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Reviews For: FDK Multi-2700

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Base/Mobile (non hand-held)

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Review Summary For : FDK Multi-2700
Reviews: 2MSRP:
Description:
10W VHF FM/AM/CW/SSB with 10m OSCAR transverter, VFO and PLL.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
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VA3MLV Rating: 2013-08-12
Dedicated to VE9DEN Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Ok so this is the story with this Transciever, first week in August in summer of 20013 in New Brunswick Canada. Forgot my power cord for an HF Transciever I took with me so I went over to my friend VE9DEN QTH cause I knew if anyone would be able to get me the power cord it would be Denni and sure enough he had one, so I used the power cord and when I was done I took it back to him ( VE9DEN ) and whenever I go down to NewBrunswick I always stop by but this time he gave my a few pieces of equipment ( 10A regulated power supply, portable 2M - 40M antenna, FDK Multi 2700 2M Transciever which I went over and gave a little TLC , I hooked it up and set it all up ready to operate. I went for a drive in my mobile that has my Yaesu FT7800R Dualbander Transciever for VHF-UHF and had the wife back at the House transmitting on the FDK 2700 and the multiband portable antenna and it sounded great, the audio was clean clear and full. I then told the wife to go for a drive and I stayed at the house with the FDK Transciever which also on receive sounded great also , so in and out its a solid rig and it also has SSB so that's a bonus. It has a spot at home back in Ontario Canada on my desk. 73
LA2YUA Rating: 2013-06-17
A proper base station, if you like tinkering Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is the Toyota Hilux of VHF base stations, every single piece of electronics in this radio is standard and available new today. This also means it's extremely heavy, giving it a real solid feel. Even 1980s radios would typically use a PLL-IC and a FM receiver IC, these functions are instead accomplished with standard 74-series logic and 2-3 circuit boards full of transistors in the 2700.

It will run off mains or 12V, and by strategically installing a diode it can seamlessly switch between the two.

The output stage is built with a fairly massive heatsink using derated components meaning it can be run continuously even with a bit of SWR in the antenna. There's even the option of putting in an 80mm fan (nominally mains powered, I rewired it to run off the 13.8V bus with a thermal switch, and it's only turned on once after about an hours continuous operation into a dummy load). If operated into a short it will shut down the output until you re-key the transmitter, the threshold for acceptable SWR is adjustable through a hole in the power booster can.

On-air reports have been excellent, there's a compressor available but it should only be used on SSB. Receive audio is also very good, but I did install a small voltage amplifier on the FM output board since the discriminator is designed for more modulated signals than we used today.
The receiver is narrow enough that it's possible to re-tune the W/N modes to work with 5/2.5 kHz deviation (default is 7.5/5) if you install a 20-turn pot instead of the normal deviation adjustment.
The FM receiver uses separate crystal filters for Wide and Narrow mode, meaning it actually has a truly wide/narrow receiver.
It uses a fairly complicated squelch circuit that operates very smoothly.

The master oscillator for the PLL mode is 10 MHz, meaning it's fairly easy to install an off the shelf TCXO instead (or to put in an external 10 MHz input), since I found it does vary a fair bit with temperature. The FM center meter makes it easy to fine-tune the analog +-5kHz adjust knob.

In use the hand-mic has a very solid click, and it's followed through with the sound of big powerful relays smacking into place and the red ON AIR lamp lighting up, letting you know that you are in fact on the air.

The VFO works quite smoothly when lubricated properly, and there's a built-in crystal calibrator that works with the FM center meter to let you calibrate the VFO before each use. Using the VFO + PLL essentially adds a second channel, the PLL supports repeater operation and you can switch to the VFO to very quickly switch back and forth between a repeater and a simplex channel.

I would buy this again, it looks great on my desk, great audio, excellent receiver, and I know it will never break so badly that I can't fix it.