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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-2800M

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-2800M
Reviews: 196MSRP: 195.00
Description:
Yaesu 2m Transceiver Introuduced 2/2003. 65 Watt Output,- 4 power levels, 2M Transmit, 134-174 Receive, 219 Memories w/ 6 char AlphaNumeric display, NOAA Weather, CTCSS & DTS encode/decode, rugged case.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001963.7
W1LWT Rating: 2010-07-28
darn good radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Ive had two of these radios on on echolink and the second is my workhorse great radio. GREAT price. Gets warm but thats good its made to get rid of the heat quickley. Never failed in 29 mos.
and they have been used everyday. Even the echolink link on it burns up the clouds daily. Im getting a 3rd one for my RV.
N1TX Rating: 2010-07-28
Don't even think about it Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Revised my rating from December 2009 downward from 1 to 0. Both units I have experienced failed finals shortly after entry to packet service. Both were repaired by the factory. Re-installed one in the digi site, and the finals failed again after about six months of service running on mid-power at a relatively low duty cycle. Don't even think about buying a used one unless you need a paperweight or a 2m FM receiver.
KB9VLR Rating: 2010-06-20
Stay away! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I'm giving this rig a 1 simply because it was low cost. I've owned 2 of these radios. The first one I bought about 3 years ago, and it worked good. The second radio I bought 1 year ago, and it had HORRIBLE loud CTCSS noise on transmit. I went back to the first radio, and found that it also had this problem, only not as bad so I never noticed it. I sold the second radio on Ebay at a loss. It worked just fine as long as CTCSS was off.

Just a few days ago, the first rig blew out the RF finals, and it's a receiver only rig now. I've also had trouble with the backlight for the display changing intensity and occasionally not working at all.

I thought about replacing this with the FT-2900R, but I'm just too disgusted with these things to even try it.
LU6ENY Rating: 2010-01-04
Failure RF power stage Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I already repaired a lot (RF power stage).
With a modification they work well.
N6BLU Rating: 2009-12-28
Good simple radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Not a problem so far and puts out the advertised 65 watts. The only complaint which I have to ding this radio about a 1/2 point, is that it gets HOT, HOT, HOT, on high power. As HOT as this radio gets I'm certain that recurring long qso's on high power will eventually cause damage to the radio. Hasn't happened yet but I'm waiting for it.
N7HO Rating: 2009-11-27
Good Radios Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I own 3 of these, 1 base and 2 mobile with no major problems. 1 thing I've noticed is the ext. speaker jacks fail, and the int speaker won't work sometimes. Not a big deal as I always use external speakers. Overall a tuff radio that is a pleasure to use.
My Father-in-law bought one, and it failed on TX after 2 months. Shipped it off to Yaesu and a little over a week later had a new one at the door. Pretty good radio for the price.
W8LAD Rating: 2009-10-27
YAESU...should be ashamed. Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I had this radio about 4 months before it "stopped transmitting"...put it on the 'repair shelf' in the shop and replaced it with an Icom IC-2820. Just recently decided to check it and found...yes, you guessed it...BAD RF PA driver and final. Went online and discovered I was not alone, YAESU SHOULD BE ASHAMED !!!!! I guess we now know what the "FT" in the model number stands for...

This radio should be recalled by Yaesu, and replaced with the 2900...if they had any pride at all !
73 all,
W8LAD
N3DDB Rating: 2009-10-14
Not worth the space in the shack Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought this two years ago. Performed poorly so I hardly used it. At first I thought I had an antenna problem. I have only used it about 10 hours. Last week it stopped transmitting on high power. Put the Bird on it and had no output. Switched to low power and had 4 watts out...for about 10 minutes then nothing. Talked with others having the same problem. They replaced finals only to have them go in a week. I called Yaesu and immediately they said I needed new finals. Seems like Yaesu has a design problem. I would not recommend this radio to anyone.
NY2J Rating: 2009-10-03
SO FAR SO GOOD!!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My first impressions of the rig are good. I ran it through the ringers as we all do with a new rig, and it performs o.k. HOWEVER it requires more than 10 amps on max. power (65 watts).I didn't believe all posted specs. ,included Yaesus info., that it only requires 10 amps. The manual does say 15 amps needed ,but that will be the first time you see that, so make sure you have a 15 amp supply if you buy this,or you will have an added expense. I was lucky i had a 25 amp supply , but at first i had it on my 12 amp supply and it shut down.JUST a heads up. It isnt hard to program, as with all menu driven rigs nowadays, it does alot of things you will never need so it appears to be hard to program, but the few things you need(PL,offsets,squelch, memory ) are easy enough to get down.All in all not bad for a basic single band rig, especially for 125.00 shipped from HRO.
KC8ZEV Rating: 2009-09-06
It Is What It Is................ Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The much maligned FT-2800M is a entry level 2M rig that Yaesu has produced by the thousands. By no means is it representative of their entire line of amateur equipment. Quality control is always an issue with mass production radios. The FT-2800M is no exception. Some work great, other fail way too soon for whatever reason. Heat I suspect. Perhaps this might account for some of the failures associated with this unit. The stock mike is about as bad as it gets, was the first thing that had to go. I don't use it mobile, so one has to judge a rig for it's application. Work the LEO Sats, so with a Heil Handi Mike and the correct connection cable it sounds great and hits the bird solid. Too wimpy for a rough mobile application, in my opinion. It gets pretty hot on long TX, but it keeps pumping out the RF for very few $$$$$. Would never even consider to have this radio serviced upon failure......it is a affordable, one-way ticket 2M radio. So if you are looking for a very low $$, 2M rig that is what it is......give it a try. You sure can spend alot more on a 2M rig these days!

73
KC8ZEV