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Reviews For: TYT TH9800

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

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Review Summary For : TYT TH9800
Reviews: 39MSRP: 273.00 Amazon
Description:
Quad band transceiver. 10, 6, 2 Meters and 7o CM 50 watts on 6 and 2 meters, 40 watts an 10 meters and 70 CM.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.tyt888.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
22.5393
W0TRJ Rating: 2015-02-03
Needs mods to work right Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Radio has been working fine after doing some mods to make it work as it should.

Did the Tx busy lock out mod with the Firmware update and seemed to fix this problem.

Transmit audio reports said it had way too much bass and sounded muffled.

Replaced the stock Mic element, Now I have good TX audio reports.

No problems with the programming software.
Also Usb Programming cable worked fine for me too.

External speaker jack is now inop after plugging in a external speaker, now it will only work with the external speaker plugged in.

RF output on high power only 35watts on 2-meters.

Will update this post later after doing more testing on the other bands.

Lot's of info and mod files for downloading on the TH-9800 Yahoo group.
M6JGX Rating: 2015-01-28
6 months old Finals Gone! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I've owned a TYT 9800 for 6 months.

I only ever use it for short range UHF repeater work (See Below) on LOW POWER. My antenna has a SWR of 1:1.

Last week it stopped transmitting, I suspect it's the known problem with the finals. Unfortunately the (ebay) seller I purchased it from is no longer trading. Ebay don't want to know, TYT haven't answered any of my emails.

It was my main transceiver in my van. I liked the remote head so I could mount the body out of the way and it being "so called" Quad band.

Now when it says it's quad band..... Here are my findings.

10m - Rubbish - Using a Modulator mag mount tuned for 29 Mhz stations 4 miles away were barely detectable (S1?) where my President Lincoln was receiving the same station at an S8-9 on the same antenna.

6m - No Idea - Never heard anyone on there even under lift conditions. Couldn't open a 6m repeater 6miles away.

2m - OK - If your not near a mobile (cell) mast. On 2m it seemed to prefer to listen to Cell masts than repeaters. If you were within a 1 mile of a phone (cell) mast (and in a modern urban environment who isn't) it is unusable.

70cm - Good - Seemed to do the job well. Would get in to most local repeaters on low power. Audio reports were always positive.


The programming lead / interface, as you'll probably have already read is a joke.
IT IS NOT USB, the official cables also use a fake prolific chip that will also cause problems.
Saying that It's not the most complicated radio to manually program.

It was also promised that you would be able to program it to use 4m (70mhz). I'm not sure if they have ever or will ever sort that out


Would I buy another or recommend this radio - NO
VA7ARI Rating: 2015-01-06
Good value for the money Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have had this unit for about one week now. Power output is good with good audio on the other end. Receive is excellent across all bands. Menu system is a bit of a bear. I use the computer software to program repeaters etc (right now its best to use CHIRP to set up your channels and export it as a *.dat file for the proprietary software to load onto the radio but eventually I think the CHIRP guys will sort out how to program it directly) I had one problem with the "busy lock" not allowing me to break into repeater conversations when it detected a carrier (all the time during a net). This is a firmware defect. Since the radio is new at this time you must expect a few firmware bugs. This is fairly easily fixed but you need to join up the Th-9800 user group on yahoo (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TYT_TH9800/info) for answers and help with such issues. I'm sure after about a year most of these things will have been ironed out.
KQ4BX Rating: 2014-12-30
Revised model, called Plus Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
the radio arrived yesterday, so I will have to update after I do more with it. The box had a sticker referring to my radio being a Plus model. I have to assume that they made some firmware updates, so many of should see if the firmware can be updated on your older versions.
The audio report was great, and the reports were that it was no different than the great audio on my Icom ID-5100. Being a Ft-8800 owner for many years, I couldn't help but notice that the look and programming were very much identical to my Ft-8800. I found a quirky thing with the radio at first, I was sure I was in VFO mode and tried to enter a frequency in via the keypad on the microphone. I could not get the frequency to stick, it would fail on the last digit. So i tuned to it with the knob on the radio and I had not problem after I put the first repeater in. I turned on ARS, and found that you have to turn it on in each band, it will not assume that you want repeater offsets on each band. ARS worked very well, giving + when it was needed, - when it was needed, and simplex when I was on a simplex frequency. I found that I had to change the shift on 6M and 10m, and I also had to change the step to enter some of the frequencies of my local repeaters. That was fine, the radio did all I asked it to do, with no other odd occurrences. The radio was $259.00 and free prime 2 day shipping from Amazon. The radio comes with all you need to remote it, that includes a bracket for the control head, and a very long cable to remote the control head. Putting frequencies in memory is identical to the way Yaesu does it on the Ft-8800. I will try to update as I get the radio fully programmed and use it more.
DH6YHO Rating: 2014-10-05
Bad modulation & more dislikes Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently purchased a TH-9800 from a domestic dealer. This FT-8900 copy seems to be similar to the Euron MT-9500, so this review obviously covers both radios. I have 2 FT-8900s, know them very well and of course compare the TH-9800 with them.

