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You can
write your own review of the Yaesu FT-7.
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SM7FBJ
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 24, 2004 17:37
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Still going strong
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Easy to make maintenance (pullout boards)...and execllent receiver. Easy to make working between 1-10W using a
potentiometer between plus and minus supplyvoltage and feed the midpoint of the pot into pin 3 on the acc-socket (ALC input). I sometimes miss a narrow CW-filter, but it works nice anyway.
For SSB operation i gives a nice audio on transmit...rugged and as others b4 me said...no xtra fuss! No menues and knobs to fiddle with....a straight forward rig!
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HA8LUA
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 19, 2004 17:57
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Simply the best
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have 2 Yaesu HF radios an FT-107M and an FT-7.
Both work excellent. My dream since childhood was to have an FT-7 rig because one of my teachers was a ham and in his shack heard it at first. This little green box CONTAINS NOTHING MORE THAN A
RADIO (not "more and useful features" what are often only built in noise generators). Excellent RX and very good SSB quality. I don't suffer from
not having a specific CW filter, the selectivity is very good. Be happy if you're also an FT-7 owner! That's why I gave it 5 pts.
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M0KKW
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 18, 2003 16:48
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Excellent little rig
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I regretted letting my FT7B go, but managed to get hold of an earlier FT7. The strong signal handling, selectivity, sensitivity and AGC are really excellent. I always get good reports on the transmitted audio. I added an ERA outboard audio filter for CW and a Star Masterkey and I now really enjoy QRP operation on the key.
Although I have several other HF radios, the FT7 has earned a permanent position in the shack.
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G4LPW
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Rating: 4/5
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Sep 14, 2003 15:34
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Excellent
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Ive had an FT7 for about 14 years and I wouldn`t part with it. These days its a standbye rig, but I do power it up now and again. Great RX selectivity! And it can still beat alot of rigs that have come after it. A dream to work on inside (pullout boards).I worked the world on mine. If you see one going at a rally, BUY IT especially if your into QRP.
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WB5AGF
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 13, 2003 15:21
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Excellent, simple, HF radio
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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The FT7 is one of those radios that makes you smile when you think about it. Although designed in the late 1970's an FT7 would still make a great portable rig or serve as a back-up for a home station. When I had a job that kept me travelling most of the time I frequently carried my FT7 with me and had great fun putting it on the air from places as diverse as the Ozarks in southern Missouri (for an antenna using a random length long-wire thrown over a tree limb and a homebrew L-network matchbox) and from the shores of a lake in NW Wisconsin. A few years ago I took the FT7 when I went to the Mena Hamfest in western Arkansas and with a dipole strung up between some trees on the mountaintop worked KH6IJ(SK), that being the only time I'd ever heard that famous gentleman. For low power SSB the FT7 will be hard to beat; perhaps not quite so optimal for CW ops but still OK (semi-break-in and a 'spotting' function can be added if you know what you're doing).
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G3XBM
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Rating: 4/5
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Nov 3, 2002 16:05
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My old friend!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I owned an FT7 from the late 1970s for about 5 years and worked all over the world with the 10W of SSB and CW mainly on 28MHz. The receiver was beautifully quiet and had excellent dynamic range. These days an FT817 replaces it but the FT7 remains one of my all-time great transceivers.
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KU4QW
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 10, 2002 10:48
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Great Rig
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This is a great old champ. I feel very lucky to be the proud owner of a FT-7, I use it mostly to work cw, no filter but not really needed, does a great job with out it. On SSB band this radio can't be beat in the qrp class, lots of pep, mine cost my $125.00 how can you go wrong with a first class HF rig that can be had for so little.
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W4CHL
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Rating: 5/5
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Apr 10, 2002 01:07
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Rugged, great QRP+ & Field Day QRP rig !
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Got an FT-7 as a basic HF rig for the shack after using a TS-120S donated to support our school club. After completing repair and selling the TS-120S, I found myself wishing I had a basic HF rig in the shack all the time. My little all-band rig, FT-817, is often mobile: in the car, in a pack, or on the bicycle.
So with some help located what turned out to be an excellent condition FT-7 for the going rate of $200+s/h. The day it arrived I set it up and got great DX signal reports on 40m (from Central IN to Central NC). Works fine on PSK31 as well.
I intend to include this as a rig for the Field Day GOTA station. Our club (OCRA) intends to run all QRP rigs and this simple to operate rig seems reliable, and from all accounts simple to update coverage for the one included band that is given short shrift, 10m.
