so this has been driving me crazy for about a week now. my 7300 started acting up where sometimes after i transmit it just... stays in TX mode. the TX light stays on, fan keeps running, everything looks like its still transmitting but theres no RF out according to the meter. i have to physically toggle the PTT or hit the power button to snap it out of it.

it doesnt happen every time, maybe 1 out of every 10 or 15 transmissions? started noticing it more on longer overs, like if im ragchewing and holding the mic for more than 30 seconds or so. i checked the mic connector and its seated fine, tried a different mic and same thing happens. also swapped cables between the radio and the logging computer in case it was a RTS/DTR thing from the software but no change.

radio is about 3 years old and i did drop it once like 6 months ago but nothing seemed wrong after that so i dont know if thats related. anybody seen this before? wondering if its a firmware thing or something internal is going flaky on me.

had almost the exact same thing happen on mine last year. turned out to be the PTT line on the mic connector was intermittently shorting, like the little spring contact inside the body of the connector had gotten just slightly bent. wasnt obvious at all visually, had to actually probe it with a meter while wiggling things around to catch it. you said you tried a different mic but did you try keying it without any mic attached at all and using the built-in VOX or the front panel controls? that would at least rule out anything coming in through that connector.

also the drop thing is worth looking into. the 7300 has that main board that handles the baseband processing and if something got slightly cracked or a solder joint went cold it could absolutely cause weird intermittent stuff like this. icom's service centers can do a reflow but it's not cheap. before going that route id try updating to the latest firmware if you havent already, there were some PTT handling fixes in one of the updates a while back, cant remember which version off the top of my head.

check your ALC settings too. ive seen weird TX lockup behavior when the ALC is pegged and the radio gets confused about the RF drive state. probably not your issue but worth a look while youre at it. what firmware version are you on?