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| Reviews Summary for Yaesu FT-950 |
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Reviews: 143
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Average rating: 4.7/5
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MSRP: $1840
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Description: The Yaesu FT-950 is an HF/6m transceiver which features IF DSP as well as 3 kHz, 6 kHz and 15 kHz roofing filters. The transceiver can be interfaced with the DMU-2000 to add additional functions such Band Scope, Audio Scope, X-Y Oscilloscope, World Clock, Rotator Control, and extensive transceiver status displays, in addition to station logging capability. The optional RF µTuning Kits may be connected via the rear panel, providing improved selectivity to protect the receiver from close-in interference on a crowded band.
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Product is in production.
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More info: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamhf/0950.html
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write your own review of the Yaesu FT-950.
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K5JIL
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 2, 2012 05:38
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ONE FINE RADIO
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I had a once in a lifetime chance to purchase this excellent HF transceiver. I had to sell alot of stuff, but what a delight after all was done. I warn you, better like menu driven radios though! I am very computer oriented, so absolutely L O V E this radio. You can personalize it like a special ordered, custom-made home. There is a menu for every aspect of transmit/receive and cw,rtty, and voice. It gives me a totally new aspect of ham radio. Buy one if you can, you'll love it.
73s de k5jil
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KC2UCA
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 30, 2012 15:02
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Great for the price
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I have had this rig for over a year now and it's worked well. I am using an external antenna tuner for running a random wire and the radio has performed. Great receive.
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DW1TEE
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 19, 2012 22:26
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FINE HF RADIO
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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HI IM FERDIE DV1TEE FROM MANILA IVE GOT MINE TWO DAYS AGO AND ITS A ONE OFA HECK OF A RADIO NOTHING TO PUSH OUT OF THE BOX GREAT RECIEVE AND HAD A NICE CONTACT WITH N7LC GREAT RIG I THAUGHT THEY SAY THIS RADIO NEEDS REFINEMENT BUT FOR ME ITS AN 8 NOTE YOU HAVE TO BE PATIENT IN READING THE MANUAL TO MUCH TO LEARN BUT ITS WORTH IT 73'
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KC2OYZ
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 18, 2011 20:45
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FT-950 Revisited - WITH EQPlus
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I gave the 950 3/5 below, but after a couple of weekends on the air with it I'm hooked, at least when I use with EQPlus, which allows me to tweak audio and compression without digging into the menus.
The RX is wonderfully quiet, the DSP is easy to use and works very well in combination with the attenuators, pre-amps, shift and RF Gain.
I have terrible loud, whirring, grinding QRN around 18.120 (and a few other spots as well on 17 and 20m) from something, somewhere - it's constant, been there for years on every radio I've owned - something in the building I suppose, out of my control. But this afternoon I was able to work a weak station spot on 18.120 on the 950 using the DNR, contour and shift - so it's passed my litmus test (many have failed).
Radio looks great, feels solid and well built, and the display is big and bright, QMB, Memory channels, scanning and band stacking make it easy to get anywhere fast, and the separate adjustable AM carrier setting make it easy to tune up with my manual tuner at low power. I don't use the auto-tuner in the 950 - I use monoband dipoles and a Dentron Super Tuner - quicker and better than an ATU.
Memory channels and band stacks store virtually all of your settings along with the freq, including attentuator, IPO, etc.
Tuning knob is adjustable to make it very tight, the way I like it, very easily.
Just a very smooth, pleasurable operating experience once you learn the ins and outs of the radio.
The one complaint is that the roofing filters are pretty useless - a strong signal close in will give you trouble but you can usually get around this using the shift, narrow filters, attenuators and DNR. You can also install the AC0C Roofing Filter by NS to fix the problem entirely - so you'll end up spending around $1750 for a wonderful radio. (Note - without something that lets you modify the audio without going through the menus my rating is 4/5)
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G7JZD
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 10, 2011 06:46
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Good Radio for the Price
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have now had the Radio since Jan 2008, so i am now used to the radio.
It is not a Radio to be used straight out the box, please read the manual and read it again.
Most of the time you will need to set the Radio to what suits you,that will take a few weeks of reports from other contacts, and once you get it set up to your liking then it becomes a fine Radio.
As for other peoples moans about the Menu button etc.
Well i run mine along side Ham Radio Deluxe,then all the menu's are there to play with.most of the Menu's are set up once and forget,but the ones that you may need to alter are there to see all the time as i said via H R Deluxe.
Would i buy one again, yes i would.
But buyers please be patent and take your time with setting it up.
Then like me my contacts say i sound great and they sound great to me.
I do use a MD 100 Yaesu Mic and SP2000 speaker.
73 Mike G7JZD
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KC2OYZ
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Rating: 3/5
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Dec 10, 2011 00:53
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Almost....
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I agree entirely with EI3GRB's review, just below - in terms of performance and features, the 950 is a fine radio. But in terms of usability it needs help - so much important stuff that I often tweak when working on a crowded band are buried away in menus. I moved from a 450D to a 950 and the 950 is a major step upwards from the 450D in terms of performance, but the 450D is EASY TO USE but the 950 can be a real pain. I'm a software engineer and designer so ease of use is huge for me and I know how simple it is to make something easy to use with just a bit of thought.
How do you dedicate a whole knob just to keyer speed and another to monitor volume and then bury RF Power, DNR and EQ functionality in a list of 100+ menu items?!
