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Reviews For: Yaesu FTM-400DR

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FTM-400DR
Reviews: 92MSRP: $699
Description:
The FTM-400DR uses C4FM FDMA (C4FM – 4-level FSK Modulation, FDMA –
Frequency Division Multiple Access), which has been developed for the
professional LMR communications. It uses this enhanced technology for a
lower BER (bit error rate), resulting in stable communications without
interruptions during mobile operations, even in a rapidly moving vehicle.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=106&encProdID=227201D29C822AEFF8482F3367495319&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00923.8
NC3U Rating: 2013-10-08
Great Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have read the review above and for the most part disagree with the findings. I also own a FTM-350AR and till this point still love the radio. Comparing the 350 to the 400 is like comparing apples to oranges. Here is my assessment of the FTM-400D.

The FTM-400 D does not have FM Broadcast band installed for a reason. This rig is designed to be put into a modern car that already has FM radio installed in its entertainment package. The FTM-350 was designed for Motorcycles, Marine and ATV’s all these vehicles most likely do not have FM radios installed. The head unit does not have a speaker, PTT button or a Mic Jack. All of these features were designed into the FTM-350 for its intended use as a rig for recreational vehicles.

The FTM-400D is a solid performer on the VHF and UHF bands and the out of band receive is superb. On a side by side test with the FTM-350 there is no difference in receive audio, sensitivity and selectivity. Transmit audio by all reports is excellent and very smooth. The new screen is just the right size for me and is very easy to see and understand. The touch sensitivity is that of your Garmin GPS. I would not want it more sensitive.

The lack of software right now may be a problem for some but I had no problems keying in 40 repeaters in less than an hour while watching the football game. So the lack of Line in is no problem to a casual user in my opinion. The audio out is a single jack now and if you pair it up with the right 1/8 stereo jack you have one speaker for both channels. I have no room in my car for 2 speakers for this rig. I use the other speaker location for my HF rig.

The lack of Memory banks is a scanning issue I will agree with that. The SD card does store the radio back-up including the frequencies stored in the A and B Band. The radio will do Cross band repeat as described in the FTM-400D yahoo group. There is a very nice downloadable manual for APRS on the Yaesu Website.

Discussing the digital end of the radio is a little tough because there aren’t any repeaters set up in my area. The DR-1 looks promising and the use of interconnect ability with WIRES X looks intriguing. As of the time I’m writing this review I have yet to go into digital mode by accident.

In conclusion I feel the radio is a superb contender for what is out there and a good value for the money, In comparison to what the FTM-350AR cost with all the bells and whistles this radio is a bargain. D-Star radios are costing around the same money for their high end rigs.

NC3U
K6OZY Rating: 2013-09-23
Disappointed Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I own many FTM-350ARs and have not had any real complaint with them. When Yaesu discontinued it in favor of the 400DR, I was looking forward to it to add the radio into my car with its snazzy touch screen. I figured the $699 premium was going to be everything the FTM-350AR was plus digital, plus a touch screen, plus an SD card input. plus.. plus plus.. etc. Boy was I wrong.

I saw pictures of it last year, and it didn’t make a showing at Dayton this year when I visited, which was very disappointing. I snagged the manual months ago when the FCC certification process kicked off so I could glimpse at it while waiting fro the radio to hit the stores. It looked promising. Finally they landed at HRO and I started to compare it to the 350AR.

Hardware Changes
First off, they made some huge changes to the hardware I do not like. The microphone can’t be attached to the control head. There is also no speaker, mic or ptt on the head like the 350AR. This reduces the cable from an RJ45 to an RJ11. I do not like this change. The only positive is that the control head is about half the weight.

The FTM-400DR is missing the Line In connector also. Uh oh… I didn’t like where this was going.

They did not supply the typical audio L/R splitter like they did with the FTM-350AR & FTM-10R radios. This made me thinking: perhaps they had no plan for it. Sure enough, the menu item that was listed in the FCC manual under [TX/RX -> Audio, choice #1] “Mix / Separate” was missing in the radio and release manual. This is horrible. I like splitting the audio out for VFO separation.

The touch screen is resistive, which isn’t surprising. Its accuracy is pretty low. It’s easy to mistype when trying to enter APRS messages.

Other things MIA

1. There is no FM Broadcast receiver. Really? Every Yaesu radio has had one.. even the $130 VX-3R..

2. X-Band repeat was REMOVED. FCC manual menu [CONFIG Item 19] XBand Repeater listed it. I checked the release manual, and it’s missing indeed. The radio has no option, config settings stop at 18. WTF!?!

Wires is back called “Wires-X” and is easily activated by holding the mode button a bit too long, again pissing everyone off on every repeater.

The Digital Part
Now lets talk about the digital part. A friend bought one too so we were able to compare it to D-Star. In “DN” (Digi Normal) mode, 6.25Khz is used for voice, 6.25Khz is used for GPS data and call sign information. The audio sounds so similar to my D-Star ID-51a, but a bit clearer. I’d say MotoTRBO quality. Simplex tests showed that it was quite good at low signal reception.

The radio in “Auto” mode would try digital as long as it could, then gracefully switch over to analog FM when it ultimately could not get enough signal. Every time someone would PTT, their callsign appears and distance in miles (or km) is shown on the screen. If you had the Navi Screen, it would show their relative location to you, but I couldn’t save the location or even chose to navigate to them. I may not fully know how to do that yet, and that may be an issue on my part.

Digital modes only work on VFO A.

The mode setting is GLOBAL and not per memory channel. This means it is SUPER easy to accidentally blast the local repeater with C4FM Digital if you didn’t check before you key.

You can change the digital mode to “VW” (Voice Wide). This allocates all 12.5Khz to voice. Only the call sign is sent, and no GPS data. The audio quality is VERY good in this setting. I wish we could get this audio out of 6.25khz channels too. Codec2 perhaps?

The FCC manual showed options for not sending GPS data out with your voice while transmitting. This option has been removed from the release manual and radio. If you use digital, you send your location, unless you disable the GPS entirely or override it with a static location.

The “Group Monitor” feature is the “GM” button on the radio face. It is like a digital “hive mind” mode that has all the radios in your area automatically exchange location data while using the same channel for voice. You see your radio chirp out data automatically every now and then and you can request a sync for all stations on demand. This seems neat, but again, if your fat finger hits it by accident while on a local repeater, you then begin blasting it with modem chirps every 5 seconds until you realize what you did.

The SD card only saves config settings for backup and a GPS crumb trail. There is no way to use it to program the radio from your PC and then import it into the radio.

APRS makes a clicking noise out of the speaker every received packet even if volume is fully down on VFO B. You have to enable APRS mute to get rid of the click. BTW, there is no APRS user guide in the box. The main manual keeps referring you to downloading the APRS users guide online, yet Yaesu’s website only lists the sales brochure. Really?

Scanning. Another chronic problem that existed on the FTM-350AR which I was hoping of being fixed was Banks. Neither radio has a memory bank system, and have 500 memories for each side of the radio separated from each other. This means scanning on this radio is completely impossible. You can only mark channels as “Skip” and scan all, or set it to only scan memories marked included. There are no banks or Hyper Memories like the VX-8 or FT-8800/8900 etc radios.

Conclusion
Until (unless) Yaesu can address these issues in the firmware, I am not keeping this radio. This is a significant step down from the FTM-350AR. I’ll call them and give them a chance to explain themselves, but I fully expect no one at USA Yaesu to have any answers or even to have played with the radio yet.

I’m very disappointed.