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Reviews For: Yaesu FC-30

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FC-30
Reviews: 41MSRP: 200.00
Description:
Matching Tuner for FT897 - mounts on the side of the FT897
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00413.2
VA2DV Rating: 2019-01-25
Get the job done Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The FC-30 works exactly as advertised. The tuning range is somehow limited, but again, this thing is not marketed as a long wire tuner.
I am using it with a brand new FT-891. It is compatible. In fact, the internal construction is identical to the new FC-50 and it cost way less on the used market. The biggest selling point is that this model get your SWR down to 1:1 period. Not 1.5-2:1 like some aftermarket units.
It does make a difference when the rig already foldback his power at 1.5:1.

----------------------
Earlier 4-star review posted by VA2DV on 2003-05-14

This is not a high-power roller-inductor long wire
tuner but it does what it was designed for : extend the bandwith of resonnant antennas.I am now
able to covers entire bands on my Cushcraft MA5V
vertical.The size is perfect and portability is a great plus.I would have rate it a "5" but the
continuous cooling fan is a little annoying to me.
Looking to put some thermal breaker on it.
Overall,a good product.
SP9HZX Rating: 2018-07-20
Good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It does what it must.
Never a problem to match any portable antenna
G4KSG Rating: 2015-08-10
Very good tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Does exactly what it says on the tin.

I recently bought one of these used to enable me to use my FT-100D in the car with my helical whips. It works fine. Each of the whips can be adjusted to be resonant in band but not at 50ohm and obviously with a poor/narrow 2:1 SWR ‘bandwidth’.

The FC-30 does a great job of reducing the minimum SWR and allows the whole band to be used without having to get out and adjust the antenna at every frequency change. Exactly what it was design for.

As the Instructions point out – it is not designed to tune your mothers metal bedframe against the house water system which some hams would consider to be a viable option.

As far as I am concerned the design and operation of the FC-30 is exactly the same as the AT's in my 890 and 450 rigs. They all do a great job of maximising the power into the antenna – which has to be a resonant antenna with nominal 50ohm impedance.

BTW such atu’s will not always get the SWR down to 1:1 because they switch lumped components to get the least value SWR within practical limits that ultimately suits the rig it was designed for. If its important to you to get 1:1 then you need a proper manual matching unit which has a roller coaster inductor. And if necessary one that has a choice of baluns which would enable to load that bed.
BTW my favourite resonant antenna is a full-wave loop (any configuration) using a 4:1 balun without any ATU.
HIGHFREQ Rating: 2015-04-16
FACTORY FLAW??? Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
W O W.

OKAY I've just acquired this FT-897 w/ FC-30 Tuner unit. The tuner was barely used if at all, and is approx 1 year old already now.
I properly set the 2 menus required to use the Tuner, as they were set for ATAS-120 antenna.
It seems to be properly working now, but it's not a very good tuner. Even though my antenna is prefectly resonant with 11m, it would not tune 10m or 12m down to a 1:1 SWR match. I think this is by design, as the tuner will only tune if the SWR is very high. So it's not that it doesn't work at all, but that it's not very efficient and tons of RF is coming back into the transceiver as a result; shame on Yaesu, given the price of this thing.

#### I Noticed One Thing after the 2nd day: THE FAN IN THE TUNER WAS NOT SPINNING. E V E R.

I opened the unit to remove possible dust clogging the air filter. What I found was that the sir filter cover(bottom cover) was installed on the cover that is on the side of the fan (top cover). The Air Filters was making contact with the fan, and thus why the fan never spun up.

YASEU TECH SUPPORT GUY:
I called Yaesu "tech support" and spoke to Tim who was quite short and abrupt with me. He claimed to not understand my problem, citing "what's not working", and that I have now "Modified" my unit by removing the covers.
He needs to get come counseling.....

* ACTION TAKEN *
I had to swap the Tuner covers around, and now the fan spins up nicely, only during Transmit. This required me to move the feet around to the other side, as well as the mounting bracket, btw.