No WARC bands is the only drawback for SSB operation, can't say that the CW semi-breakin keying is a significant drawback, since I rarely operate CW. Added a powered mike (an Astatic D104 Silver Eagle) for base operation and the power peaks 20% higher than with the old Yaesu stock mobile mic after dialing back the mic gain to prevent overdriving AF input. I'll connect an HFPacker amp that a couple of members of our club are building and report the results separately.
It would be interesting to incorporate a speech compressor board into the stock mic like the one available from W4RT for the FT-817 mic. Come to think of it, wiring up a mic interface to accept the W4RT compressor equipped FT-817 stock mic seems a good project. It will be interesting to compare on-air reports of the FT-817 stock mic w/ W4RT speech compressor to the Astatic D104 Silver Eagle power mic running with the FT-7.
73 de Mark W4CHL
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KG4PYM
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 28, 2002 18:11
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Built like a Tank.Reliable.
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The FT-7 I write of is not mine. My Corsair blew final drivers 2x in as many months. While she's away I'm using/have been using my Uncle's FT-7.
It's the same radio I used in my first and only Field Day over 22 years ago, from my Uncle's backyard as a Novice.
It has proven itself to be reliable-everything still works, it's been used as a mobil as well, in several different vehicles.
Actually when we first fired it up again after many years of non-use, output was 2W Max.
We simply removed each plug-in modular PC board [another very fine feature- modular plug-in boards], took a pink pencil eraser already on hand, and cleaned the board contacts of every plug in board. Extremely easy access once you get the top cover off.
THAT was all the servicing it has EVER had.
I have to hand it to Yaesu- they did this one very well, like most of what they do.
It's still full out-put, excellent audio quality, the sidetone on CW resonates beautifully, and considering it's 10W output [no accurate meter here, Radio Shack meter says almost 20W on the 20W scale, about 11-13 on the 200W scale]- it gets good reports on CW- I operate mostly CW- I very much miss QSK- but for a radio as old as this radio is, it performs as well as it did when it was fresh out of the box. No backlash problems with this VFO. It still turns like it was new.
For a SSB rig I can find no fault.
This is a fine radio- your most BASIC radio- no bells or whistles of ANY kind, but everything it does do, it does WELL. Performance meets or exceeds it's design criteria.
No WARC. No SPOT. No Speech Processor. No Fuss, No Muss- this radio LIKES to WORK.
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KU4QD
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 30, 2002 11:00
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One of the best in it's day, still very good today
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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The Yaesu FT-7 I own is the fourth I've had over the years, and I won't be stupid enough to sell this one. The rig is big and heavy by today's standards, but was small and light back in 1978 when it hit the market. Now, 24 years later, the FT-7 is still more fun to operate than any other QRP rig I have for SSB, and it can be made to be a good rig for CW as well.
The FT-7 has superb audio, both on transmit and receive. This is an analog rig all the way, so there is no phase noise or digital noise to negatively impact receiver performance. Sensitivity is outstanding, and selectivity is quite acceptable for SSB work even on crowded bands like 20M and 40M. The 10W rated output is more than enough to make lots of contacts, and is, in fact, too much for some QRP awards and certifications. Yes, you can turn it down :)
The rig lacks a provision for a CW filter and as such it is not a very good CW rig unmodified. Back in April, 1992, there was an article in QRP Quarterly about adding an audio CW filter. That's really all the rig needs to become a very good CW rig indeed. Another possibility is to add an Inrad CW filter on a separate circuit board and add switching between the two filters. Keying is semi-QSK as is typical with Japanese rigs of the '70s and '80s. Full QSK would have been nice. If I were rating the FT-7 strictly as a CW rig it would be no more than a "4", and that only with the fiter mod.
The rig is extremely well made and uses modular plug-in boards for easy servicing. The display, done in blue and green, is one of the prettiest analog displays ever done. (Icom's IC-201 and IC-501 are the only others that I've seen that are as nice.) The VFO is mechanically smooth and the dial is finely calibrated so that you can really tell what frequency you are on. A 100kHz marker is standard on this rig.
The FT-7 is pretty bare bones--no bells and whistles, just solid performance. If you are looking for a good looking, solid old QRP rig for your desk at home, you can't do much better that an FT-7, particularly with a CW filter added. It's probably not the best choice for a diehard CW operator, but for someone who enjoys SSB QRP and also does some CW it is an outstanding and really inexpensive option.
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