On Mar 19, 2:42*am, Mark Conrad wrote:
*Opinions regarding *Yaesu FT-817ND * transceiver?

Seems like a great little rig, blasts out a whooping 2 watts
of RF power on batteries, do not know if I can handle
that much power, if I decide to apply for another license.

I haven't got a '817... I instead opted for its 100W cousin, the
'897D. The catch with all of these more modern "all-band" radios
though, is the high level of integration. While it does shrink the
size, it does mean the radio is more complex -- and thus repairs will
be more expensive and difficult.

In my case, I'm waiting to hear from the insurance company about
whether they'll cover the replacement of my set following lightning
damage that took out a few diodes in the power section, fried the
microphone preamp and finally nuked a DDS chip responsible for
generating the carrier sidetone. The end result is a radio that at
first, would not run off external power (this has been fixed), won't
demodulate SSB (sounds like an AM receiver with the volume turned
down), won't transmit AM/SSB/CW, and won't modulate a FM carrier. Due
to the usage of multi-layer PCBs, it's impossible to fix tracks that
may be damaged within the layers of the PCB... and the DDS chip in
question is no longer manufactured or supported. In short, a write-
off.

The lightning struck a tree in the neighbour's back yard, the
resulting earth potential rise caused the above damage, as well as
cooking some network equipment in our house, another neighbour's
computer, and several electrical goods within the property where the
strike occurred. So the old wisdom of unplugging everything is
especially true for the modern rigs -- not just the antenna, but
station earth and power as well!

Apart from this, they are great radios. Mine was brilliant, and I
hope to get it replaced at some stage. Interestingly, on 2m SSB, I
find my FT-290R II (with 25W linear) outperforms it on occasions, but
given the capabilities of the '897, it's worth the money. I dare say
the '817 is in much the same league, and are very popular amongst
microwave enthusiasts as they are all-mode and low-enough power to not
fry the backside out of transverters.

Regards,
Stuart Longland VK4MSL