ICOM A-210 Intermittent Display

[Ironflight]

I've now had my first problem with the A-210 after about three years of solid flying. It is the Valkyrie's #2 Comm, and on our recent western trip, the display started going blank. At first, I thought the radio was dead, but I can bring the display back about 2/3rds of the time with a power cycle - but it will only stay on for between a few seconds and a few minutes - then it goes blank again. The radio appears to be receiving just fine, even when the display is blank - but of course, I have to remember what frequency it was on, and can't really tune it to anything else.

I took the front off tonight, reset the ribbon cable, and got the same behavior afterwards - rats! That would have been such an easy fix.

Has anyone else had this happen? I'll have to call ICOM tomorrow, but curious if there is any experience with this.

Paul

 

[Snowflake]

I had a similar problem on mine once. It was on a hot day, we'd done a formation flight in the morning and then I parked the plane on the ramp with the canopy closed while we went for lunch. It was an oven inside when we came back. On the second sortie, the radio would work fine until I hit the transmit button, then it would shut down and reboot. After the reboot (only 2-3 seconds) it would work long enough to send a quick transmission, then it would reboot again. Then it would sit there normally. Receiving didn't seem to be a problem.

I attributed it to being cranky after being locked in a hot cockpit, and it hasn't repeated the behaviour since.

 

[Ironflight]

I just talked to ICOM, and they say this is a new one for them - not good! (I was hopign for a failure that they had at least seen before. I guess it has to come out and go back to see what is wrong. $42 for an estimate, credited to the repair if I chose to have them repair.

Paul

 

[Ironflight]

It's great living at an airpark! Our next door neighbor has a Rotorway helicopter sitting in the hangar that he isn't currently flying - it has an ICOM A-200 in it. Since the A-200 and A-210 share the same tray, my radio is on it's way for service, and I don't even have a blank hole in the panel!

I'll report back on the fix for the radio problem - assuming they can fix it for a reasonable fee. I guess this means I'll finally get the firmware upgrade as well....

Paul

 

[Ironflight]

Status:

Got a call from ICOM the other day that they had opened up the radio and found a few metal shavings inside. $82 to fix it up, update the firmware, and send it back to Texas. Not sure how the metal shavings got there, but the Val's panel DOES get some work done on it now and again....

Paul