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Reviews For: Yaesu FT710 Aess

Category: Transceivers: HF Amateur HF+6M+VHF+UHF models - non QRP <5W

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT710 Aess
Reviews: 17MSRP: $1299
Description:
The new FT-710 AESS is a compact design yet provides 100W output, utilizing the advanced digital RF technology introduced in the FTDX101 and FTDX10 series. A few of the remarkable features of the new FT-710 AESS are: - YAESU Unmatched SDR technology emphasizes the Receiving Performance - Band Pass Filters dedicated for the amateur bands to eliminate out-of-band unwanted signals - RF Front-End design with the 250MHz HRDDS (High Resolution Direct Digital Synthesizer) enables Phenomenal Multi-Signal Receiving Characteristics - QRM rejection by the dual core 32-bit high speed floating decimal point DSP for SHIFT/ WIDTH/ NOTCH/ CONTOUR/APF (Audio Peak Filter)/ DNR (Digital Noise Reduction)/ NB (Noise Blanker) and 3-Stage Parametric Equalizer - High Resolution 4.3-inch TFT Color Touch Panel Display - 3DSS (3-Dimensional Spectrum Stream) - VMI LED (VFO Mode Indicator) placed around the VFO dial shows the current operating mode (VFO-A, VFO-B, Memory Mode and Clarifier/Split Operation) - “PRESET” Mode Function most suitable for FT8 Operation - AESS: Acoustic Enhanced Speaker System with SP-40 creates the high-fidelity audio output - External Display Connection Terminal (DVI-D) - Built-in High Speed Automatic Antenna Tuner with 100 channel memory - Support the FC-40 Auto Antenna Tuner - SD Memory Card can be used to save the communication record, transceiver setting, the memory contents, screen capture images, and to update the firmware - Two (2) USB Ports (Type-A and Type-B) - Other essential features such as CW ZIN and SPOT, IPO (Intercept Point Optimization), and Remote Operation with Network Remote Control System to name a few.
Product is in production
More Info: https://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=102&encProdID=615ADFEAB5EDBC65EBE1D64835F209DB&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
174.6174.6
N9VV Rating: 2022-12-11
Wonderful new firmware update (12/6/2022) Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I had a real roller coaster experience with a new FT-710. At first it could not run CW or control my external MFJ ATU. But Yaesu listened to the groups.io and to it's official testers - and distributed a new set of firmware for the rig on December 6th. Now the rig is 100% FB on CW and FT8 modes (check my qrz logbook). I can recommend this rig to anyone who wants a full SDR (DDC/DUC) with great DSP.
W8NIC Rating: 2022-12-10
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Rx is almost comparable to my Ftdx101d. I’m mainly on cw mode and noticed there was a delay in dots and dashes. Had to perform firmware update, problem solved. Slightly bigger than the 991, is nice and compact it doesn’t take up much room on the desk. Number 4 on Sherwood list.
Plenty on radio for the price.
Good job Yaesu.
N0FQN Rating: 2022-10-29
Budget priced rig with great front end Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I compared the FTdx-10 and the FT-710. I liked the idea of less clutter around the VFO which the FTdx-10 has. Many complained about bumping the VFO on the FTdx-10 and, how the "lock" button became your friend. The Sherwood report shows the front is identical to the FTdx-10. I've owned the FT-1000MPMKV, FT-2000 and several other Yaesu rigs. I found the menu system to be tedious. Finding where all the settings was a challenge, even using the manual. When I first talked on the rig I thought it was broken. The power meter was reading only 20 to 30 watts output. My peak reading meter showed otherwise. After digging through the menus I found the setting for average and peak. Interesting terminology. All rigs I've owned, including Yaesu's, had the meter set for full scale and then, you could choose the peak hold function. The menu system on Icom's is so much easier to navigate. Still, once you found the settings buried deep in the menu system you set them and forget them for the most part. Transmit and receive audio are very comparable between the 710 and the 7300. I have the M-90D mic on the 710 and a Heil ICM mic on the 7300. The 710 noise level is approximately 2 "S" down from the 7300. This would definitely be of benefit with weak signals. My frustration is the timeout feature on certain settings. It times out before I can get it adjusted. You stop adjustment for a split second and it reverts back. Auto notch is nice but why not just have the DNF button push on and push off. The manual notch works great. The RF/Squelch knob is only selectable for one or the other. The Icom rigs it's RF or, Squelch or, half and half which I prefer. The DNR is about the same as most other rigs. Causes the watery effect above a 4 to 5 setting. NB is good. The speaker sounded OK but, wasn't anything to brag about. The phasing effect did little for me. This was done on Bose 901 speakers in 1968. It's not new. The auto tuner is designed after the MFJ/LDG relay system. It does work and is fast. Once you get past learning curve for the menu system it's a great little rig. The FT-710 is like all of todays rigs. Loaded with menus. Overall, I would recommend the rig to anyone wanting a budget rig with a great front end. Just be patient and read the manual carefully.
G7IZR Rating: 2022-10-17
Excellent receive. Missed a couple of opportunities Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Firstly, it is an excellent receiver. It scores 4 (actually 3) in the Sherwood list, beating radios costing 17k. The NB is one of the best I have ever used, it has a low noise floor and with the DNF and DNR you can easily pull a SSB signal out of the noise.