But now the air filter is on the bottom cover (as per the FC-30 Manual) which is where the air comes out of the unit... the exhaust. But.....
* SHOULDN'T the INTAKE FAN have an air filter?
** WHY WOULD an Exhaust vent have a filter...to keep dust & debris IN the radio?

*** SOLUTION ***
So I am now planning to completely rip out the air filter that is glued onto the one side, so that it's no longer restricting warm air exhaust.
And I am thinking finding a very thin air filter for the top (fan) cover, as the issue with the original factory filter was that it was so thick it was rubbing on the fan.

Maybe I should've kept my SGC (STONER) MAC-200...

73
AE5HL Rating: 2014-09-14
Excellent product! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I purchased my FC-30 as a companion to a Vertex VX-1700. This product does EXACTLY what it claims it will do, thus a "5" rating.

I use mine with an end fed antenna and after some tuning, it handles some of 80/75 and all of 40/20/12/15/10.

The tuner is very well built and I have no complaints. I think some folks here have some unreasonable expectations of this unit... It is NOT designed to tune a "wet noodle". Improve your antenna and use this to cover the entire band...
M0IAT Rating: 2014-07-19
Brilliant little tuner Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had my 897d & FC-30 since getting my licence in 2009 & it will tune my end fed 9:1 UnUn & long wire no problem at all. I even use a FC-30 with the 847, I don't have a problem with either of them. I'm beginning to think some owners are not setting them up correctly.
AA4MB Rating: 2013-06-24
Read ALL reviews of this tuner *carefully* before buying! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've never given review of '1' before on any piece of equipment before, but seeing all of the '5' reviews might be misleading for anyone contemplating the purchase of this tuner. I will temper how I really feel about the FC-30 and be nice. Here goes.

First ... I'm glad that I came into possession of this tuner as part of a very attractively-priced package on a used FT-897 with a bunch of other gear. If I had purchased this new or stand alone, it would have gone back the day after I put RF through it the first time. Let me make one thing abundantly clear: Yaesu does NOT false advertise this tuner. It does exactly what it says, as far as I can see. It *will* present a decent match to your FT-897 with an antenna that has 3:1 SWR or below already. And make no mistake - this tuner looks AWESOME hanging off of your Yaesu rig. But don't even think about expecting anywhere close to LDG autotuner performance out of this. In fact, if you're used to using built-in tuners such as those found in the Kenwood HF rigs (TS-450, TS-870), you will be sorely disappointed with this unit. Why Yaesu continues to sell this tuner in its current state is simply beyond me. Companies such as LDG should give them a sloppy wet kiss, because their revenue would surely be impacted if Yaesu put a tuner comparable to theirs in the FC-30's case.

I got a big kick reading another reviewer stating that it would make a great project case. While I certainly felt as strongly at first, I'd simply put it like this: if any of you guys with close to resonant antennas giving this thing a '5' like it so much and have more than one FT-897/857 you'd like to hang one off of, make me an offer that I can't refuse ... because no way I'd sell this to anyone that hadn't used one first. I need to be able to sleep at night after all.
JGROVE Rating: 2013-05-27
Superb Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Not sure why some reviews are negative, i bought one second hand it it tunes with no problem at all, its a bit noisy but thats the relays all kicking in. I will look at the fan modification as well as it can be a pain.
MM0XXW Rating: 2013-03-25
Neat little tuner ..... Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Tunes my 135' doublet on all bands with ease. Little noisy compared with some and the fan mod is best done but the tuner itself does what it states.
VE2TBC Rating: 2012-10-30
Works very well Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This tuner must have improved over the years because i do not see why it has so many bad reviews.

I use it with my ft-897 and it is a perfect match. It will tune my dx-cc on 80 m @ 3740 + or - 80 khz. Like the fc-10, at-180 and others. The only thing is that you lose the CAT port to control the tuner.

I bought it used and it has around one year of use.