| N5XJT |
Rating:  |
2024-10-31 | |
| Great Rig! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have the "white face" with the matching VFO, tuner, speaker and transverter, purchased used about 2 mos. ago. This radio is addictive, easy to listen to and operate for hours at a time without tiring the listener. The receiver is very good and I get good audio reports for the transmitter. No issues with the radio after a good alignment and seems to be well built. One of the better rigs from the 80's.
Just an update after six years: Working perfectly, no issues, output is 150+ watts after ALC reset. Not an easy radio to operate as the settings need to be exact according to the manual but once you understand it this is a great little radio. |
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| VK2CZ |
Rating: |
2022-12-29 | |
| Re-making a classic |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Picked up a pristine dark grey FT107M that had only been opened once (sadly to do an 11m conversion). Perfect mechanically, and no damage to the painted screws.
While the radio functioned at first turn-on, audio was rough, RF alignment was off, display was off frequency and the LEDs were really dim (aged).
Unlike past FT707 restorations, this FT107M underwent a full electrolytic capacitor replacement, and oddly all the PCB mounted adjustment pots; which were electrically noisy and intermittently open circuit. Of course all the LEDs were replaced, this time using a red color scheme - rather than the IEEE blue.
Without an 'extender' card, a full alignment was impossible, so a $5 edge connector off AliExpress and a $8 PCB (designed in Altium) that included LED indicators showing the presence of 5v, 8v and 12v. Yaesu however were inconsistent in their card design, as each radio slot had differing power pinouts. (Pin1 was luckily always ground).
Yaesu had used a 22 ohm resistor on the output of one 3 pin regulators to behave as a fuse - not shown in the service manual. Not discovered until the extender card with LED power indicators had been built !
Updated with all the optional filters with INRAD, and re-plated all the steel parts with yellow chromate made the radio arguably better than new.
A digital VFO was built using a Teensy 3.2 and AD9833 chip to prove concept of stability and low noise, subsequently re-built on a large postage stamp with AT328/AD9833 sitting on a rotary encoder. Have yet to solve the mechanical fitment. see czgzz website for info.
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| KE4AMQ |
Rating: |
2021-12-28 | |
| desent rig |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Well I love the rig, Drifts abit and the audio is not that good. Other then that I love it, just has its share of problems |
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| K9UR |
Rating: |
2019-01-13 | |
| Old work horse - Fun to use |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Have dreamed of having a Yaesu FT-107M simply because I remember becoming a new ham and reading the back pages of 73 magazine in 1980 where the M-lineup *white one was proudly displayed every month in a Yaesu advert. The rig works good. The compressor is very effective in boosting RF output on SSB. I use it on AM now days driving a Johnson thunderbolt amp and it works fine business! Sounds great on AM. OK CW receiver, especially when loaded with the 400 hz cw filter. What I especially like: THE IF OUTPUT allows use of a $20 SDR dongle and I can have a huge pan-adapter to monitor the bands using this old workhorse. It's not NOT a modern radio - the vfo drifts a little. But it's a fun radio to use and works quite well for the era. The accessories are beautiful - especially the FC107 antenna tuner. Full lineup includes a transverter for 6M and 2M, the external VFO, a built in or external power supply, a memory unit, several different CW and AM filters, antenna tuner, and various microphones. VERY affordable old radio! It's heavy.... like a boat anchor and built like a tank. It uses card-edge modules, best to treat those with deoxit every few years and clean the rear fans and it will continue to run and run and run. |
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| PA1PDB |
Rating: |
2015-07-29 | |
| Digital Modes |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
A did a review of this Transceiver a few years ago.
I tried using the FT-107m for Digital modes like PSK, JT-65 and also RRTY, SSTV and EasyPal.
Don't try this using the VFO. The VFO is not stable enough!
But I discovered when using the digital memory (if the module is installed and which you can fine tune) it works great!
This way I made a lot of digital QSO's on many mode's! |
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| JP1DJV |
Rating: |
2015-07-08 | |
| working WELL |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| The value of FT-107 depends on what you expect of the 35 years old rig. Simply, the receiving ability is still good on 14MHz. I did a A/B comparison with TS-850 and TS-990 (I uploaded some video clips on YouTube), I couldn't find any noticeable differences among them. WIDTH, NOTCH and APF are still enough effective. PROC may make the audio metallic-sounding, but it's also effective in some cases. AGC works well. ATT attenuate too much. My 107 has QRH (frequency drift) of -100Hz/hour or so, but it's not a big deal. But my favorite is its very low noise receiver. It's the same as or slightly better than 4.9-scored TS-830 and TS-930. In Japan, we can buy a used FT-107 at or less than 15,000 yen (124usd, 111eu) now. I think this is great worth. |
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| G0UCH |
Rating: |
2014-09-03 | |
| Very satisfying to operate |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I bought mine on e Bay. I had previously owned an FT277B and an FT101Z. This also had proper sized swtiches and buttons as well as a digital display. I liked the fact that I did not have to load and plate it.
Good on SSB and CW.
I swapped it for a laptop. Something I bitterly regret to this day.
