| N0DZJ |
Rating:      |
2007-08-23 | |
| Meets my requirements |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have one of the early models, and it meets my needs very well. I wanted a reasonably priced HF QRP transceiver that would open up the world of VHF/UHF for me as well. I looked over numerous reviews and related data, so I knew what I was getting when I ordered it, and I have not been disappointed.
Opening the battery cover can be problematic, but I solved this with a piece of cellophane tape (anything of a similar nature would do as well). I just placed it on the inside of the cover so it sticks out when the cover is in place, and when you slide the cover latch back, you just pull up on the tape and the cover opens quite easily. The 500Hz filter is highly recommended for CW, and overall this radio is very enjoyable to use. It does, however, have a tendency to eat batteries. I rate it a five because it does what I want it to, and because I feel in so doing, it has not been misrepresented by the manufacturer, and has been reliable. |
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| KD4PWJ |
Rating:    |
2007-08-23 | |
| its great....but its on life support....so.... |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I love this rig, its concept is the neatest thing ever created, ........UNTIL YOU BUY ONE..
(id really give this radio a 3.7 rating)
Ive spent a LOT of time messing with this rig, and feel I have learned it backwards and forwards. (thanks to buying the $15 8 page quick-ref manual off the net!)
what did the boyz at yeasu really make a mistake on this radio??
PROBLEMS::
A: no weather WX coverage (162+ Mhz)..on this radio???!! thats just insane stupidity. This is an Emcomm/portable rig. GIANT MISTAKE
B: WHOEVER designed the battery door and especially the latch, SHOULD BE FIRED..I’ve read many other reviewers here complain about this…NEVER in my life have I seen a more backwards mentally-challenged latching system! You must see it to believe it…the instructions do NOT clue you in as to the Chinese finger-puzzle of this ignorant design. Nobody will understand this until they try it themselves.
C: the batt. It comes with is pathetic,….first thing you do is TOSS the batt it comes with and get the One Plug Power+ from W4RT’s website…excellent and necessary upgrade.
D: what???? No flip up stand to jack the screen up to viewing level?? This is absurd…..I made one myself out of wire…fixed that problem.
E: what????? No quick reference card???? Very bad idea yaesu.
F: the battery-cell holder it comes with is laughable, throw it away or use it as a doorstop.
G: the rig should come with an elbow adaptor for the front VHF/UHF antenna, otherwise it stabs you in the eyeball when you have the radio around your neck in the recommended position for mobile use.
H. charge me $80 more for the radio and make the radio 8% bigger and INCLUDE an antenna tuner for petes sake.
I: the MIC it comes with is TITANIC considering the size of the radio, as a QRP portable rig, the radio with mic looks something like a fat man (mic) riding a miniature horse (radio)….this should have been better thought out by yaesu!!
**GRIPES FROM OTHER HAMS ABOUT THIS RIG WHICH ARE WRONG:
A: painful blue screen/hard to look at ……..answer:: you can CHANGE the screen color to blue, orange, or purple….so stop complaining
B: small buttons…..answer::: Yaesu isn’t responsible for your APE fingers.
C: hard to use menu system with buried sub-menus……..answer::: just as hard/easy to use at any other FEATURE LOADED yaesu radio
D: small screen…….answer:: it’s a QRP battery rig……big screen would = BIG POWER usage.
E: Lack of processing. DSP…..answer::: that’s why its $600 and not $700.
POSITIVES::
A: despite all above problems, the unit is just awesome, period
B: great RX (with good antenna), using my buddipole (indoors no less!!)
C: very desirable portable and “does it all” design.
Would I buy it again? YES.
MUST HAVES/ACCY for this radio??
A: get the W4RT 2700 Mah battery with quick charger (when you do youll never have to open the batty door ever again!!)
B: get a HIGH GAIN 144/440 WHIP, so you can TX with low power and get ‘out there’ , …the ducky whip it comes with is , well, a little pathetic.
C: get a whip/antenna adaptor so you can mount the 144/440 antenna AWAY from front BNC connector, unless you like having your eyeball stabbed by the antenna whip!!
D: for camping, etc, when you don’t have power, id also get the 10,000 Mah battery which plugs in the back, or some other SLA battery cell…….
