On 25 Feb 2004 14:53:17 -0800, Mark Keith wrote:

They sell a small "grain of wheat" type bulb that could be made to
work. Look for the one that draws 25 ma. One problem is the original
bulbs don't use wire leads per say. The short leads from the original
bulbs are soldered directly to the board. So you might have to
slightly modify the mounting. There are 4 bulbs total. Overall, it
might be better to order the yaesu bulbs, if you want it to look
original. The original bulbs have an orange shell. To extend bulb
life, don't turn the display brightness all the way up on the new
bulbs. MK

After 8-10 years of 24/7 use even at the "dim" setting, I've had
meter bulb burnout in my Kenwood R-5000 and ICOM IC-7000 receivers
and LCD backlight bulb burnout in the ICOM and Alinco mobile
transceivers used at the base station. At least the two "base"
receivers use seven-segment fluorescent numeric readouts for
frequency indication and LEDs for other things.

Replacing them is a JOB, especially since I am partially blind and
the local repair place will keep the equipment for a month or two
before they even get around to looking at it. They replaced the
bulbs in the Alinco transceiver and the Kenwood receiver with
"who-knows-what" bulbs that lasted less than 2 years.

A small penlight shined on the LCD display from the outside shows
the readout anyhow.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon