bad mic element in a group photo:

Not much to look at, really.

And finally a front pic of the radio with the light on:

Seems to work, except for the meter reading way too high. Thinking of maybe wiring in a pot as an adjustable voltage divider for the meter. It still won't be accurate, but at least it won't be pegged on a weak signal.

And that about wraps it up.

 

[Holydvr]

That is a cool looking radio! I do mot usually buy AM only radios, but I did pick up a Panasonic CB just due to the fact that I had never seen one before. Yours is better looking!

 

[Rwb]

by now that sony has to be a labor of loive

 

[sunbulls]

by now that sony has to be a labor of loive

Yep, I can relate..

 

[TM86]

by now that sony has to be a labor of loive

More like a labor of get this fscking thing off my bench! Going to think twice before cracking open a radio without any docs again.

But I did learn that it has the uPD861 chip, and in theory can modified for expanded frequency coverage. Learned where the modulation adjustment is. And learned that Sony may not have invented "Sony bond", but they sure did love to use that crud.

I tip my hat to the pros who have had to work on these radios. For now I've put it back together and back in the box. Had some cap kits come in and I'm ready for something that's a little less of a challenge for a bit.

 

[KF6IRK]

I've collected a lot of rare 11m radios over the years, including my favorites: a CPI CP-400, a CP-2000 and a General SB-72 (23-ch tube SSB radio). I restored some of them to operational condition, and just cleaned some of the other ones up for display only.





I especially like tinkering with the older tube SSB radios like the Regency Imperials ...






... although I still have a soft spot for some of the old solid state SSB radios from Lafayette (I worked there a for a couple years in the mid 70s), including a rare 40-channel Telsat SSB-50 that still works great.




I have one of those ICB-2010 rigs as well. Also have one of their ICB-2500 SSB rigs. I don't remember if the 2010 works, but the 2500 does. It outputs 4.5 watts with good audio on AM, but SSB modes are a little low on power output. It doesn't look like it's been messed with inside, but interestingly enough, the clarifier is unlocked. Not sure if it came from the factory like that (?)



I was fortunate to find a copy of the service manual for the 2500, so I'll set some time aside to dig into the low power output issue as a winter project. (I've attached a .pdf of the 2500 service manual, hopefully it might help someone else who has one of these cool rigs that they'd like to rejuvenate).


I also have a whole slew of cool old SONY HTs from all over the world, mostly from Australia, Germany and Japan. It all started when I wanted to find a pair of ICB-160 HTs. I had a pair of them when I was in Jr. High School back in the 60s - and stupid me, traded them off to a guy for a TPL amplifier for in the mid-70s. Finally found some on ebay years ago. Some of the pics here are from the www, lost a bunch of pix on failed HDDs



Unfortunately, most of the SONY HTs are single channel and on 27.080 ... 5kHz off from the USA freqs (between Ch-10 & 11). However, the ICB-1020 HTs are 40-channel USA freqs. and have 500mw input power.



All fun stuff that takes me back to the good old days when life wasn't so complicated

 

[TM86]

Thanks for sharing the ICB-2500 service info. I think the only things the ICB-2010 and ICB-2500 have in common is the little board the PLL sits on and some cosmetics.

Also, looks like you do some good resto work. Keep it up!