M802 SSB not transmitting

[nelson.peter]

I'll start off by saying I am mechanically inclined, but I have met my match with understanding SSB's! My son and I just finished installing our Icom M802 SSB w/ AT-140 tuner and Pactor III usb modem. We went to test it today.

The receiver is working fine. But we cannot transmit. When we push 'thru/tune' we have read that we are supposed to see 'tune' flash 3x. Well, it flashes once and the display immediately goes back to showing 'thru'. When we try to transmit, and use the mic, the ammeter jumps, 'TX' shows on the display, but nothing else.

I know the AT-140 and antenna works, or we wouldn't be receiving. So I am thinking maybe we screwed up on the ground plane. We ran 100 lineal feet of 3" copper foil. We started at the AT-140, went about 6' and hooked into a thru-hull (via a hose clamp). From there, I stapled a 'field' of the foil under the stbd. bunk (and above the fuel tank) for another 25 sq.ft. or so of plane. I ran out of my first 50' of foil.

I took the 2nd roll and tapped a keel bolt, into a head where I picked up another thru-hull, over to the water tank, picked up the engine block, then soldered and mechanically screwed the 2 foil rolls together. From there I went into another head and got another thru-hull (for a total of 3) and then to the SSB transceiver.

I mean, this seems like the mother of all ground plane installations to me! Did I overdo it? What did I do wrong? At both the transceiver and AT-140 I doubled or tripled the thickness of the foil and punched a hole in it and attached it to the ground screw.

Can anyone help us figure out what went wrong? The installation manual from Icom has zero on troubleshooting. Thank you in advance.