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Show all reviews of the Yaesu FT-857 - all flavors
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You can write your own review
of the Yaesu FT-857 - all flavors.
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KB1OEY
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 29, 2006 17:25
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nice
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I'm newly licensed and was in need of a rig, so I bought the FT-857 and an LDG AT100-Pro antenna tuner based on many old reviews, plus I was tired of being outbid on ebay for old boat anchors.
Anyway, I'm quite happy with this transceiver because the synthesized VFO actually works well- meaning that it tunes like my dad's 45 year old Drake-2B and not like my 10 year old Radio Shack DX-440. Of course, this is more a statement about modern transceiver design than anything else, but I can easily imagine bad synthesizers since you don't really see "continuous" tuning outside ham radio, and I really have no other basis for comparison so I'm quite pleased with the FT-857D.
The good, the interesting:
- VFO works well, all expected digital features are there. The only thing I wish it had is a built-in CW decoder :-)
- I agree with the concensous that this is a very good CW rig. Here's you do it: put in CW mode, tune until heterodyning brings CW tone to ~700 Hz- the blue LED will blink along with the dots and dashes when you have the correct pitch- this lets you know that you are centered for the CW filter. Next press the menu button for the DSP 240 Hz CW filter to cut out all the noise. There is a real IF filter as an option, but the DSP works well enough if you are not overloaded with interference. The built-in keyer with side-tone even when Tx is off (for practice) and built-in randomly generated code practice are nice.
- Manual includes schematics (but a bit out of date: the HF drivers don't match the schematics). The driver is bipolar class-AB (SSB)/class-B (FM) with a step-up transformer (which is largest component on the board) to get 100 W into 50 ohms out of just 12V. There are relay selected output filters. The AGC is based on descrete dual-gate mosfets. The optional HF preamp uses transformer based (low noise) negative feedback. There are switching diodes all over the place.
- Highly integrated control logic: the main CPU is one chip, the display module has another CPU, and there is a one chip DSP, plus there's a PLL chip. This is all good because there is not much digital noise around to leak into the receiver. There is no whine like on my DX-440 :-)
- Controls are not bad for a front panel this small. If you try one of these in a store, here are some quick hints so you don't feel like an idiot: the big knob is fine tuning (10 Hz steps, but smoothed). The little knob on the bottom left is coarse tuning. Press this knob in for direct entry of MHz. Tap the power button to make the big knob tune in 100 Hz steps instead of 10 Hz steps. There are obvious buttons for band select and mode select. Press "DSP" to bring up the DSP menu. Press "DBF" to enable the DSP bandpass filter. Press and old it to bring up the menu which allows you to adjust the high cut-off. Press and hold the "func" key to make the menu go away.
The bad:
- RF-gain (the default in the US) and squelch are on the same knob. There is a buried numbered menu which allows you to select between the two. You really need the squelch, because scanning is based on its setting.
- Tx power, IMHO, should not be a buried menu setting and 100W should not be the default Tx power, sheesh!
- The fan is basically always on when you are transmitting, even at low power. It goes off soon after you stop.
- When Tx power setting is reduced, the transceiver is not efficient (lost in class-AB bias I guess). At 5W power setting, it uses a whopping 5 amps for AM (compared to .6 A when not transmitting)- I was originally wondering if the carrier was still being sent at full power (because it's on a different setting) For FM, it uses about 2 amps (so I guess it goes into class-B mode).
- I found a bug after only one day of use: the way you set the low frequency cut-off of the DSP BPF, is by selecting the next lowest menu entry from the high frequency cut-off. I think if you don't leave this "wizard" by going back to the high frequency cut-off menu and press-and-hold func, then the next time you try to do this the menu entry disappears! The only way I was able to fix this was by doing a full reset to factory defaults.
- There is no direct entry of frequency without the optional hand-mic with the extra buttons (or a separate computer).
- For channelized FM (and broadcast FM), it's weird that the big knob is disabled. You have to tune with the small "coarse knob".
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Product is in production.
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