| VA2DV |
Rating:      |
2023-03-22 | |
| Hard to beat |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I had most of the recent models mid-priced HF radios in the last years and I always coming back to this one for simplicity and ease of operation.
Coupled with a good external speaker and a resonant antenna, nothing could touch it at this price level and size. |
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| W3SRB |
Rating:      |
2023-03-22 | |
| Excellent First Radio |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I've had this radio for about 3 months now and am absolutely loving it. I'm relatively new to HF but got my General and Extra and have taken it on 20 POTA activations already. It is a truly amazing rig for the price. Sure, it doesn't have have an internal tuner and a few other bells and whistles that your rigs over a grand have, but honestly for $640 bucks its unbeatable and has never failed me. Definitely get this over the Icom 718, which is the only other 100w radio at this price point. |
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| IK6RHT |
Rating:      |
2023-01-22 | |
| Tutti si lamentano per i menĂ¹ |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Read all complaints about menu management. Personally I have not encountered any problems, once the adjustments were made according to my preferences I no longer needed to intervene further. I use it mostly in CW and I find it a fantastic radio for this mode of operation. In the base station I have an FTDX-1200 and I can safely say that some filters are more performing than their older brother, such as the APF filter, which intervenes much more effectively in the 891. |
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| AA3IO |
Rating:      |
2023-01-22 | |
| Solid performer / Great value . . . |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| My first encounter with the FT-891 was at Universal Radio a few years ago. When I made an attempt to tune around the bands, I was so intimidated that I walked away and stated that I would never buy one. Later, a deal came along that was too good to pass up. After spending some time READING THE MANUAL, I became familiar with the operation and found it to be quite insightful. Most of the settings are "one time - set & forget". Your favorite settings can be assigned to the front A-B-C buttons by going to the desired function and holding the button down where you want it assigned (long press). Most of my operation is SSB. I have found that the signals can be improved with a +10 setting for the contour. Adjusting the shift to -600 will improve the audio on certain signals. The DNR is as good as I have heard and when you consider the price, it's fantastic. If you haven't made the latest update to your firmware, Yaesu made a revision pushed out on 12/26/2022. Before that update, the screen would change quickly when trying to change bands. With this update, it is easier to select the band. If you don't like the rig, sell it to someone who will take the time to learn how to use it. When they do, it will be one they will appreciate for a long, long time. 73, Kenny AA3IO |
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| G0YAP |
Rating:   |
2023-01-21 | |
| Good receiver, ridiculously complicated menu |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
After selling my FT857D ( big mistake) I purchased the 891. It's now been sold to reduce the stress in my life.
Pros.
Excellent receiver
Compact
Good audio.
Good build quality.
Cons.
The guy who designs the menu systems at Yaesu went out one evening and got absolutely smashed. Woke up the next morning with a massive hangover and went to work the sort the 891 menu..
It's ridiculously complicated. Regular functions like power, mode etc require multiple button pushes. I persevered for several months then threw in the towel. For a mobile rig, the menu is just too complex. My 857 I could operate in the dark whilst driving.. the 891 I struggled on my bench at home. Maybe it's me? I have run mainly Yaesu gear for over 30 years and this rig was the briefest owned. I am back to using my trusty ( and simple) FT450AT which matches the performance on the 891 but it a bit big and heavy. I bought an FTDX10 last year and had that baby running like a dream with only a few glances at the operating manual. |
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| KT0DD |
Rating:     |
2023-01-18 | |
| Good for backup / portable |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Menu a bit complicated. Nice size, getting good reports. Using mine for battery power backup to my FTdx10. Keeping it for now.
Todd - KT0DD |
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| W8IJC |
Rating:      |
2023-01-17 | |
| Fantastic HF starter radio! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
First of all, the Yaesu FT-891 is primarily a mobile / portable radio. It is not meant to compete with your IC 7300, or TS-590. This radio is meant to be durable, and lightweight for the future set. Sure it's heavier than most portable radios, but a lot of them can't do 100 Watts.
For SSB, and CW, this radio is perfect. Now, I'm still fairly new to HF, and I don't use many of the fancy SSB filters, and I only really use the CW mode for tuning. However, from most of the positive reviews by CW operators, you can see this rig is more than adequate for almost anything you could think of regarding SSB band or CW. The DSP is also surprisingly good, and the notch filter and noise blanker are very effective in the right use case.
I primarily use this radio for digital, and it does fairly well in that aspect. However, I would not run more than 45w in high duty cycle modes like psk or rtty, unless you're contesting. This radio gets hot, however this can be alleviated somewhat by removing the head unit, and if necessary blowing a fan over the heat sink on the back of the radio. However, in modes like ft8, I can easily run 70 watts and the radio only gets pretty warm.
Yes the menus are a pain, and yes the spectrum scope is more of a gimmick than anything. However, if you only have the budget for this much radio when you start off in HF, you will not be disappointed. And once you upgrade to something better, keep your 891 around, use it for portable or mobile. Most of the menu items are set and forget, and also the 891 remembers what menu item you last interacted with, even in between power cycles. I really just leave mine on menu item 16-03, HF power. All of the power output settings are close together on the menu, so you never have to scroll far to adjust them.