My first impression was – wow, what Yaesu did not manage to realize with the FT-8900 – TYT did! It even covers 11 m and provides 6.25 & 8.33 KHz steps. AM is receive only on all bands, but that was acceptable since I usually just listen to truck CB stations during my long trips.

The first QSOs however were a disappointment. Although not mentioning the new radio most stations reported a muffled modulation, no matter what I tried to do. The TH-9800 provides 3 bandwidths – wide, mid & narrow. Using Narrow was worst, so common reports. Also the audio quality from the speaker sounded muffled, only one of a pile of external speakers sounded well.

Further con I noticed was a delayed TX / RX switch. None of my radios is similar. Early morning chat on my favourite repeater is a challenge due to short breaks. Hard to hit the PTT just in time.

Scan works very much slower than on the FT-8900. In addition, when tuning manually one side of the radio audio is interrupted on the other side at each step.
S-meter on 10 (11) m is useless. Most signals are full scale. V/UHF is ok, I could not check on 6 m due to restrictions in DL.

Handling the DTMF microphone may lead to hit the up / down keys on the top accidently. Seems to be a copy of the MH-48, but less ergonomic.

The radio of course has a sunny side, too. Sensitivity is very good, frequency range as stated and it came with a separation kit, DTMF mic and a USB cable. Software is free, but not perfect. As mentioned above the TH-9800 is very similar to the FT-8900, even the menu and display is nearly the same.

Conclusion:
I expected a radio with a quality level like its original, the FT-8900, but with some more features – at lower price. At least at the moment this is not achieved. While some dislikes are minor, the bad modulation (my business card) is not acceptable. Sorry TYT, the original deserves 5 points, the copy just 2.

My first decision was to contact the manufacturer in China. Unfortunately no reply. Then I decided to return the radio to the dealer who granted a 1 month return option at full refund incl. shipping. So that was my short story with the TH-9800. I hope they will improve quality soon since it may have the chance to become a hot seller.
K2OWK Rating: 2014-09-03
Still a great transceiver Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have had this transceiver for a few months now, and as promised here is an update. The transceiver still works perfectly. I use it for the local weather net and for simplex. I have it connected to an Arrow dual band antenna. I can talk to anyone I can hear. I can hit all my local repeaters. My reported audio is excellent. The transceiver is easy to manually program, or computer program with the proper software. I still highly recommended this transceiver. It also has a super low price.
W0MAS Rating: 2014-08-16
More for your money Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I purchased the TYT 9800 when they first became available in the USA. The price point was the seller
along with it appeared to be a Yaesu clone.
I have been very pleased with the radio and its performance. I mainly program it with the PC and have not done much manually so I cant say much about the manual programing.
I have enjoyed the radio so much I purchased a second one in July. I gave it a high mark based on it functions properly, many great features, is a quad band, very extended receive(AM REC mode included) for a price point less than the big three dual band offerings.
I give it a big thumbs up !
M5ABP Rating: 2014-07-30
Excellent value for money! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought one of these radios a few weeks back for less than £200. It is essentially a clone of the Yaesu FT-8900 covering 10/6/2/70 but represents a substantial saving on the Yaesu RRP.

The TH-9800 comes complete with the full separation kit for the detachable fascia and although I also received a programming lead, I found it easy enough to programme all my local repeaters without it.

I'm not too sure what issue the previous reviewer had with the squelch as the menu setting referred to relates to the rf squelch which I tend to turn off and then use the rotary noise squelch on the front panel but both seemed to work fine in any case. As you would expect there are separate rotary squelch encoders for each vfo.

In use I have found the radio intuitive to use and all reports on my audio have been favourable. The only minor issue that I have come across is that when scanning on one vfo but listening to a signal on the other then you get a fluttery effect on the audio but I guess this is to be expected when the radio uses a single antenna socket and duplexer for both vfo's.

In practice this has not proven to be a major issue and given all the positives I am very happy with my purchase.
M0SAY Rating: 2014-06-03
Squelch don't work Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
this is a not a bad radio. but the software is very poor. also when on a repeater the sound goes down but. the main problem is the squelch witch does not work if you go in menu 23 and set the squelch to signal 9 it does no shut the noise out IE no squelch at all. at signal 2 or 6 you cant silence the noise i sent mine back but i hope a firmware update can sort these problems out David m0say