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Reviews For: Yaesu FR-101D

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FR-101D
Reviews: 3MSRP: 799 (in 1976)
Description:
An all-mode ham-bands receiver with SWBC, VHF capabilities
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu-museum.com/fr-101.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0034.7
WA7UHR Rating: 2009-10-01
Excellent Vintage Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have to give it a five for looks and performance. Introduced in the mid 70's during a time of rapid change in ham radio stuff, the FL101/FR101 line could compete with the best of em'. I was fortunate enough to find the analog (S model)and the green digital readout model in near new condition. All of the FL/FR-101 line up is here to stay.
I have seen one white readout model receiver, but I understand that model has low life readouts. I don't have the 2/6 meter converters and would like to have them.
Oh, take a close look at the picture, it actually looks like high end communications equipment and not like a stereo receiver set up. 73 de Fred.
W8AAZ Rating: 2009-04-11
Non "D" version is OK Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have the non D version, with the analog dial. You can therefore say it does all the D does except for digital readout. Very sensetive receiver. But you have to be cranking the preselector all around for band changes. Nice that it covers ham bands and SW BC. But it ain't gonna compete with the latest and greatest ham rigs with general coverage. Has alot of the controls that are used with the FL transmitter and therefore are wasted panel space as a standalone. Fairly good audio with a good speaker or the Yaesu speaker, freq. stable tuning. But with the analog dial you also have to keep rezeroing the dial cal with the calibrator on range changes if you care to be dead on. Not that critical for SW AM reception but it seems that the old crystals for the ranges get a bit off freq. so you might be a couple KHz off changing bands till you zero the dial. But the radio is solid and they don't build them like this anymore. Fine as a backup rx in the shack or standalone SW. Can hear anything my OMNI VI can hear on the lower bands. RIght now the MUF is too low to test on above 20M. Nice rig if the price is right. And the condx. is good or better.
N8YX Rating: 2005-06-30
A solid, timeless rig Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently got hold of a "minty" FR-101D and FL-101 combo via an online auction. Though I never owned one, I have used a friend's '101D some time back.

There are several high-performance general-coverage rigs in use at my QTH. An R7, R-5000, R-820 and ITT Mackay 3031A see regular use prowling the airwaves.

When the XYL first saw the FR-101 sitting on the table next to its companion transmitter, she asked "What does this do better than your other radios?"

Answer: It doesn't have to do a thing better than any of them. It just looks CLASSY.

Honestly, it works FB. Though the rig doesn't incorporate advanced QRM-fighting features which are found on practically every radio built since its time, it does offer the user the ability to install AM/wide (6 KHz) , FM (16 KHz) and CW/narrow (600hz) crystal filters. When the rig is used for SWLing, the lack of an IF Shift, notch filter and the like isn't a detriment to its operation. CW contesting on the low end of 20M is another matter entirely, but that's not where this rig shines. For a VFO-tuned rig, stability is excellent. Yaesu incorporated temperature compensation into the VFO circuitry and this is adjustable if need be to minimize drift.

Speaking of SWLing...the receiver came "stock" with crystals for the 160-10M amateur bands. Its bandswitch has positions for the 60M, 31M, 25M, 19M, 16M, 13M, and 11M SWBC bands, as well as a "CB" (27.0-27.5 MHz) position and 4 Auxillary band positions. One has to order the various band crystals if use outside the ham bands is desired.

Internal receiving converters for 6M and 2M were also offered by Yaesu; the rig I acquired came equipped with them. It also has the optional FM filter, demodulator board and AM/Wide filter installed. A quick trip to the Fox Tango International "Radio Graveyard" yielded a CW filter and some extra band crystals - including all three WARC bands.

When in use, the FR-101 just sounds GOOD. Audio from the companion SP-101 speaker is full, and the rig is fairly sensitive. An R7 it isn't, but not too many rigs are...and you can't park your R7 on your local 2M repeater output frequency and monitor the nets, either.

Contruction is very robust, but one may need to clean bandswitch contacts and potentiometers periodically - especially if the rig has been sitting idle for many years as mine was.

The FT-101/FL-101 series of transmitters was known for having some of the best-sounding "out-of-the-box" AM TX audio ever seen in a ham rig. I got the 101 Twins with that thought in mind - they'll make a wonderful pair for conversing with the AM crowd on 160, 80 and 40.