Most of the bad reviews here are from people who are used to their fancy Scopes and waterfalls, or who are expecting $1,000 of radio for $600. You get what you pay for, but this radio does not disappoint. It's durable, mine has survived plenty of my stupid mistakes when starting out in hf, and will always be there and never let you down. I've made contacts over 7,000 miles away with this radio. Pair this radio with a silver bullet 1000 and a bioenno battery, and you can work the world.
Take all eham reviews with a grain of salt, but you can trust me when I say the 891 is a great starter radio, despite its flaws. 73 de W8IJC |
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| SOCAL_RADIODUDE |
Rating:     |
2022-12-28 | |
| Good consumer radio, not a serious prepper |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| After hearing talk about this as a "Prepper" radio wanted to comment as a military guy with radios as true life-and-death equipment (forward air controller). And this is not to flame preppers, i'm one too, or yaesu, who makes great products for our hobby. The fit and finish are excellent for a consumer product, but that's just it - this is not hardend or protected against water, dirt, or the real world that shows when it really does HTF. There's no vibration spec, or way to tell if this can intentionally handle "the field", whatever that is. More concering is the warning in small type on page 9 of the manual that low supply voltage can damage the radio - with no warning to the user. So when that battery you lugged along droops you may find out the hard way. Sensitivity is OK for a protected consumer environment but if you really really really are worried about HTF (and i think we all should be, but thats another time) be aware that this is a consumer desktop product you will have to protect. Its great for what it is - keeping mine - but does need care. |
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| F8FEO |
Rating:    |
2022-11-18 | |
| Not a fantastique radio |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
a little disappointed for that radio
Menu : selection band and mode not reactive and intuitive
a good 100 watts for power
scope is not efficient
the price is correct
it is too heavy for portable
for Mobile and Pota is a good radio
for every critic said by others I confirm
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|
| NF6P |
Rating:      |
2022-11-06 | |
| Get's results in a small package |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Now that I've owned the radio for more than eight months, it's time to review its performance and use under my circumstances. We live full-time and travel the US in our 32' Motorhome. We selected the FT-891 because of its size. I own an FTDX-101MP, but it's too large for the coach, and we did not want to lug it along on our adventures.
To date, we made 2,355 contacts with the FT-891. That includes WAS, WAC, DXCC Mixed, and 31 Zones in casual operating from multiple locations. Our antenna is the Chameleon MPAS 2.0. Most of the time, in a vertical configuration. We've also run end-fed with the MAPS when a tree is available. Operation is in all modes, but we favor CW and digital because of the power and simple antenna. We've added an LDG Z-11Pro 2 tuner in our mobile configuration, an Alinco DM-30T power supply, and a SignaLink USB for digital modes. I'm also using a K1EL WKMini. Those devices require 3 USB ports, so I added a small USB dongle to plug into my laptop. We're using N3FJP software for logging. All the USB cables have ferrites to keep RF out of the computer and CAT port on the FT-891.
I've listed all that information because I think the results speak for themselves. For a small portable radio, it performs very well. Any ham is going to have fun with this radio. It will do whatever you want it to, from portable POTA operation and mobile ops driving down the road to a simple base station setup. Some compromises must be made for the size of the radio, but Yaesu packed many features into it. You can customize buttons to assist you in your kind of operation. No, you won't have all the features on the front. But the display will provide the vital information you need.
SSB operation allows for customizing EQ on the mic, and I have received excellent audio reports using the stock handheld. In addition, the WDH (width) filter improves selectivity. During last week's CQWW SSB, I only occasionally felt a crush of multiple close-in stations. Understandably, a simple vertical will only capture so much, but the CQWW is the worst-case scenario for a receiver any day of the year. The built-in speaker is OK, but I use simple earphones most of the time, and the audio is excellent.
CW operation is smooth with break-in. Using the WDH control gets bandwidth down to about 500 Hz, which is about all the selectivity I need. The APF (audio peak filer) sometimes helps with really weak stations. Since I use the Win Keyer, I don't know how the internal keyer works, but the sidetone is fine.
Digital operation has been primarily FT8 and FT4 at 35 watts. The digital (DU) mode on the FT-891 is only 3k wide but allows WSJT-X to move the VFO around in operation. Yaesu does not provide an internal sound card for the 891. My SignaLink is the interface for audio and CAT connection to the radio's single USB port. It works perfectly with my software configuration.
An excellent noise blanker and DSP (digital signal processing) can help with various noise situations. I miss the solid crystal filters on my FTDX-101MP, but how would you fit them in a portable HF radio of this size? The front end of the FT-891 is pretty broad. I purchased an AM broadcast band filter to eliminate strong AM stations mixing into every band. You may never notice the issue, but we sometimes found RV parks close to AM stations.
The FT-891 is a full-featured radio. For its size, you give up full-size rig control and display. In actual operation, it's like going old school when I was first a ham. The Kenwood 520, Heath Kits, and other radios of the day lacked all of today's features, but we made loads of contacts. The FT-891 is a better all-around radio; you must remember what it was designed for, and I'm happy.
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