There are some disadvantages. It has an FT8 preset. But there seems little point, since that FT8 preset can't store a power setting. There is no separate max power setting for data. So if you use 100w SSB, you have to then turn down the power for FT8 so as not to overheat the finals (Yaesu recommend running it at 50w on FT8, but don't provide this automatic setting).

The keys aren't backlit. The lights around the tuning knob are a bit of a gimmick, lighting up white if you are in memory mode, blue if you are in VFOA and so on. They'd be better doing something like pulsing blue if you are tuned to an exact frequency, or flashing red if you have a high SWR, or simply changing colour from blue to red depending on power out. Something useful at least.

The radio took a little while to get working fully on FT8, but is now running a dream. Audio TX reports are good on SSB.

All in, I've very pleased with it, but they missed the opportunity for power settings by mode, power settings by memory and a power setting for the FT8 preset. Maybe those will be added in a future software update?

I certainly don't regret buying it.
KI5BMK Rating: 2022-10-14
Outstanding Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I will save you all the detailed BS...I do like detailed BS sometimes but it gets a little crazy....

This radio is absolutely incredible for the price and it will probably drop $100.00 or so. I do not like the cheap SP-40 speaker but that's no big deal to add you favorite speaker of course.

It blows away the Icom 7300 receiver an I own 3 of those.

Plus a free 3 year warranty...That's nice freebie and peace of mind.

This is not as good as the Yaesu DX10 but it is now $200.00 less today.

Anyway, it is a rock star and do no hesitate buying this new gem...


