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| Reviews Summary for Yaesu FT-7900R |
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Reviews: 48
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Average rating: 4.5/5
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MSRP: $329.00
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Description: The Yaesu FT-7900R Dual Bander operates on 2M and 70CM. High power output is featured with 50 watts on 2 meters and 45 watts on 430 MHz. CTCSS/DCS Encode/Decode is built in. Over 1000 memories are available. It is WIRES compatible. The FT-7900R well designed front panel provides simple, safe operation. The FT-7900R is ideal for the amateur who does not require cross-band repeat as found on the FT-8800R and FT-8900R. The FT-7900R has excellent receive range covering 108 to 520 and 700-990 MHz (less cellular).
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Product is not in production.
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More info: http://www.yaesu.com/
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W4LCM
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Rating: 4/5
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Feb 2, 2012 10:46
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No 50/40 only 40/30
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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My only complaint after one month of use
is that the power levels in this radio is NOT
what they advertise, I only can get
40 watts in Vhf and 30 watts in Uhf.
With all the advances in technology this
day, why is so difficult to achieve the power
they said the radio have?
Is this only happend to me, because I don't see to many complaints about this matter.
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KJ6MSG
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 6, 2011 17:45
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Love the wideband receive.
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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This was my first rig, which I purchased shortly after I obtained my Technician license. I am very pleased with the purchase. My first contact was through a local area repeater using a Diamond X-50A up at 8 feet. Using just 5W, I consistently received glowing reports on how clear and natural my transmissions sounded.
I have since moved the radio to my truck with a Comet SBB-5 and it performs wonderfully. I bounce back and forth between listening to the repeaters and listening to the local public service and aviation frequencies. It functions wonderfully in both respects.
I am really happy with the FT-7900R and I would buy another one.
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M1ERV
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Rating: 3/5
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Sep 6, 2011 02:21
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Poor RX
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Not happy with this radio from day one.It suffered from intermodulation and breakthrough even from airband,using a small co-linear.Sent it back to Vertec Standard.Now much better.Reasonable performance from cheap dual band.
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KD9VI
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 26, 2011 10:33
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perfect radio for general use
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I just do standard old FM on 2m and 440. I also have a bank for police and fire, and the local racetrack. I like its ease of use. I am very familiar with Yaesu. I have bought an ft 60, 7100, 1900 and 7900 off EBay and this was the best sounding both RX and TX. People say I sound so natural using this radio. I don't know if the previous owner did anything to the TX but the wrap and box were included, and there were no signs of opening the radio. I love the hyper settings because I have one for ham and one for police scanning. I love that these include 220 receive I just wish they all included all of 900 (the image of cellular is still blocked even though analog is no more! Can't do anything about that!) I do give it perfect rating because of the RX and TX quality.
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KC3D
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Rating: 0/5
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Aug 23, 2011 20:44
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Very dissapointing rig
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Just got the radio yesterday. Deviation very poor even when set to wide. Have to almost swallow the mike and raise your voice to even get close to 3 kh. deviation.
Intermods very bad on VHF when near any rf activity (even in a less than heavy use area). Will probably send the radio back to AES in the next day or so.
I am amazed that Yaseau would put out this poor quality product.
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WB2JVB
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 21, 2011 17:36
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Excellent dual bander - some unique features
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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This was a good pick. Got back into operation after a couple years off. My previous rig (now inside the house) was a Kenwood TM-732a.
Most of my contacts are pretty local, so I won't comment about RX/TX distance, etc. Others have done so.
This radio has a very cool feature, that is not well documented in the manual, hypermemories (HM). Each of the five hypers stores the ENTIRE configuration of the radio.
For example, I have HM-1 set for just my 4 local repeaters and simplex. But when I hit scan, it only scans the repeaters, VHF and UHF, not the simplex as there is too much stuff floating around.
I have HM-5 set to all the local public service freqs, so if I feel like doing some scanning, it works acceptably well.
Get the FT07900 programmer software, and it has a GREAT explanation of how to set up hypermemories. If you are not using these, you are missing a lot. There are a number of options, like which memory banks go to which hypermemory, which channels are skipped during scan, etc. Take the time to read about it.
Also, since these new radios are so crazy to program, if you hit the wrong button and mess up your settings, just press the hypermemory button and all is restored to your favorite settings (up to 5 of them).
Remember to set the default so the hypermemory is not auto updated. If you mess up some settings, and have auto update on, it will over write the hyper memory.