E: a solar cell for charging your pack, and you could use this rig indefinitely in the field without ever seeing or using a wall plug again!
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| KB2HSH |
Rating:      |
2007-08-16 | |
| Most flexible platform I've ever used! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I picked up one of these rigs from Texas Towers in July. I needed a new rig, since I had sold my Argonaut 505 a few months earlier. Basically, I wanted a radio that could adapt and change as my short attention span changes. I also had the goal of not desiring to replace my power supply, either. So, the 817 was the perfect choice. I can work ANYTHING without hassle. Recently, I went from State hunting on 40 meter SSB, to 30 meter CW, then a quick jog over to the VHF bands to play with VO-52 and to listen to Meteor Scatter on 144.200. Add to it the fact that I live about 2 miles from the Buffalo Airport, and can listen to the incoming planes chatting with the tower. Truly flexible, indeed.
Now, August has been a tough month for HF, so I will really be able to utilize this wonder more this Fall. (Just need the LDG Z-100 tuner, and it will be complete.)
In all honesty, my rig is the 2nd one since July 10th. The first one was a defect from the factory, and Texas Towers replaced it QUICKLY and expertly. (Hey...defects happen. My father bought a 2001 Mack Vision tractor brand new a few years back, and...even $150,000 items have defects!)
Love it. Glad I bought it. And for the $559 I paid for it NEW and DELIVERED, I can't imagine how I ever lived without it. |
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| KI6ATB |
Rating:      |
2007-08-14 | |
| 1900 milles per watt SSB PHONE |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Don't ever let some old timer or 1500 watt rag chewer tell you that QRP is a waste of time and money. It's a BLAST!!! The FT817ND is the GREATEST little QRP rig EVER!!! It's the bottom of the sunspot cycle and I routinely make SSB Phone contacts on 20m in excess of 4000 and 5000 miles using a home brew 20m dipole fed with rg8x mini coax into a 1:1 balun. When the guy on the other end finds out Im QRP he is usually blown away. Rarotonga, South Cook Islands on 2.5 watts battery power...it happened. Pitcairn Island, Australia, Japan, Wallis,Norfolk, and the Marshall Islands all SSB Phone on 5 watts from Northern California...it happened. The rig is well built, easy to use, and just plain fun. The only gripe I have is when using batteries, they go fast. Overall, this Rig is a 10 on a scale of 1-5. |
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| EI8DRB |
Rating:      |
2007-08-03 | |
| Great first rig... despite recommendations to the contrary. |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Up til recently I had only operated on VHF & UHF. The 817ND seemed to combine everything I could want in a radio... all band, all mode coverage, portability, expandability... the lot.
People much more experience than I had recommended against getting a QRP rig this low in the solar cycle, but the plusses seemed to outweigh the negatives. I will be doing a bit of HF portable for AREN, providing support for walking events and so on, so I figure this rig will be ideal for that too.
Since getting it, I have played around with more antennas and learned more then any time in the past. I think that the 5w output forces one to maximise efficiency rather than just chucking any old antenna up. I started with a doublet at 15' or so, but it's now up to 30' and I'll be trying it out again in the next few days.
In short, I love this little radio. I'll probably get a 100w rig for the home QTH, but I get such a kick out of portable operation that the 817 will get much more use.
Another review on my blog...
http://blog.gerryk.com/?cat=4 |
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| W2RDD |
Rating:      |
2007-07-18 | |
| Really Impressed! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Ok, I've only had it a week or so. Let's establish that right away. But, what a nice transceiver, so far.
I have used it on cw only and expect I will not be using it for any other mode. So mine is a cw review.
I have the Yaesu 500hz cw filter and find it to be very effective and necessary in crowded conditions. The QSK is not considered to be full-QSK but is so quick, I find it to be just as effective.
The front end is just as sensitive as my other other contemporary commercial QRP transceivers and just as selective. Maybe more on both counts. I am amazed at the signal strength through phones and speaker. The volume level is never more than at the nine-o'clock position. Incoming cw signals are crisp and clean.
Signal reports to date have been very good. No complaints from other operators about drift, chirp, etc. Very favorable incoming RST observations.
There is a lot in this little guy. Therefore, much menu work to do as the front panel controls are minimal. It takes some getting used to. I suggest beginning with one mode and becoming familiar with that one first. I am a cw guy so am concentrating on that. When I absolutely have it all down, I will move on to another mode.