AD4C2006 Rating: 2022-10-12
It needs more improvement Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Friend of mine loaned me a brand new one week old FT710 for me to configure it to his like and also to do a full test compared to my two years old Icom IC-7300. After several hours setting it up and testing it up on different bands and freqs and switching back and forward same antennas from one radio to the other these are my findings:
Benefits or improvement over the IC-7300
1-The received noise is 2 to 3 db less than the 7300
2-The received audio quality is by the same, before I set both radios RX EQ on zero to have flat audio on both. I did not hear any difference in audio quality.
3- But after enable the "spacial effect" received audio, using the balance control and the phase shift freq adjustment, yes the received audio with the 710 is impressive and better than the 7300.
4- ON TX audio, after configured the 3 parametric EQ in the 710 and both radios with the stock hand mic I found the 710 TX audio is much better than the one at the 7300, I monitored myself in my 7300 when TX with the 710 and I was very impressed with the great audio response.This 710 TX audio response goes from 50 to 3050 for 3 Khz bandwith and in my 7300 TX bandwith goes from 70 to 2900 for 2.83 Khz BW.
In this TX audio configuration there is one parameter that is very important to set, the AMC makes big difference in your modulation fidelity, you have to set it to your own voice but the higher you set it up the wider your audio spectrum will go, I set it up at 80% and reports were better than the factory default setting at 50%.
5-The menu on this 710 is very intuitive, is very easy to open and configure using just one control while on the 7300 is navigating within an extensive menu sometimes hard to configure.
6-The DIMMER function in the 710 is very useful to save the display life expentancy specially if you are using an external monitor as I am now and see only the external display and not the one at the radio. This feature also exist on the 7300
7-The TX AGC has a slower time delay making the PEP higher and driving harder my amp, lets put it in different way, when driving my solid state 1200W with the 7300 my peaks are from 700 to KW and when using the 710 peaks are from 850 to 1KW.
So far those are the benefits I have found in the 710. Now lets review the negative aspects of this new radio:
1- OH GOD! who had in japan the great idea to make those panadapter signal peaks so FAST, my eyes were tired after a while looking at it and there is no way to slower that speed, even there is one switch marked speed it will control only the water fall speed because this radio as well as the FTDX101D and the FTDX10 lacks one function called in the 7300 "AVERAGING" allowing you to select three different speeds for the signal peaks. Also the panadapter has not enough sensitivity and even the strong signals over 20db are not high enough on the spectrum. My 7300 has a much better panadapter than this 710.
2- I have admired and congratulate Yaesu for many years for having the best DNR on the market, after owning several Yaesu radios I was enchanted with the performance of this well designed circuit BUT What a frustation with this DNR on the 710, it has 15 steps to adjust the level but you can't even go further than 4 because if you advance this level trying to cut more noise, the received audio will be DISTORDED to the point to not undestand what the station are saying, tonight I tested on 80M both radios with stations within the high noise level and I could pulled them out easily and very clear with the 7300 using its NR set at level 7 but not with the 710 because of the received distorsion, it sounds robotic with some extra weird electronic sounds. There is something good about this DNR and its capable to save the level adjistments per bands so you can decide which band to use it and what level you want to have on each one, this useful feature does not exist on the IC-7300.
3- The 7300 has three available DSP filters just touching on the display the filter sign, you will see FL1,FL2 and FL3 that you can configure to any bandwith you like to use, in this 710 there is only two filters available WIDE and NARROW, both are also configurable with the menu, I have 3Khz for wide and 1.8 Khz for Narrow.
4- The slot to insert the SD card is in the wrong position, why? because if you plug it in and then install the external speaker on the left side, what happen is that you won't be able to remove the card unless you remove the speaker, so my advice is to install the speaker always on the right side as I did.
5- Any menu you open to configure it, it will disapear in 3 seconds, so Yaesu should give it more time to stay on to give you time to set your parameters properly.
6- The antena tuner in the 710 will be able to tune SWR as high as 5 to 1 in less than 3 seconds and I personally tested my 80M dipole in a non resonant freq where the swr was high, it worked fine BUT there is something everybody should be awared of, and its in the manual, it will not save in its memories any tuning that be OVER 2 to 1 meaning if you go to a freq that is over 2:1 swr it will not tune by itself and you will have to tune it again, that is not good. In the 7300 even will not tune swr over 3:1 all settings will be saved in its memories and the 7300 has a special function called EMERGENCY in which you will be able to tune up to 10:1 with reduced power to 50W.
I have been following Yaesu radios for years and this company is too difficult in terms of fixing design problems with Firmware updates, I don't see a soon update to fix the panadapter issue and the distorsion with the DNR but if they fix these problems, I will purchase one of these.

Hector
AD4C
KK8ZZ Rating: 2022-10-03
Excellent HF Radio in a Smaller Size Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I received one of the first FT710 AESS radios that DX Engineering had in stock. I've made several QSOs, received excellent audio reports, and made appropriate adjustments to the 3DSS control to activate the very useful bandscope. The radio is easy to use with most used functions accessible on the front panel. Other less used functions are located on top of the radio, or by menu. The menu options seem somewhat daunting, but most are simply "set once and forget" so a through reading of the manual (yes, you will need to read that manual) yields all the information you'll need to make any adjustments (mostly to the audio if you like - the defaults seem fine for now). The SP40 speaker gives great audio and simply clips on either side of the radio, making a very attractive pair. The built-in tuner easily matches my 43 ft vertical on 75-10 meters. It's noisy when tuning like most of them are. All and all, I'm very happy with this new radio from Yaesu and can recommend it as a great addition to the Yaesu HF radio line.