The auto off feature is great, and all radios should have this. My rig is powered by non switched power, so I can shut the car off during a QSO. When I leave the car, it will just shut off after an hour. Great feature. It also beeps when its about to shut off. Just touch a button or key up and it resets the timer.
I recommend this rig highly.
(if you are into this stuff, the mod to expand the TX range is quite easy)
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KC5AOS
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Rating: 4/5
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Aug 1, 2011 12:10
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Great Radio, separation kit stinks
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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No problems with the radio, althogh I've only been running it for about 2wks now. I would like to try out the PC programming software, but I wish it was less than $40.
The separation kit is another story. The supplied plastic bracket is a real piece of junk. It comes with straight slots for screw mounting but watch out! Even the slightest tightening of the screws/bolts will cause the bracket to shatter. NOT JUST BREAK OR CRACK, BUT SHATTER. Not sure why, could be injection molding parameters were out of calibration, could be an executive decision to save $ by selecting cheaper materials. Just not sure. The temmperature was 82 degrees so it had nothing to do with the cold. I'm curious how many others have had this problem? There realy is nothing else in the kit that you can't get off the shelf for cheap, so if you get it free with the rig, fine, otherwise don't pay for the kit. You can use any temperature rated, 2 sided sticky pad (I source at truck stops) to mount the head where you want without the bracket. You just need to be a little creative in your placement due to the link cable being plugged into the back of the head.
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G4XTA
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Rating: 3/5
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Jul 29, 2011 01:18
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What went WRONG with the RX design ?
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Jeepers, I sure jumped in too fast, raving about the FT7900 receiver being the same fantastic quality and bullet-proof RX as the classic FT7800 !!
I've now had my two new FT7900's for two weeks, working alongside my existing seven FT7800's.
Bad news. The receivers on the FT7900's are totally inferior to the older model. There's bad inter-mod problems.
My existing FT7800's scan about forty 2m and 70cms repeater and simplex memories. They whizz around those channels for hours on end, plugged into big Comet GP9 verticals. There's a telecommunications site on a hilltop around seven miles from my house, covered in transmitting antennas for pagers, pmr radio and emergency services radio etc.
My FT7800's continue to scan all the bands with no problems, only stopping on an occasional 'burble' from an overloading pager/mix signal at 'S-1' about once in every couple of weeks or so.
But.... both the new FT7900's stop constantly on deafening roars, squawks and chattering noises. Their overloaded front ends are choking on the high field strength and mixes of signals coming from seven miles away, and are driven into non-linearity, where they pick up all sorts of crap. Even with the squelch turned up to maximum, the pager noise still comes in at S-3 to S-5.
In short, these radios are completely unusable in the same installations where the previous model worked flawlessly for three years without a hiccup. They might look and operate the same as the FT7800, but they sure don't perform like they used to!
I don't know what to do. I can't use these radios at all. They won't scan, and they get so much loud interference that I have to either leave the room or switch them off.
Anybody got a couple of nice new FT7800's for sale?
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W4MBT
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 27, 2011 05:25
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Excellent Radio
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Picked one of these up at a hamfest last winter, and thus far couldn't be happier with it.
Ergonomically, the control head is very small but the buttons and knobs are easily usable with my larger fingers. I didn't expect to find such a well featured radio that would fit inside a recessed area of the dashboard on my newer Honda Accord, but this one fits perfectly and blends in very well.
The internal fan does produce some noise (not distracting) that I only notice when using the radio as a base station indoors, though when the chassis is tucked away under my driver's seat, it's not detectable.
This may be subjective but the audio quality from the internal speaker is top notch, as good as I've heard from most newer 2M radios. Receiver sensitivity is also excellent.
If I had to list one negative, I've never been truly satisfied with Yaesu mics. I get excellent audio reports and that's ultimately all that matters, but beyond the up/down buttons at the top, I've never liked the design of the remaining mic buttons and therefore rarely use them.
If you are searching for a great dual band radio and don't need a simultaneous receive feature, save yourself a lot of $$ and pick one of these up...you'll be happy you did.
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N1AKN
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 22, 2011 02:49
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Great radio
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Wish I could get another one at a good price .
Had ONE problem after 8 years of use ... After making long winded transmissions for the past 2 months every morning , I lost my VHF power output .
Turned out to be burned up solder on D1072 & D1073 VHF power switching diodes . Hard to troubleshoot for most HAMS (I was a Motorola tech for 20 years) but thought I should share this if before anyone buys a final transistor unnesisarily .
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