Hot radio

Hams who read my 6/23/10 posting will remember that I was critical of my now defunct Yaesu FT1802 radio which recently "went south" after 13 months (i.e., one month beyond the warranty period). I've read a number of postings on the internet to conclude that a fairly significant number of hams have experienced early failure with the 1802 (and many, of course, have not).  Still, it bears watching.  Well, I nevertheless took the plunge and bought a replacement radio (you guessed it, Yaesu's successor to the 1802, an FT-1900.  At $139.95 with free shipping from Ham Radio Outlet, it can almost be considered a "throw away" radio.  Still, the idea is to have it last somewhat longer than it's one year warranty period.

Put the new radio in service the other day.  The receive audio sounds very good and I'm getting good reports on the transmit audio.  However, during one of my extended ragchews with K1KAR the other night, I noticed that the radio was almost too hot to touch!  Another radio running hot...and the heat sink is not excessively large.  The heat's gotta go somewhere, but having it run this hot is not good.  I also noticed that the FT-1900 features an internal software setting that the old FT-1802 didn't have: a monitor for the internal chassis temperature.  Well, "the doctor" quickly took the patient's temperature and found an internal temp of 139.1 degrees, just 0.9 degrees shy of the published upper operating limit of 140 degrees for this radio!  I quickly backed the power down and shut the radio down about a minute later.  It's obvious I'm going to have to add a muffin fan to help out, but it begs the question: is Yaesu's inclusion of the internal temperature sensor in the 1900 a de-facto admission of a thermal problem with the 1802 that they never owned up to?  Heat is the enemy of all electronic components and frequently leads to premature failure.  I'm not saying that I have a pending situation like the pic above, but who knows?  I'm just sayin'...this one bears watching.