If I could pick on of the above three radios to have as a "vintage" HF set in my shack, this would be the one I'd pick . |
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| PE1GUR |
Rating: |
2011-10-02 | |
| Rugged design |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I bougth some years ago for portable work a FT107M. I completed it with the missing AM filter. I collected also the FTV107R (6m./2m./70cm modules and FP107(Extra Powersuply).I notist soon that the rig needed a full and carefull realignment. Including the frequence stability. Afther this exercise the FT107M impoved, but the RX sensivity on the higher bands was still bad. On 15m.-5db, 12m.-10db and 10m. -20db compared to my old and favoured FT901DM. My FT107M is a grey one ánd one of the latest versions. Is saw that the front-end selectivity was improved by extra coils. Thats nice and needed on HF. I myself use always a antenna tuner for extra filtering anyway. But in theory the 3SK51 pré-amp can't compensate the huges losses in line untill the next If-amp beyond the cristal-filter matchingcoils (30db loss). I think they have used lossy coils/bad tabs in the frond-end. Finally after carefully réaligning the RX stages a couple of times I added on 10m. a BF981 pré-amp. Now the sensivity is like the FT901DM and I can use the FTV107R transverter modules.
In the IF-inrad filters there is some tolerance in shapefactor. Its than very difficult to match the main SSB filter, IF-shift and RF-clipper filters on SSB with the BFO offset:LSB USB. Neverless the inrad-filters are all 8-pole,exept the CW filter wich is a 6-pole, but controls with the 8-pole IF-shift.
After the exercise of realignment the RF-clipper runs the rig as a 500W amplifier with a good mic.and 20db of RF-clipping!
The PA of the FT107M is rugged and can hande a 50% duty cycle, even in the field at summer. RF out in SBB: 160m. 160W and on 10m. 100W. It can handle without problems a mischmatch of VSWR 1:2.
The coolingfan is noisy and there is no tube built in. Just transistors, hi... therefore the heart of the FT107M can be modified an repeared.
The FT107M has no FM mode! Nice together with his sidebrother FTV107R (has switches for repeatershifts build in!). FM is widely used on 10m. and all the VHF and UHF bands.
The IF-shift works nice and together with the APF/NOTCH its effective and simple to use for all modes exept "Antique Modulation".
The Noiseblanker works good, is adustable and blanksout most of the ignition peaks and staticnoise.
The FT107M has a second digital 100Hz step-VFO, with 12 memories. The only advantage I could see is that you can go up and down some 400Kc outside the analoge VFO range and scannig the 500Khz. What to do with this 12 memories channels on 9 HF bands?
Last but not least: With the switches CW wide and narrow and other futures, the FT107M perform as a "dx-er" CW/SSB TRX. Unfortunatly The FT107M has no built in (Curtis)keyer! But with my old German Junkerkey(1944)habe ich wieder dat fingerspitzen gefuhl bei CW, so back to basics and strait keying.
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| M6SPW |
Rating: |
2010-08-14 | |
| Best vintage HF transceiver i have had the pleasure to own :O) |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Im not going to go into great detail about this brilliant old transceiver as many of the previous posters have covered what i was going to say anyway.
I own a cream fronted version which are quite rare here in the U.K,as the grey fronted ones are more common over here.
Mine has both the 600hz CW filter which also works on FSK,and it also has the memory unit in it,but thats seldom used by myself,but still its a usefull feature and ahead of its time for a transceiver of its era.
One thing I must state is that i just love the superb rx audio quality this old set puts out,a sheer pleasure to listen to and the tx audio even sounds good with the supplied standard microphone on it,although i use an Astatic 1104C base mike (same as teardrop) and I always get complemented on my tx audio.
Another thing i like is the silky smooth rotation of the VFO dial,just feels quality and easy to turn.
Most people like to praise the good old reliable 101zd,which is also a very nice retro transceiver (aslong as you don't mind plate and load),but to me the FT-107M has the edge,both in performance,reliabilty & more aesthetically pleasing to look at (in my opinion).
If you can pick one of these up for under £200 (as i did) snap it up,you will not regret it,as the previous poster said. this will also be going to the grave with me,if only Yaesu still made this classic again,i would be at my local radio emporium at the speed of light,im giving it a 5/5 reason being it would not make sense to judge it against modern transceivers,so im judging it as being one of the best retro sets i have owned and had the pleasure to operate.Anyway enjoy the hobby,best 73's,Shaun M6SPW :o)
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| W4OP |
Rating: |
2010-05-18 | |
| Excellent Vintage Rig |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have the FT-107M, Power supply/speaker, antenna tuner and remote VFO. Perhaps the best looking gear Yaesu has ever produced. The VFO's are very stable and smooth tuning at the classic 25KHz/revolution. The combination digital and analog readout is simply beautiful. NB is as good as my IC-7700 as are the notch and peaking filters. I use the broadband IF out with my SDR-IQ for an excellent panadapter and 2nd RX.
Yaesu hit a home run here. The only part not working is the memory module and I have made an extender card to assist in fixing it.
Audio, both RX and TX is excellent. Just cannot say enough positives about this rig and its accessories. |
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