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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-7800R

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-7800R
Reviews: 197MSRP: 329.00
Description:
Dualband mobile
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001974.6
KB1FFX Rating: 2007-01-18
great customer service Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is a great radio for the money. I bought mine from juns electronics. I had it for about 4 months and the mic ptt button broke at the base. I called them and they said send it in. I sent it in and had a new one back before I could receive my card that said they received the mic. So I would say a very fast turnaround on this. I am very impressed. As far as performance, it is a nice radio. Good audio quality, tx and rx. I enjoy all the features. The output is plenty of power for most situations. I like it enough that I am considering buying another.

I like the fan, it is wisper quiet, unlike the Icom fans. Every Icom I have ever owned that had a fan has been noisy. I have an Icom v8000 on base and the fan will drive you crazy. Way to loud. I like yaesu's fans.

Overall a great value for the money.

Don't hesitate to buy one.
KD6MTZ Rating: 2007-01-07
The Best Radio Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I bought this radio new on ebay for $215.00 -
Wasnt going to buy it as I wanted dual band recv-But since it was such a great deal- I got it.
It was installed into my wifes minivan with a mag mount as I had a 706 in my vehicle. This Radio recv & tx is excellent. No intermod faults,works like a champ. I then having had such great luck with my 2 yaesu rigs (7800 + vx5) decided to pick up an FT-8800R.
I expected it to be basically the same rig but with dual band recv-----NOT!
The 8800 and the 7800 do not compare- the 7800 is far supior in every way-shape and form short of being able to recv two bands / freq- at once.
The 8800 is having other problems now and its newer than the 7800.. We I would rather stack two 7800 and have dual band recv- then buy anything else on the market- this radio hears and talks places that amaze me..

Cant complain about it at all.

Great Job AAAA++++
Add Dual band recv ?

AE9K Rating: 2006-12-14
Excellent dual-band rig Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had my FT-7800R for over a year and absolutely love it.

Pros:
• Quality of materials and construction is excellent
• Aesthetically, it looks like an industrial-purpose radio – not like flimsy consumer electronics
• Clearly laid-out LCD display:
. . .Digits are the right size and thickness
. . .Contrast with orange backlight is excellent even in sunlight
. . .Display isn’t cluttered with icons
. . .Easy to view LCD from most angles
• MH-48 MIC has a smooth PTT click, and fits my hand better than the jumbo mics like those of Kenwood, ICom and ADI
• Separation doesn’t require a kit. I made my own. The remote head uses unshielded 6-conductor cable with RJ-11s on both ends and audio uses a 1/8 inch jack. I made the remote head bracket from aluminum complete with ears for the head to snap onto.
• Audio reports are excellent

Cons:
• The mic cable, as mentioned by many other reviewers, plugs into the right side of the remote head. Yaesu should have
. . .put the RJ-11 jack on the front, or
. . .supplied a right-angle plug with a strain-relief, or
. . .put the RJ-11 jack on the left side where it would more directly face the driver’s side.

For those really concerned about it, make a pigtail with an RJ-11 plug on one end and an RJ-11 jack on the other. Plug the pigtail into the rig, and position the jack somewhere where it faces you. This way the mic cable isn’t bent.

• For general receive, part of the 33cm amateur band is blocked, specifically 918.5 MHz to 943.5 MHz. This isn’t documented either. It does say that cellular is blocked but this is the ISM band, not cellular. If you want to listen to 33cm repeaters in this range, the only way to do so is to use programming software as you cannot key in or rotate the VFO to a frequency in this blocked range. Once programmed via software, however, it will work.

Features I would have liked:
• A five-minute channel lockout feature. When scanning, a busy but uninteresting channel is annoying. I would like to hit one button and ignore that channel for five minutes instead of having to get into the SET menu, SKIP...then forget to undo this later.

• Ability to redefine the A, B, C and D buttons on the MH-48 mic. The buttons P1 through P4 are programmable but these are already set to useful functions that I do not want to change.

For computer programming, I use FTB7800 from G4HFQ and cables from RT Systems. Both are highly recommended if you travel a lot and want to download repeaters from TravelPlus and group the repeaters by city into memory banks.

Some prior reviews indicated the VFO/channel knob was either too loose or it didn't have a one-to-one detent action. The detent of my VFO/channel knob is tight and performs one VFO/channel step per detent click so Yaesu must have fixed this in later production runs.

