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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-3000M

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-3000M
Reviews: 31MSRP: 399.95
Description:
High Powered VHF FM Transceiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu.com/amateur/ft3000m.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00314.5
KF4QED Rating: 2006-07-12
Freq hops on key-down Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Frequency changes when keying down the hand-mic can be eliminated by taking the cover off the mic and cleaning the mic switch with tuner/contact cleaner.
KC0NOX Rating: 2006-04-05
Some good, some ??? Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought at hamfest for reasonable price in good condition. Wanted home-use 2m with wide receive and the cross-band repeat.

Repeating set-up reasonably easy, but had a few reports of intermittent re-transmission (lowest power, CTCSS protected). Good audio quality in / out.

The bizarre:
When switching to VFO from a memory, ALL the information is transferred: tones, alpha tag, etc. If you want to dial around the band, you must go into the menu to cancel the tones. If you don't want the alpha tag to display (regardless of the VFO frequency displayed), you must go into the menu to change that - otherwise, it's easy to think you're monitoring a memory freq.

If you swap a memory channel into the sub-band, it comes back into the main band as a VFO frequency - instead of the memory. Rotate the dial and the frequency changes from the memory, rather than scrolling memory channels.

The Dual Watch & Priority are almost identical in function, except that DW checks every second, and PRI every 5 seconds. You can't use these in combination with each other or any scanning mode.

SmartSearch only scrolls through limits one time. How many repeaters, or other frequencies, are you going to find in a single 30 second search?

Has anyone tried the RT Systems' ADMS software for programming?
KC2JRI Rating: 2005-09-06
Tx Problems Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Occasionally, the frequency jumps downward by 5khz when I key the mike. Further key-ups result in more 5khz downward jumps???? Also, the volume control is noisy. Anyone know a fix for these problems?
W7KID Rating: 2004-02-26
Excellent 2M Rig & 440RX & Cross Band to boot Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I've had 2 of these radios and they're great. The only problem I've ever had with either one of them, and it may be an easy fix, is on the one I currently have it doesn't beep when putting in the frequency from the keypad. Which is something I noticed on an earlier review, someone saying that it doesn't do direct entry. It does indeed do direct entry. You just need to change the "remote" setting in the menu to "mic". (one of those things I admit I actually read the manual, hihi)

I'm pretty impressed with the wide range coverage as well. 110-174, 300-520, and 800-999.

I've seen these go for anywhere from low $100 to $200, and depending on condition I think it's an excellent buy.

73, Ken
W7KID
VE3TMT Rating: 2004-02-10
Not bad for the price Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Pros:

Wide band receive, including AM air traffic
Good loud audio
Very nice display
Excellent for scanning usage

Cons:

Tuning knob is too easily bumped, causing the radio to switch VFO's
Susceptible to RF from HF rig sitting next to it (causes the 3000 to key up, no other 2m rig I've owned ever had this problem)
No direct freq entry from the mic pad
CTCSS decode is optional - it should be included standard

Other that that I find the radio to be a good value, get great audio reports and it sure does look good in the shack.

73,
Max
AD5EM Rating: 2003-10-25
This one's a "sleeper"! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had mine for 5 years and it just works, for me. I have a dual bander in my wife's car, but 99% of my non-HF time is on 2M. The 3000 has never missed a beat, I use to programming software to manage the memories and would recommend that to anyone looking at any of the new radios, HT or mobile. Big display, good feel on the knobs, making operation in the dark manageable. Obviously it's a keeper for me and I think a sleeper on the cost to value area. I don't know why anybody needs the full 70watts on FM 2M...but it's there is you need to cook some hotdogs, or your brain I usually run it at 35 watts or less and I've found that if it doesn't get full quieting at 35watts...it won't get it at 70 watts...but driving up to the top of the hill has dramatic effect!
W5ZZQ Rating: 2003-03-07
Great radio!! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is one great radio. Have had several over the years and not one problem with any of them. Am really glad I found this one now that they are discontinued. Wish I had another new one. I love the twin fans - really cools the thing in long QSo's. Built like a tank.
K1ACK Rating: 2002-11-12
I have 2 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I liked it so much I bought 2!
Then again I semm to do that with a lot of radios....too many! I love the organge display, menu is a bit tedious until you get used to it, but then again what new radio isnt. I think it was a little ahead of its time, and was a bit pricey (until the $199 closeout at AES) 70 Memories (mem scan is a little slow, but ok for my local 10 or so channels), 800 receive is good (have an FT-90 thats not great on 800, and FT-100 thats DEAF on 800).Direct frequency entry by the mic ( might have to go to menu 47 and turn it on) DTMF decode, discovered this when digits went across the display! Its basically a 70 watt FT-50R (never have used it at 70, 50 is fine). I got the voice recorder board, used it twice, not worth the $47 if you ask me. One bummer is the $47 CTCSS decode board. Also no "issues" that I know of, like they have with newer radios (aka FT-7100) So if you dont need tx on 440mhz, this makes for a nice radio.
W0NXN Rating: 2002-09-25
Good, high powered workhorse 2 m. rig. Time Owned: more than 12 months.

I bought the Yaesu FT-3000M mail order about 3 years ago. My primary reason for buying it was the fact that it had wide-band receive coverage and especially because it had DCS in addition to CTCSS. Most of the local emergency services in my county use DCS, and, as an Emergency Management volunteer I do quite a bit of monitoring and needed DCS capability. The radio has been a work horse and has never experienced any problems that required warranty or other repair.

Receive sensitivity is good, especially within the ham bands, but out-of-band too. I have gotten good reports on transmitted audio. There are four power levels from the highest, 75 watts, which can put a simplex signal nearly anywhere in the county, down to about 10 watts for local or repeater comms. Full power generally is best achieved with the engine running. Otherwise transmitted power is probably a few watts less. The menu system for setting transceiver parameters is OK, I guess. I felt that there might have been some way to make it a little easier to access and use, but there are a lot of parameters that can be set, so Yaesu can be forgiven for the few complications. Once you learn to use it, it's pretty simple.

The advertised extended-transmit mod is easy and works well. It is available from other sources.

On the 800 MHz. band, there is a certain amount of intermod, especially when I drive within about half a mile of a cellular transmission tower. As long as you use CTCSS or DCS this doesn't bother much. But if you had to operate using carrier squelch, it would be very annoying during urban driving. In defense of Yaesu, I have to say that I have seen very few radios that are truly immune to this sort of interference. Some intermod is occasionally experienced on other bands, but this generally hasn't been a problem.

This is an excellent 2 meter radio, especially if you need some power to conduct simplex communications with other mobiles some distance away. If you consistently use repeaters, you may not need such high power. What would have made this radio complete would have been transmit coverage of 440-450 MHz. A dual-bander with these characteristics would have been just about perfect. The FT-7100 was supposed to have been that radio, but, upon reading the reviews of the 7100 on this website, I find that it is not really the dual-band version of the FT-3000. Anyone interested in a dual-band version of the FT-3000 should read the reviews of the 7100 before purchasing one. As a 2 meter radio, the FT-3000 has just about all the features I want in a transceiver.
K2XH Rating: 2002-06-19
Good Rig Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I love the tx audio and power, the manual as with most of the radios with all kinds of features that I never use is confusing. I suspect they are translated from japanese instead of written in english. I must agree that the large knob feels a bit flimsy. And why can't they include decode board for the high price? Anyway I think the radios performance both on rx and tx overcomes these minor faults.