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 was W6TAM 55 years ago. (extra-class license)

I have not really shopped around for a rig yet, so do not
know how the Yaesu FT-817ND rig compares to
its competitors in the $700 price range.

Any advice gratefully appreciated -

Mark Conrad

"Mark Conrad" wrote in message
...

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 was W6TAM 55 years ago. (extra-class license)

I have not really shopped around for a rig yet, so do not
know how the Yaesu FT-817ND rig compares to
its competitors in the $700 price range.

Any advice gratefully appreciated -

Mark Conrad

Hello Mark.

They are great fun. I believe there isn't anything directly equivalent (i.e.
HF / VHF / UHF portable) from the other manufacturers.
Best wishes,

Roger.



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

In article ,
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 was W6TAM 55 years ago. (extra-class license)

I have not really shopped around for a rig yet, so do not
know how the Yaesu FT-817ND rig compares to
its competitors in the $700 price range.

Any advice gratefully appreciated -

Mark Conrad

I use mine mainly for working satellites. I've been on the birds for
nearly a year and a half and have used it to make about 1500 contacts
with at least 80 different stations. I've worked over 25 American
states as well as 5 Canadian provinces and one of its territories. My
furthest contact with it was the K4T DXpedition a few days ago, which is
about 4100 km from my QTH.

I made my first contacts with just the stock rubber duck antenna but
I've been using an Arrow dual-band Yagi for more than a year.

I'd say that my FT-817ND was worth the investment.

Mark Conrad wrote in :

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 was W6TAM 55 years ago. (extra-class license)

I have not really shopped around for a rig yet, so do not
know how the Yaesu FT-817ND rig compares to
its competitors in the $700 price range.

Any advice gratefully appreciated -

I don't have one, though I have the 817's bigger brothers the 857D and
897D.

Two of my friends *do* have 817s, and _LOVE_ them.

--
A computer scientist is someone who, when told to "Go to hell," sees the
"go to," rather than the destination, as harmful.
-- Dr. Roger M. Firestone

Mark Conrad wrote:

Opinions regarding Yaesu FT-817ND transceiver?

The original 817 had a problem with batteries. The off switch did not
actually turn off the power and the finals being able to function
from 1.8mHz to 450 mHz went into oscilation and burned out.

Has this been fixed? The popular fix at the time was to remove the batteries
when the rig was not in use.

The biggest problem with the Yaseu is the tiny screen. The ICOM 703 has a
much larger screen. The 703 only goes up to 6m though.

The 706 does have the same frequency coverage as the Yaseu. You can adjust the
output power down to 5 watts, so it may be a viable option. It also has
a more features than the Yaesu.

If you are using it in a location where size and weight don't matter that
much and nor does the increased battery drain, it may be worth the
money for it so that you have 100 watt HF output if you need it.

The ICOM rigs include a removable front panel, so you can mount them
elsewhere and just have the control head at your operating position.

Looking at Universal radio the current price for a new rig is
$600 for the 817ND, $730 for the 703+ and $945 for the 706IIG.
So you have a big range of price, power and features to choose from.

The Yaesu is the grandson of the FT-290 and simlar rigs, which were
portable VHF/UHF multimode rigs, while the ICOM grew out of shrunken
HF rigs, the Kenwood TS-50 being the first. Surprisingly, Kenwood no
longer has anything to offer in that line.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

Wow, thanks everyone for the great reports on
the lttle Yaesu transceiver!

I am contemplating it mainly for its ears.

I wanted to order the optional Collins 300 cycle filter
for CW work, but had hazy memories from 55 years ago
that such filters tended to cause unwanted "ringing"
of the output audio, kinda like a steady loud output "hiss".

When I left Ham Radio in 1955, the QRPp experts were
playing with "active filters" for low power QRP work.

If I remember correctly, such filters would block _all_ the
signal, noise and everything, then open up a 30 cycle "window"
for a brief while when the "start" of a dot or dash
was liable to occur.

