On Mar 21, 3:45*am, Mark Conrad wrote:
Thanks for your comprehensive post on "all band" radios.

Sorry about the lightning frying your expensive rig; *here I have
the same problems with lightning, came to the same conclusion
as you did, namely completely unplug * _ALL_ * leads to my rig.

He he... yeah... I've gone one step further -- using solar and
batteries to power my radios now. So that's one less bit of wire that
lightning can come in on. The experience has taught me the diligence
to unplug the rest.

Presently I do not have enough smarts to make an intelligent
choice between the Yaesu 897D *as compared to the more
expensive Elecraft K3, when it comes to the fine points
of both those rigs.

With the Elecraft, I lose the mobile capability, however
Elecraft advocates are very impressed with that fine rig.

Decisions, decisions... * *g

Indeed. I haven't looked at any of the Elecraft radios, my decision
was between the Icom IC-706MkII G, the Yaesu FT-857D and Yaesu
FT-897D. I wound up going for the latter because above all, I wanted
a radio that I could take with me portable, or stick in the rear
basket/luggage rack on my bike for bicycle mobile operation.

I rejected the Icom in the end on two grounds:
(1) Having used one during last year's JOTA... I found it difficult to
access what I considered, very rudimentary controls. I found its
menus awkward to use. I dare say it'd be better if I had the time to
read the manual more carefully, but that was my experience.
(2) Its small size meant it could not efficiently dissipate heat.
This meant the radio was prone to overheating problems. (I suspect
the FT857 would suffer this too.)

The '897 had two nice features: I could embed two batteries inside
with a combined 9Ah capacity, and there were two auto-tuners on the
market that could bolt onto the side. So I'd be able to pick up one
unit, and have almost a complete radio station -- just add antenna and
microphone. For the antenna, a squid pole works nicely, can be set up
almost anywhere and is lightweight. A dipole is also pretty easy to
carry and set up. So for a portable rig, the '897 was ideal.

My only gripe is that Yaesu for some reason decided that it would use
NiMH cells in its battery packs... Li-ion would have been lighter and
higher density. Heaven forbid, gel-cell batteries would do better
than NiMH! But that's the choice they went with, and we all have to
live with it.

I think the real questions a
(1) How often are you going to use it portable/mobile? (For me, I'd
was using my '897D portable at least once a week... and when my
handheld died -- I was using it mobile daily -- even on public
transport.)
(2) What bands are you likely to use? The K3 offers up to 6m with a
2m option, the '897D offers up to 70cm as standard. (I use 2m a _lot_)