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Reviews For: LDG FT-Meter

Category: SWR & Wattmeters & Dummy Loads

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Review Summary For : LDG FT-Meter
Reviews: 49MSRP: 49.00
Description:
Yaesu's popular FT-857 and FT-897 transceivers are wonders of compact efficiency. These do-anything, go-anywhere transceivers were science fiction just a few years ago, but ham's today are using them in shacks, mobiles and on dxpeditions from the back yard to the top of the world.

About the only problem with these radios is that us hams who are old enough to remember when stuff like this really was science fiction are also old enough to wish that the display was just little bit bigger. As we grow in wisdom and experience, we also grow to depend on bifocals; those tiny little screens are just plain hard to read! Add to that a strong desire to see a real live meter needle bouncing on voice peaks, and you find yourself wishing Yaesu had thought all this through when they designed the radio.

Well, in fact they did. A little known feature of these radios, noticed only by compulsive manual readers, is a meter jack on the bottom of the front panel. You have to figure that Yaesu knew they needed a bigger display all along, but just left it as an exercise for the user. Well, help is here! The LDG FT-Meter is a low-cost, plug-and-play solution to all your FT metering needs.

The FT-Meter presents a lush, highly readable 2.5" meter face with calibrated scales for signal strength and discriminator reading on receive, and power output, SWR, modulation, ALC action and supply voltage on transmit. Each function is s electable from the radio's menu. Easily visible from anywhere on your desk or dash, the FT-Meter is illuminated by any external 12 vdc source. The FT-Meter comes fully assembled and ready to go; just plug it into the radio and you're in the picture like never before. Order yours today
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/FT-Meter_purchase.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00494.6
VK2LKW Rating: 2009-12-11
Nice device with low quality connection cable Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought my FTL meter to be used with FT897D a few weeks ago. Nice device, working well except poor quality of connecting cable which started to give intermediate contact and finally failed completely. I exchanged connecting cable against a spare one (from a digital camera). It works perfectly even though replacement cable has plugs with two rings while original plugs have only one. Looks like the ring is not used for making contact.
Although this is a nice FT meter, due to poor quality of cable connection no maximum rating.
WS4E Rating: 2009-08-24
LIke it, but blew fuse. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Its nice to be able to read the meters from the radio on a large analog scale, as opposed to the typical bar graph on a digital display that is so common today.

But, I did experience one issue when I first got my FT-Meter.


IT HAD A SHORT with the plug on the back and the connector shipped in the box.


The plug that LDG used on the back is pretty poor quality, and the barrel of the included dc cable connector shorted out at the bottom of the plug when it was inserted fully causing a blown fuse.


I had to stuff a little electrical tape down around the bottom inside of the plug on the meter body to keep the dc connector from bottoming out and the edge of the outside touching the tip connector at the bottom of the female plug and causing the short.


First time I have ever had a complaint about the build quality of an LDG product.


But once I fixed the shorting, it worked fine.
DAN_TAYLOR_EX_N9GT Rating: 2009-01-14
Nice Accessory! Time Owned: N.A.
I can only echo the comments already made here in regards to this meter. It is an attractive and functional addition to your 857/897 radio. Mine has a nice bluish glow, is very accurate and easy on the eyes. I would highly recommend this meter....great job, LDG!
KE5OYZ Rating: 2008-11-05
Extremely helpful but hard to calibrate Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is an incredibly helpful accessory for my FT-857D. It's immensely helpful to have a larger meter. The only downside is that it's kind of hard to calibrate, but that's not nearly enough of a gripe to affect my 10 out of 5 rating!
G7TPL Rating: 2008-10-17
excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
spot, and indeed, on.
bought mine second hand, which makes it even more of a bargain!!
WU8P Rating: 2007-05-18
Very Nice Meter Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The FT Meter is a very nice addition to my little Ft 857D station. It makes looking at s meter and power out readings a breeze. As with all of the LDG products I have or had, this one is built very well and priced good.
Highly recomened.
KB5MIQ Rating: 2007-05-13
i like it Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
not much else to add i use this with a ft 897d and i like it. i especially like being able to have this meter reading one function and the rig meter reading another function. LDG makes a great product.
73
kb5miq
W5SDC Rating: 2007-03-06
Nice product but hard to see Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I pretty much concur with all of the positive comments here. Good quality, functionality, etc, etc.

However, if you need reading glasses to read the phone book or newspaper, you'll also need them to read the numbers on this meter. Wish they were larger.

Wonderful high quality product worth putting your specs on to read. Mine has an on/off switch for the lamp which appears to be a bright LED but I could be wrong.
N0FPE Rating: 2007-02-27
A Number 1 Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Great item...works perfect. no more to say1 Get one!


----------------------
Earlier 5-star review posted by N0FPE on 2006-09-11

Got mine used/like new off eBay for half price! The guy didnt like it, he wanted some kind of digitial meter. well his loss. I love it! I take it with me when I got portable! And when the rig is in the shack it is right there with 12 volts to light it up!! Best thing since sliced bread for the FT-897!!

Dan
N4MJG Rating: 2007-02-27
AWSOME METER !!! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is the awsome meter ever owned ,i got mine christmas i'm using mine on FT 897D. this is best gift ever got.



73
Jackie
KG4ORX
WEBSITE http://webpages.charter.net/kg4orx/