The entire mess, transmitter and distant receiver was sync'd with
the WWV time signal, to open and close the receiver's active filters
during automatic CW transmission.


The incoming dot or dash audio would be re-generated artificially
by a separate audio circuit in the receiver.

QRP advocates claimed they could get on a crowded voice band,
and pump a low power CW signal through at a slow speed
of a few words-per-minute.



Switching Gears -
*********

Does anyone know if the FCC still requires at least 50 RF watts
to legally drive a linear amplifier?

There was talk that they might change that requirement so that
low power rigs like the Yaesu could drive an amplifier.

Of course, nothing to stop a ham from building his own
intermediate amplifier, but cleaning up all the harmonics is
a major concern.

Mark

In article ,
Mark Conrad wrote:

Wow, thanks everyone for the great reports on
the lttle Yaesu transceiver!

I am contemplating it mainly for its ears.

I wanted to order the optional Collins 300 cycle filter
for CW work, but had hazy memories from 55 years ago
that such filters tended to cause unwanted "ringing"
of the output audio, kinda like a steady loud output "hiss".

Sharp frequency-domain filter cutoff, comes along with blurry
time-domain cutoff... you can't entirely avoid that.

Narrow-bandwidth filters aren't all equal, though, even for the same
-3 dB bandwidth. Different filter alignments cause different amounts
of frequency-domain (pass-band and stop-band) ripple, and different
amounts of ringing and phase shift. Some types seem to be easier on
the ear (and the whole ear/brain system) than others.

Another, more modern approach is to use digital filtering techniques
(either with a DSP chip, or with a personal computer acting as a DSP).
By using finite-impulse-response digital filters, you can get a wider
range of time- and phase-relative behaviors than you can with an IIR
analog filter.

When I left Ham Radio in 1955, the QRPp experts were
playing with "active filters" for low power QRP work.

If I remember correctly, such filters would block _all_ the
signal, noise and everything, then open up a 30 cycle "window"
for a brief while when the "start" of a dot or dash
was liable to occur.

The entire mess, transmitter and distant receiver was sync'd with
the WWV time signal, to open and close the receiver's active filters
during automatic CW transmission.


The incoming dot or dash audio would be re-generated artificially
by a separate audio circuit in the receiver.

QRP advocates claimed they could get on a crowded voice band,
and pump a low power CW signal through at a slow speed
of a few words-per-minute.

This sounds like the "synchronous CW" approach. As you indicate, it
requires extremely careful time-base matching at the sending and
receiving ends.

I do recall reading of some work being done with computer-assisted CW
some years ago. It seems to have lost out in popularity to other
digital modulation modes such as PSK31, which have many of the same
benefits for narrow bandwidth but which don't require
tightly-synchronized clocks.

At the other end of the speed range, are some very-high-speed CW and
digital modes used for things like meteor scatter communications.

Switching Gears -
*********

Does anyone know if the FCC still requires at least 50 RF watts
to legally drive a linear amplifier?

The current standards (Part 97, sections 315 and 317) say:

- Commercially-built amplifiers capable of operating below 144 MHz must
be certificated in order to be sold or modified.

- To be certificated, an external amplifier may not amplify the RF
input signal by more than 15 dB.

- To be certificated, an external amplifier must not amplify signals
between 26 MHz and 28 MHz at all (0 dB gain maximum).

- The above restrictions do not apply to external power amplifiers
which are made by, or modified by, a licensed amateur radio operator
for use at an amateur radio station.

So, yeah, if you want to buy a amplifier which can deliver "legal
limit" power of 1500 watts of HF, you need to plan on driving it with
at least 50 watts or so. If you want a hotter rig, you'll either have
to construct it yourself, modify a commercial amplifier, add an
external intermediate amplifier stage, or cheat.

There was talk that they might change that requirement so that
low power rigs like the Yaesu could drive an amplifier.

