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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-8800R

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-8800R
Reviews: 173MSRP: 399.95
Description:
DUAL BAND RADIO
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001734.4
M1CXF Rating: 2013-02-05
Good Radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned my ft-8800 for many years and I have no intention of ever changing it. I have used the G4FHQ software to programme all UK repeaters into both sides, I can now access rapeaters when I am on my travels.
A truly brilliant peice of kit, long may it contiue.
SA3AYF Rating: 2013-01-16
Great performer! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Small, easy to fit in any car, very good audio and all functions I need, crossband repeater included.
Also, the display is very clear and easy to read even in daytime.

Ok, so programming takes some time. So it does with my other radios too.
As a comparison the cheap china-radios is a real PITA as their manuals is useless.

To make things easy, buy a programming cable for about $10 and use a computer.
Quick and with no fuzz.

As for the TRX it has a great front-end and does not choke on strong
adjacent channel signals as some other very expensive competitors do.

Output power was actually almost 10W moore than the factory specs.

You get a lot of radio for a nice price. A winner !
N4XTS Rating: 2012-12-05
Decent mobile but a few bugs Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've owned this rig for 3 years, and I would say overall it's more like a 3.5 out of 5. The 8800 overall is a decent performer, and has held up well in my car. It has had long hours in crossband repeat mode, and stays cool even on high power.

However there are a few bugs I cannot get past. The biggest one is the falsing of the tone squelch decode. Apparently, Yaesu has the squelch circuit setup for "AND/OR" operation and this causes the squelch to open randomly even when CTCSS DECODE or DCS is enabled. I've called Yaesu and they acknowledge the problem but say it's firmware related and no fix is in sight. Great! Nothing like putting out a buggy product and say you're not going to fix it. Even the cheap Chicom Baofengs come out with new versions.

The UI on the radio is very confusing, at least compared to my Kenwood TM-V71A, and I have to keep the "cheat sheet" handy. Programming memory channels with names by hand is a daunting task. The lack of backlit keys makes nighttime operation difficult and I always end up punching the wrong button. The other annoyance is the awkward placement of the microphone jack on the control head side. It gets in the way. The microphone is cheap, and the cord has already shown signs of wear. Unlike the V71A mike which is heavy duty and uses a standard modular plug on both ends, the Yaesu requires a teardown just to plug in a replacement cord.

Those are the gripes I have with the rig. I own both the Kenwood TM-V71A and the FT-8800R. I bought the 8800R first. If I had to do it all over again, I would have bought the V71A to begin with.

Yaesu can put out a decent product. I personally like the 8800R looks and it does sound great on the air, if the receiver decoded CTCSS/DCS without falsing I'd love it. Otherwise it has a great front end that's fairly sensitive.
VE7KTB Rating: 2012-11-30
Ok, BUT Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned my FT-8800 for more than two years now. It has been installed in two different company trucks, and has seen 125000km. It is a VERY reliable radio, BUT there are some things that I just have grown to dislike about this radio.

The Bad:
1 Volume, or lack of.

Even with an external speaker, right by my head on the pillar between the driver door and the back driver door, I find that even with the volume turned up I have a hard time hearing people on the repeaters across my province. I do ALOT of travelling for my job and I am very disappointed with the lack of AF power. My TK-760hg with out an external speaker on the floor has better sound than my FT-8800 WITH an external speaker 6inches from my head.

2 The cheap tiny hard plastic buttons.

Why, when my 10+ year old TK-760hg work radio has soft rubber buttons, does Yeasu have tiny little hard plastic buttons that feel cheap?

3 The cheap and tiny volume/squelch/channel knobs.

They suck plain as day. After about 1/4 turn on the volume knob it is at full volume. REALLY Yeasu?????????????
The channel selector is not much better, the slightest bump and you are changing channels, and it will some times not go the right way when going slowly. Very very poor choice of rotary encoder Nuff said.

4 Having WIRES as a top level, short single push.

Hey Yeasu, look at the number of WIRES nodes in Canada and the USA... Now STOP INCLUDING it as a top level, single button . Having WIRES activation as a single top level button push is a waste of a button. Causes more head aches and appliance ops asking "I do not know what I did, or how to turn it off"

5 Alpha memories.

Having to spin the knob to alpha tag memories is sooooo 1990. Can we get keypad entery for alpha tags yet?????
Alpha tagging is a sssllllooooowwwwwww painful experience unless you have software. And really how hard would it be to get a dot matrix display and have 8-14 alpha character tags. I know Yeasu is not the only one to be limited to 6 characters but really it IS time to move into the 21st century.

6 Cross band repeat.

Love the feature, hate the 500ms tail that can not be changed.

7 Front end filtering

There is none. Period. Running PL is a MUST in my city.

8 Lack of back lit buttons.

'Nuff said

9 Microphone.

It is a cheap feeling mic, with a 6 pin plug, really would be nice to buy a commercial DTMF mic and do a swap, but alas it is not possible, and I am too lazy to figure out how to adapt a commercial mic to this radio.

The Good:

1 The FT-8800 really is two radios in one.

Each side can TX on VHF or UHF. Both sided have 512 'regular' memories and a bunch of other useless scan edge memories, each 'band' 118, 144, 250, 350, 440, 800, has its own VFO per side. Plus 10 banks per side. In other words LOTS of options. I have the whole province of Alberta programmed on each side, along with some 'listen only' frequencies, and I have ample amounts of memories left more memories than I need even if I was to drive across the country.

