My last post was about my new Icom RC-28 external VFO that I purchased for my 65th birthday. At the time I had not connected it to the radio as I was busy with some home renovations. Once I could sit down and give the new RC-28 a spin I connected it to the front USB port on my Icom 7610 radio. I was very pleased to see that it worked without any issues....so I thought. When I powered down the radio that was when things went south. The Icom 7610 was stuck in power-down mode. I tried to tap the power button and then hold the power button but this did not shut the radio down. I had to turn off the power supply to the radio to finally power-down the radio.

I thought maybe it was a one-off and I powered the radio on again without issue and then attempted to turn it off. Once again the radio was stuck in power-down mode, so I turned the power supply off. Just to make sure it was not a radio issue that happened to show itself at the same time as I plugged in the RC-28 I removed the RC-28 from the Icom USB port. Without the RC-28 connected the radio powered up and powered down without issue, I was hoping there was not an issue with the new RC-28. There is an Icom 7610 group on Groups.IO that I am a member of so I searched there regarding this power-down issue. One suggestion was to make sure my RC-28 has the latest software update. Up to that point, I did not know you could update its software. I downloaded from Icom the latest RC-28 software and connected my RC-28 to my PC USB port and ran the software. I was told I was running the latest software. Next was to make sure the Icom 7610 rig was updated with the latest software. Now this I know for sure is not the case, version 1.42 is mainly a pre-distortion update. Also known as DPD used for SSB and not CW and being I am 100% CW I felt it was a download that was not needed. Now having said that on Icom's update page, it did indicate there were a few minor fixes. In my opinion, my radio was working and I did not see any need for any minor fixes...well until now. 

I downloaded and loaded the latest Icom firmware and it made no difference the radio was still not turning off. Another suggestion from the group was to remove the LAN cable from the rear of the radio. Now for me to remove anything from the rear of the radio is a big undertaking. But it did get me thinking about removing cables so I tried removing the key and headphones from the radio but with the same results failing to shut down. I was thinking for the time being I may have to unplug the RC-28 before turning off the radio as when I did this the Icom 7610 shut down without issue.
As I was plugging my Key back into the front of the radio I noticed a very small device plugged into the other USB port on the radio. It was a Logitech Unifying receiver for my mouse, this allowed me to click on the waterfall of the Icom 7610. I used a wireless mouse as it presented less clutter on the desktop but truth be told I rarely used it. I removed this device and ran a start/shut down again with the radio and low and behold all was fine. 

Problem solved and I must admit I was relieved to have finally found what the issue was. I posted my results on the Icom 7610 Groups.io site. I was informed that on such and such a page in the manual it does say the USB ports do not support wireless receivers. I had no issue with the wireless mouse but once the RC-28 was introduced so was an issue.

In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and the episode's feature is ARRL EE Committee Adventures.

We would like to thank our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

• ISS FM Repeater, APRS Digipeater Could Be Sunset in Two Years
• ISS Astronauts Reject Call for Early Retirement of the ISS
• VOA, Other International News Services, Marked for Cuts
• Questions Loom After Cuts at United States Weather Agency
• FCC Seeks Public Suggestions On Possible Deregulation
• Work at Repeater Site Costs Ham His County Job In Washington State
• RSGB web app
• Special Event Stations to Celebrate 200 Years of British Train Travel
• “Radio Connects” is 2025 ARRL Field Day Theme
• Mills on the air (MOTA) 2025

Hello and welcome to the 574th installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts discuss the upcoming YOTA summer camp in France, the new Signals Museum in Alabama, 100 years of IARU, the latest edition of WINE, a terminal app for Android and much more. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 203 is now available for download.

Meshtastic, an open source, off-grid, decentralized, mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices. An update on the latest scanner technology. More…

Download
YouTube