Again, great transceiver and you can't beat the price!
W4AVD Rating: 2006-12-06
Good Rig Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchased this rig new about a year ago. Good audio reports even on distant repeaters. Easy to use , I set it up on the way back from buying it. It did take a while to figure out how to use the PL. (READ THE MANUAL...duh). This is now my mobile rig.
I do think that the separation kit costs too much. I used a 6 conductor telephone line with an inline connector to the piece that is already attached to the radio, a cheap radioshack speaker, and 3M doublesided tape.
KE5EIB Rating: 2006-12-04
excellent dualband Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I own 3 of these radio's. After setting-up the microphone functions to my liking, i can program this radio with my eyes closed. After my first purchase, i copied the different instructions on programing freq. into memory with my copier, then cut and taped the steps in order and used this list to learn the programing procedure. I just kept this cheat sheet handy, and after a while it was very, very simple, and fun to program. Great radio, and you can put a seperation kit together from ebay by buying the head mount and cable from sellers for approx. 30.00. Of coarse you cann't monitor two freq. at once, unless you don't scan and just stay on a single freq. and use the priority feature. But i just use a police scanner along with the radio and I'm ready to go. Bought each one of these radio's used on ebay for $225.00 already mod. for mars/cap.
W4EV Rating: 2006-11-25
Excellent Dual-Bander for the $$$ Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in here about this radio. No sense for me to waste space echoing the positive thoughts of others...I'll just sum it up as my opinion of "the best bang-for-your-buck in the dual band arena".

I don't use crossband repeat in the car, so this radio saved me $100 over the "true" dual-band rigs that were more than what I wanted.

Yes, Yaesu's menu system is "different", but it is very logical and easy to use if you give it a chance. I will also say that if you are going to be utilizing more than maybe 50 of the memory positions in this radio, you might want to go ahead and invest in the programming software as it makes the job go a lot quicker.

Overall, I feel that my money was very well spent on the FT-7800 and I would buy one again without hesitation.
KE7IGZ Rating: 2006-11-19
Easy to set up god quality rx & tx Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've been a HAM since June, and have been primarily using a VX7R HT. The FT7800R is simple to use (after learning the VX7R menus)and I have great signal reports. For a dual band, simple, but flexible system it works well. Set up to my standard repeater frequencies took all of about 45 minutes working with the manual. I've enjoyed it both as a "base" as well as mobile. No problems at all using packet via a soundcard interface either. I would highly recomend this for anyone who needs dual band, but not cross-band repeat capability.
KD5ZZK Rating: 2006-11-15
Great mobile ergonomics Time Owned: more than 12 months.
At night, it has back lit buttons and large characters on an easy-on-the-eyes orange display. Unlike the Icom IC-2720, ALL of the numbers are large and easy to read, especially at night. The big tuning knob is easy to use while driving if you don't want to use the UP DOWN buttons on the mic. 40 watts on UHF! Most other dual band mobiles are 35 watts. WFM coverage is nice when I want to hear the local TV news and I'm in my truck.
K2NCC Rating: 2006-10-25
Great rig with wide receive Time Owned: more than 12 months.
No problems with this radio. Seperation kit made it nice in the dash under the cd player. Wide receive makes for entertainment when the local activity is low. Wish I had cross-band repeat available, but not a big deal. I would recommend this radio for the around-200 dollar budget.
KB3BWF Rating: 2006-10-19
Great radio, Great price Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I needed a base station for my apartment in New York. I looked at many mobiles that were compact and always lean towards Yaesu products. The FT-7800 worked out well. I have the separation kit and it's mounted near my kitchen table. I put the power supply and radio body behind my china closet. On top is an external speaker. Perfect set up for limited space! The radio has so many features for the money and is a pleasure to operate. Like all Yaesu radios it takes time to learn all of the menus, but its worth it! As with all of the menu driven Yaesu radios, once you have the menus and short cuts down, you can fly from scanning the local police to keying up your favorite repeater in seconds. I use it with a Comet SBB-7 and have had many great reports about my signal strength and quality of sound. The mic can be set up with any of the short cuts you would like for ease of opperation. For the money you can't beat it. Mine is a year and a half old and works like the day I turned it on. I didn't buy the software for it because I prefer to learn how to use it myself. So far, so good. My next purchase will be another Yaesu with out a doubt.