Well, low-power rigs *can* drive an external amplifier... just not all
the way up to legal-limit in one step. A 5-watt Yaesu could drive a
15 dB linear amp up to around 150 watts of RF output - this is more
output than most "barefoot" single-box HF rigs are capable of, and is
less likely to accidentally ignite the neighbor's cat than a
legal-limit setup.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Mark Conrad wrote:


Wow, thanks everyone for the great reports on
the lttle Yaesu transceiver!

I am contemplating it mainly for its ears.

I wanted to order the optional Collins 300 cycle filter
for CW work, but had hazy memories from 55 years ago
that such filters tended to cause unwanted "ringing"
of the output audio, kinda like a steady loud output "hiss".

When I left Ham Radio in 1955, the QRPp experts were
playing with "active filters" for low power QRP work.

If I remember correctly, such filters would block _all_ the
signal, noise and everything, then open up a 30 cycle "window"
for a brief while when the "start" of a dot or dash
was liable to occur.

The entire mess, transmitter and distant receiver was sync'd with
the WWV time signal, to open and close the receiver's active filters
during automatic CW transmission.


The incoming dot or dash audio would be re-generated artificially
by a separate audio circuit in the receiver.

QRP advocates claimed they could get on a crowded voice band,
and pump a low power CW signal through at a slow speed
of a few words-per-minute.



Switching Gears -
*********

Does anyone know if the FCC still requires at least 50 RF watts
to legally drive a linear amplifier?

There was talk that they might change that requirement so that
low power rigs like the Yaesu could drive an amplifier.

Of course, nothing to stop a ham from building his own
intermediate amplifier, but cleaning up all the harmonics is
a major concern.

Mark

There is an amp made specifically for the FT-817. The Tokyo Hy-Power
HL45B. I use one with my barefoot K3.

In article , mikea
wrote:

Any advice gratefully appreciated -

I don't have one, though I have the 817's bigger brothers the 857D and
897D.

Two of my friends *do* have 817s, and _LOVE_ them.

Yeah, they are cute little buggers. Here, we are all way beyond
cell-phone range, so a few hams sprinkled around here can do a
lot of good in an emergency.

I will check out the 857D and 897D, just to make sure I have
covered all the bases; thanks for mentioning those models.

Mark

In article , Geoffrey S.
Mendelson wrote:

Mark Conrad wrote:

Opinions regarding Yaesu FT-817ND transceiver?

The original 817 had a problem with batteries. The off switch did not
actually turn off the power and the finals being able to function
from 1.8mHz to 450 mHz went into oscilation and burned out.

Has this been fixed? The popular fix at the time was to remove the batteries
when the rig was not in use.

The biggest problem with the Yaseu is the tiny screen. The ICOM 703 has a
much larger screen. The 703 only goes up to 6m though.

The 706 does have the same frequency coverage as the Yaseu. You can adjust the
output power down to 5 watts, so it may be a viable option. It also has
a more features than the Yaesu.

If you are using it in a location where size and weight don't matter that
much and nor does the increased battery drain, it may be worth the
money for it so that you have 100 watt HF output if you need it.

The ICOM rigs include a removable front panel, so you can mount them
elsewhere and just have the control head at your operating position.

Looking at Universal radio the current price for a new rig is
$600 for the 817ND, $730 for the 703+ and $945 for the 706IIG.
So you have a big range of price, power and features to choose from.

The Yaesu is the grandson of the FT-290 and simlar rigs, which were
portable VHF/UHF multimode rigs, while the ICOM grew out of shrunken
HF rigs, the Kenwood TS-50 being the first. Surprisingly, Kenwood no
longer has anything to offer in that line.

Geoff.


Thanks for the comprehensive rundown, I will check them all.

Regular telephone service in these mountains of northern CA
is unreliable, quite a few older folks here are in a real pickle
when the phones go out.

That is one of the reasons I decided to reactivate my ham ticket.

Main reason of course is just out-and-out fun

Mark