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You can
write your own review of the Yaesu FT-DX401.
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VA3DTP
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Rating: 4/5
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Jun 4, 2011 11:52
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Nice Old Vintage Radio
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Recently purchased this rare 1970's vintage boat anchor from a local ham fest. Presently restoring the radio with better tubes. Radio was in excellent condition, and was never modified. Finding information on the Yaesu FT-DX401 Series radios (operational and service manuals) was difficult and time consuming, but now have lots of great information. All (20) tubes can generally be easily found, mainly from tube warehouses or at ham fests. June 04, 2011 update: By purchasing some used good tubes, radio now puts out 240 Watts power easily. Sound quality is quite good. Have had many good transmission reports. Even though I have a modern HF radio, I really enjoy these old tube radios.
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5B4HK
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Rating: 4/5
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Jan 6, 2008 13:58
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Rock Solid Rig
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Club station 5B4ES operated one of these for nearly 15 years. Daily use by a variety of operators without a problem. That included annual field day excursions and many contests. Once a year we would take off the cover and carefully shake out the mouse poop that had accumulated inside (thanks to sharing the building with the Agriculture Club). Otherwise, no maintenance at all.
Obviously this is dated technology. But, like many fine rigs from the 70's, it proved itself.
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K5MO
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 6, 2007 04:02
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handome vintage SSB
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Solidly built, these rigs are solidly built and have the wonderful feel of Yaesu gear. Nice anti-backlash tuning, and a nice receiver. Of course they put out a lot of heat...they're full of tubes, but one a fall or winter day, that's a feature not a bug. Sturdy fun and very attractive.
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WI0T
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Rating: 3/5
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Sep 9, 2006 19:04
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Only fair in it's day
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I had one of these beasts from 1976 through 1984.
Generated lots of heat, power, gave a nice signal
out on CW.
However it had problems with dirty relays, high
voltage (around 60 volts) on the key (drove some
solid state keyers nus), and the 6KD6 sweep tubes
were way over taxed (even with the big fan on it).
I always thought this radio was designed for the
sole purpose of Yaesu using up some surplus tubes
they had in the back room...
Just an OK radio in it's day, I should have
purchased a Kenwood TS-520 instead.
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VK2KTZ
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Rating: 2/5
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Feb 24, 2002 18:29
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Difficult to work on.
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The Transceiver presents well, quite large, with good quality front panel and knobs, reduction plate tuning drive, and good feel from the VFO.
Marker generator has 100kHz and 25kHz.
The Transmitter follows "normal construction practice" and is quite robust, the receiver/modulator is on a LARGE printed circuit board, with tubes and transistors mixed together. The circuit diagram in the manual does not relate to the receiver very well, there are "daughter" boards everywhere, at right angles to the main circuit board, and are not discussed in the owners manual.
Build quality is generaly good, power voltage ranges from 100v to 234v 50/60Hz. Output is high, with 560W PEP input.
VFO is stable. Final cooling fan is noisey.
Clarifier is strange, in that all the way to the left is 'off', with centre being '0'.
Mine has an AGV fault (another part of the circuit that isn't in the manual) but I will track it down.
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