And the CS button is a joke - ONE stupid menu function is all it gives you, and once you use it, your menu is moved to that setting, so you can't set the CS button for DNR or RF Power and then keep your menu settings at the EQ positions.
I had a 950 once before, a few years ago, and I sold it quickly for these reasons and moved to an Ic-746 Pro - audio wasn't as nice to listen to but the radio had every important control RIGHT THERE - IMO Icom has Yaesu beat hands down as far as usability is concerned - Yaesu's always seem counter intuitive.
I'm hoping I'll get used to the 950 and not have to shell out another $400 for an IC-7410 when Yaesu could have made the 950 a great radio with just a little bit of thought.
Luckily I have an EQPlus now so I can turn off all the EQ and proc settings in the radio and forget about them and control everything with the EQPlus. Otherwise my second 950 would already be gone.
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ON4VP
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 8, 2011 12:43
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High value for money
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I recently regained interest in ham radio so I was looking for a new radio. I like to state that a lot of hams discus numbers published in reviews but to me a radio has to perform in real live. It has to provide good ergonomics, good audio both in rx and tx and has to withstand strong broadcast signals on lower bands here in Europe.
Comparing radios that cost nearly $1000 with radios that cost 5 times more is ridicules. Nevertheless it is fantastic to know that less expensive radios sometimes do provide fantastic features almost equal to a lot more expensive ones making these radios high value for money.
To me the FT-950 is such a radio. It is not a high end radio, does not have the best numbers or receiver but to me the FT-950 shows a lot of potential. I've been reading the manual and gathering additional information on the Yahoo group. This info got me to a point where I can tweak the radio in a way that it performs fantastic for the purposes that I expect.
For me the FT-950 has a quiet receiver with good dynamics, has great audio in both receive and transmit, shows a lot of information on a large enough display and has most of the things directly accessible from the front panel. It is hard to find a radio that equals the FT-950 capabilities for the price I paid for it.
Extra stuff I like and are quiet exceptional for this category of radios: rotator controller built in, well laid out dual vfo with very fast qsx functions, parametric EQ, station monitoring, decent roofing filters.
Dislikes? Hard to find the way I use it. Why? Because I'm not comparing it against $3500 radios.
Set it up properly, take the time studding the manual, learn how to play with the dsp and you will have tons of joy for a very competitive price tag. I think I would be a lot more critical when I would spend $5000 buying a radio. For that amount of money all should be exceptional from A to Z. Concerning the FT-950, I'm very pleased with the package that I got for the price I paid.
Bottom line, the FT-950 is a fantastic radio with a very realistic price tag that earns its place in a relative competitive stations shack.
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EI3GRB
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Rating: 4/5
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Dec 8, 2011 09:38
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Good if you like button pushing
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Saw a comment on another forum that in the 950 Yaesu tried to reinvent the wheel and got it square shaped.
I operate ssb and various data modes,and having to enter menus to change tx power, data gain/level is a pain in it's self, however the issue is further confounded with that if the select knob doubles as a function knob so if I'm in menu mode and wish to adjust let's say the shift, I firstly have to exit the menu mode,
The c.s. button is a good feature but utterly wasted with only facilities for 1 menu, it could have been easily made for stacking a menu bank of 8 menus with single touch control.
The receiver is good but my 15 year old Clearspeech DSP unit beats the in built dnr and dnf combined.
No Rx aerial socket
The in built roofing filter is poor and in most cases make very little difference.
Rant over, what I like about the rig
nice neat compact size
good rx and tx audio when set up
noise blanker works well but takes time to get used to
I like the split vfo and frequency set up
The rig is reasonably priced and I think it is a pity that a little bit of research and planning with the layout would have made it superb.
The above are just my views, no doubt many will disagree, each to his own
73 Bob
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N6CIC
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 22, 2011 20:38
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Excellent Radio
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I have owned the FT-950 for about two months now and to date I am very pleased with its performance. I have owned many transceivers in my HAM career including HW-8, TS-520, TS-520S, TS-530S, FT-840, TS-130SE, IC-735, IC-740 (non-PRO), and FT-920. All of these have been fine transceivers but the FT-950 easily surpasses them all in features and performance. At first I thought I would miss not having an Rf power control, but I assigned Rf power in the menu to the CS control and it has worked fine. The adjustable digital IF width is very useful, and I like the visual display for adjustment of Notch, IF Shift, Contour, and received CW signal beat frequency. I also joined the Yahoo FT-950 users group and have gotten a lot of operating hints from that group. Receiving and transmitting quality are superb-a great transceiver for the money!
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WB4TJH
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 22, 2011 18:22
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Outstanding value for the money
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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No radio is perfect, but after only a few days of operating,I find that my new FT-950 is a good performing, good sounding radio that meets all my basic HF needs.The menues are not hard to go thru and getting the radio set up for my requirements was pretty routine. I have owned 35 or more HF radios over the past 41 years and had some favorites and some that I was not so happy with, but the FT-950 is a good, all around HF radio with a good receiver, reasonable selectivity and enough features to make it very versatile for everyday, general operating. I'm not a die-hard dxer, and care little for constests, but I find the radio to be excellent for the general SSB and CW ragchewing that I enjoy. It's a rugged radio, large enough to be finger-friendly and fairly easy to learn your way around with a little experience.I am very pleased with the signal and transmitted audio reports I get from other hams. I think for the price, it is an outstanding radio, both in performance and in build quality. I would not hestitate to buy it again.Time will tell, but based on past experience with many, many HF radios, I think the FT-950 will probably be in my shack for a long time to come.
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