2 Hyper Memories.

They work, and work great. One of the selling features of this radio that helped push me to buying it. If it escapes you RTFM.

3 Banks

Ten per side, wish I could alpha tag the banks but all in all ten per side is ok. I am able to make do with only 10.
16 or 32 would be better.

4 My Yeasu came with the remote mount bracket and extension cables.

Although mine is remote mounted, I made my own custom length control head cable. The long Yeasu one is still in the box it came in. Points to Yaesu for including the remote kit, even if they did not it is not that expensive to buy unlike the Kenwood accessories.

5 Audio reports with my mobile.

People like the audio from my mobile. Good volume, good quality sound.


For Christmas this year my xyl is getting me a TM-V71a, after looking at what is on the market, and the features on various radios I have decided to give Kenwood a try again. It has been a number of years since I owned any Kenwood ham products but I am going back. Yeasu has some great products out there, but the FT-8800 is just a miss for me. Is it a good radio absolutely, I just feel that it is a poor first attempt at what could be a great radio. Hope fully Yeasu listens, I know wishful thinking, to the buying public.

Would I recommend it, time will tell, once I get my hands on the Kenwood...

To Be Continued...
N9SQB Rating: 2012-06-28
Love it. I have two of them. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I just bought my 2nd one. Had the first one in the shack for a couple years. I did not use it for packet or satellite, but just the usual repeater work. I frequently used cross-band repeat – sat on the patio with a tiny Yaesu VX-3R and let the 8800 do the heavy lifting. A nice combination.

About three months ago I moved the 8800 into a Subaru Outback. Used the separation kit and plugged the 8800 audio line into the Outback’s audio system auxiliary jack. Working great as mobile too. Excellent intermod rejection (downtown Milwaukee at least) and good audio reports on 2m and 70cm.

I was debating on getting a newer dual-band mobile with GPS rig recently, such as the Yaesu FT-350R or Kenwood 710. But they were both a little pricey and when playing with the new FT-350R at AES in Milwaukee the other day I found it a little buggy. The Kenwood does have good reviews but I like the separation kits on the Yaesu more. So to heck with GPS, I just bought another 8800. One in the Outback and the new one back in the shack.

Yes, the audio is wimpy. It’s not back-lit. And it could/should have been tougher mechanically – knobs and all, like my old FT2500. And I find the newer rigs seem equally weak mechanically/structurally. But as far as RF performance, non-buggy firmware and good cross-banding functionality, the FT-8800R is great. So 4 stars. Better mechanical construction and audio would be a 5.
N2PLI Rating: 2012-04-21
Great radio maybe a bit of a better base radio not really mobil Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have this Radio a few years now works great excellent intermod rejection ..

Keys are not backlit

You have to go all the way into the Menue to change the PL or dcs tone
CR7000 Rating: 2012-04-09
Great Dual bander Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Great dual band radio

good to monitor 2m & 70cm at the same time

Like having two radios in one

Performs faultless
KI6IAU Rating: 2012-02-23
great, but not perfect radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I really like my 8800. It has worked really well for years. I do wish the keys were back-lit, and the volume control seems a little too sensitive. Those are my only design complaints. I use my 8800 in an old International Scout off roading. I have had dust so thick I could not read the display at least 10 times! It has seen hot, cold, and lots of vibration, and worked flawless until
after years of use, I got an intermittent transmit problem from the female mic-jack. I sent to Yaesu, had unit returned within a week, fixed, for a fair price! Now I zip-tied the mic cord too a mount to stress relieve the cord!
In this day and age where service is more a slogan than a fact, I can say Yaesu has great customer service!!
VE7MHW Rating: 2012-01-23
Works as Expected Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had my 8800 for just over a year now. It started life in my shack as an igate radio/uhf repeater monitor. It works very well for aprs 1200 baud. It now lives in my pickup, I monitor the vhf repeaters on one side and the other side has my tracker attached for aprs.

Pros:
-TX audio reports are good and the receiver seems to be quite good as well.
-While the menu is complicated I haven't found it dificult and it's not terribly nested. But gives you access to many bells and whistles.
-Software is readily available(and highly reccommended) for programming this radio.

Cons:
-The keys are not backlit, once installed in the truck this became a problem that I didn't really think about before.
-Speaker audio is tinny if it is turned up more than 35% as is sometimes required in a mobile.
-when operating digital you can set the radio to receive on the main band or left or right side only. However the radio transmits on the main band regardless of setting. It would be nice if the digi was set up on one side and the main happened to be on the other that it would disable the tx from the tnc. This way you wouldn't have to switch off the tracker every time you wanted to use the other side for voice.

I still gave the radio a 4 as it really is a good radio and does everything it is advertised to do, but not a 5 because of the little things that I mentioned above. The third Con could be fixed with a software patch if Yaesu cared enough(hint hint).
WS8B Rating: 2011-12-11
Lot's of Options Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just purchased a FT8800R in used condition at our local candy store (R and L). It was marked defective with low VHF audio. I reset the radio's softwere and re-programmed the unit. After a good shake-down in on the bench, I installed it in my car.

So far, all is well and functioning. After a short read of the manual, I was able to load-in all my local VHF/UHF area repeaters. I also set the Hyper function buttons.

If you are familiar with many other Yaesu radios, programming the 8800R should not be a challange.

As I get some time on the Rdio, I will, again do a review.

73....de.....Frank/WS8B