I will always have a "cheat sheet" with me. I found that by writing my own in "conversational" english...to myself, most helpful. If I could fault Yeasu, it would be their somewhat confusing instruction manual for this rig. But this is my first experience operating a transceiver with so many menu searched functions. Other folks who are used to this sort of thing will probably have less difficulty than I.
Yesterday late afternoon I was on 30 meters Heard a CQ from a chap in Northern Ireland. Called him, he came back immediately, and immediately gave me a 579 report. He didn't know I was QRP and using my only antenna, a whip out the apartment window.
After that QSO, I leaned back for a couple minutes and just stared at the little FT-817ND.
"WOW", was all I could come up with.
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| W4LGH |
Rating:      |
2007-07-16 | |
| Super |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Different people have different expetations and uses for equipment, but I owned an FT-817 for several years, and it was a super performer. Great receiver, fairly easy to operate and program.
It is truely amasing how many contacts one can make running less than 5 watts! If you are truely interested in QRP ops, you can't go wrong with this radio.
I only sold mine to finance the purchase of an FT-857D to put im my mobile. which is basically the same radio with added DSP and 100watt PA.
73 de W4LGH - Alan
http://www.w4lgh.com
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| KB3RMX |
Rating:   |
2007-07-16 | |
| NEEDS IMPROVEMENT |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Well I've had this little rig for about a month now, and although it performs fairly well, I'm a little disappointed in the intermod problem on the vhf FM side. You have to turn the squelch 3/4 the way up to silence this little beast. I got this rig to take the place of my ht, but found it was a little complicated carrying around on your shoulder. Antenna is always poking you in the side. BNC connector on top is an accident waiting to happen, will break off if you bend the antenna too much. Seems to me, I would have preferred the connector in the back next to the HF connector. There is no DSP in the Unit, for $600 it should have at least the DSP. I think yaesu was trying to have and ht and HF rig that you can carry around with you. I think if yaesu would have made this a base station qrp rig they would have still had a great product. This rig is not as compatible as they state. I think I'll just sell this on ebay and stick with my ft-897 as a portable rig. |
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| DH5JBR |
Rating:      |
2007-07-06 | |
| The island machine |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have owned this little rig for five years and it now forms the indispensible nucleus of my island DXpedition outfit.
There is an external compressor kit for it offered by the German magazine Funkamteur and the same circuitry to fit into the mike offered by WIMO.
The external one suffers from HF intrusion and can only be used far away from the antenna. Otherwise it performs well. A US station was surprized to hear such a good QRP signal from Germany.
The ideal antenna for it is the windom FD-4. It can be used even on 2m and 70 cm at least to open the local relay. The SWR is better than that of the supplied rubber duck antenna. Even SSTV Europe-Australia works well if the others are not there.
I knew that the internal batteries would not last long and only bought one set just to be able to operate it out of the box - it did not last long.
No qualms about burning out finals (I have heard it happening to others in the local club, but never to me and when I am using it, I really use it).
In the days of better solar activity I could work Namibia and Brazil SSB on 10m from Europe, but now I am using a little PA to take me up to 100 Watts. Remember, I bought the radio before the 857 or 897 were out.
I also use an LDG Z-100 tuner and ALWAYS let the tuner do a full tuning cycle without damage to the finals (with the PA between TRX and tuner).
I even ran it on the full output of a solar panel 21 Volts, but only once and never did it again and certainly do not recommend it to anybody.
All in all, it performs well and everything but the DC-inlet is like new. The socket has been used so much in frequent changes of QTH, sometimes very rapidly to avoid the Scottish rains. So I am in the second DC-lead now, which broke very close to the plug. So, the problems are not in the radio itself, which has never once fallen short of expectations, only in the peripherals.
It looks like I am going to keep it for some time yet. No need to ask me if I want to sell it. |
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| M3FAX |
Rating:      |
2007-06-30 | |
| got it back |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I swapped my 1st 817nd a year ago for a 857d and
very soon missed my 817nd. I bought a new one 3
days ago and it is like having a old mate back.
Amazingly its RX is on a par with my 857 and 897
but the 817 is more fun to operate. |
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