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Reviews For: Yaesu FC-50 Automatic Antenna Tuner

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FC-50 Automatic Antenna Tuner
Reviews: 10MSRP: 330
Description:
Auto antenna tuner for use with the Yaesu FT891 HF-6m transceiver
Product is in production
More Info: http://Www.yaesu.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
15104.5
N2MAU Rating: 2023-01-18
Tunes 20m ham stick for 17, 15, and 12m! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just added the FC-50 to my mobile setup using the FT-891 and two ham sticks, 20m and 40m. The antennas themselves are tuned to perfection so the FC-50 has no trouble tuning. But to my surprise, the tuner also tuned the 20m antenna at 17m, 15m, and 12m with a resulting SWR of 2:1 to 2.5:1. Ham sticks have a very narrow band so this IS surprising.
WB3BD Rating: 2022-06-24
Great match for the FT-891 but pricey! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
There are other less-expensive auto-tuners that handle a broader impedence range, however as a shack tuner, it's a great match to the FT-891 (the radio it was primarily designed for) - both aesthetically and operationally. Certainly for portable or rapid deployment ops, I'd go with an LDG. Nevertheless the FC-50 is "near" plug-and-play, after setting a couple menu/function items on the radio. One thing that threw me a little was that once the tunner config. settings are made on the radio, it needs to be power-cycled in order for the settings to take effect. The tuner is a latching relay type unit, so don't except whisper quite tune cycles. The primary drawback of the FC-50 is the price.
K8ESE Rating: 2021-07-16
Nice tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The FC-50 works out great paired with my new FT-891 transceiver. I use the original Lakeside hamstick antennas constructed in dipole configurations (2 per band) for all the bands 80 thru 6. This whole package works great! 73 de K8ESE.
K1YPB Rating: 2020-11-28
Perfect Complement to the FT-891 Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This tuner is the perfect complement to the Yaesu FT-891. It fits together well with the FT-891 and looks great. It is specifically design for near resonant antennae similar to built in tuners and it finds a match quickly and efficiently allowing greater band width. Once you set it up in the menu system it works seamlessly. I am very very pleased with it. One thing I did do was take the tilt bail off the transceiver and put it on the bottom of the turner. There are predrilled screw holes on the turner to do this. For some reason this is not pointed out in the instructions provided with the turner. Now I can tilt the whole assembly up for better viewing of the controls. The price is a bit steep, but it is custom fit for the FT-891, and makes the transceiver one of the best products that Yaesu makes. You get what you pay for, and there is value in this product combination. I have the FT-817, and a FT-991 along with the FT-891. I actually like the FT-891 / FC-50 best of all. If you get this, and install it understanding its design limitations, you will not be disappointed. Yaesu makes great stuff!
K9UR Rating: 2020-04-21
Nice looking portable Ant Tuner with the FT891 Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Know what you're buying before purchasing this item. This is an automatic antenna tuner. It tunes 160-6 meters and handles 100W output power. It is designed to match the Yaesu FT-891 and can "stack" below the FT-891. The two together make for a nice looking combination, not dissimilar to the Kenwood TS-50/AT-50 combination that was popular 20 years ago.

Setup is a snap - one cable from FT-891 to FC-50. One additional cable for RF in from radio. Antenna connects to RF out (SO239). One MUST not forget to change the setting in radio menu to "enable" this tuner.

Use is a snap. Hit the tune button in the radio memory and the thing tunes. I holds memories for regularly used antennas. I can see this working well on a park bench or in a small package with a compact switching power supply.

The tuner is designed for near-resonant antennas. That means dipole for the band it was designed, some OCF antennas, yagis or other antennas that are already resonant with 3:1 VSWR or less. The range is OK...not spectacular.

It's not worth $289 (current street price) in my opinion and there are several better choices of automatic tuners such as the MFJ-929 or LDG AT-200 pro which give more flexibility. The main reason to spend this much on this tuner is just that it looks so nice stacked with the radio...that's it. Otherwise, it's a very limited device.

Does it work? Yes, into my various dipole antennas, OCF etc it does tune to 1.5:1 or less. Only place it struggled was to find a match on my 80M dipole (cut for CW section of the band) up on 75M SSB sub-band. It could not find a match up there at times. No surprise.

It is in my little samsonite briefcase - have the 891, the FC50, a small MFJ power supply, my cw paddles, a microphone, some coax, some wire, and a nano-vna. A small vacation radio kit... easy and portable.

5 stars because it looks so darn good
otherwise...a $25 used MFJ-901 simple manual tuner would work as well or possibly even better!
N5WTA Rating: 2019-12-01
Works better than expected Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've seen a lot of bad reviews on this product so I was skeptical, Users seem to complain quite a bit about the tuner not being plug and play with the radio. It is, but you have to change the settings in your FT-891 Menu # 16-15 to External.

I am even using the auto tuning on receive so that my wife doesn't have to dink with the radio too much when she is operating.

If I have to tune more than 3:1 on an antenna, I don't transmit on it. There are a lot of people out there that just don't understand the fact that you can have a tuner that does 10:1, but you aren't going to get any power at the antenna if you do tune that much.

I would highly recommend this product. Cost is a little on the high side, but it does exactly what it is supposed to do. Mounts directly to the radio, and will fit in a 4U rack go box like a champ.
IU2GID Rating: 2019-08-21
so far so good Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I haven't tested this tuner with many antennas but I can report my last experience with it. I used it on holiday on a Greek Island with an end-fed random wire (about 20 meter long) and a on-site built 4:1 unun.
I used an antenna analizer to keep the antenna within the 3:1 swr but luckly from 20m to 6m the antenna was within this range. I switched a lot between band and used a lot the tuner since I was ofter changing frequency operating as a runner and trying opening in 10 and 6 meters. The tuner was working fine with stable swr near 1.2/1.3 for days. The SWR 3:1 limit as stated in the specs is respected most of the time but sometimes I was able to tune the antenna even with SWR near 4 (I spent some time to find the optimum at my site). As far as I know the 3:1 is the usual range you can expect from internal automatic tuner found in other transceiver so I can't blame Yaesu on the low tuning range. You wouldn't want to use a very high SWR antenna feeded with a coax anyway...

One last thing: some days ago I wrongly connected the coax cable and I sent 80 watt ssb inside the ANT connector instead of the the RTX connector. The FT-891 shut-off, I saw the error and once corrected everything was fine, no damage detected on the tuner.
SA4MDN Rating: 2019-03-15
WORKS FOR ME Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Tunes the antennas I use mobile and portable, much better than fiddling around with a manual tuner, well for me anyway, each to their own, anyone who cant get this to talk to the radio needs to read the manual.
WB4CNL Rating: 2018-03-23
Works great Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Works great with my FT-891 dose the job as all my antennas have a swr less then 3to1. I do not expect it to tune 10to1 swr
AA8XR Rating: 2018-02-12
Disappointing Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The tuner is supposed to work with the FT891. Upon installation, the unit does not connect with the radio. As such, this tuner does not appear to function with the unit. There is a disclaimer in the short, inadequate description of the unit on one piece of paper in the packaging, that says the unit will not match an antenna with a worse than 3:1 SWR. One would be far better off with an after market, manual controlled tuner with this radio. Cannot recommend this product, it is a dismal disappointment.