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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-90r

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-90r
Reviews: 138MSRP: 399.96
Description:
Micro 2m/440 transciever
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu.com/ft90r.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001383.5
KC2GOW Rating: 2002-01-12
Great little radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got the radio only 4-5weeks ago and I love it! It has great TX (lots of PWR options). I am not to happy with the recieve side of the radio (it is so/so). Otherwise it is a good choice!
VA3DJL Rating: 2001-12-23
Fantastic Rig! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned the rig for about 1.5 years now. Mounted with the remote head in a Dakota pickup. TX audio great, recieve is rock-solid. Internal speaker is useless, you must add an external speaker.
WD4ITE Rating: 2001-12-18
Good Little Radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
hi everyone i have owned my FT-90R for almost 2 years now i i havent had any problems with it until 2 night ago Dec. 15, 2001. when i was in a conversation with my father, my audio would drop out completely!! i was mad at this because i was on I-95 talking. then i saw some on the reviews that some of you all have put on here and my radio heats up greatly within a 10 min. period. i like the radio because its compact i have mone hidden under my seat of my car when i go out of y car. can anyone help me with the RF in the radio i am having this problem also. my email is wd4ite@hotmail.com please email me the solutions to this problem. 73's
DE WD4ITE
KD7GMN Rating: 2001-12-11
Overheating and awful customer service Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
What can I say good about this radio? Hmmm..small is the only thing cool..oh yea the front end is decent. Other than that it overheated and would drift on the rx and tx within 10 minutes or so. Yaesu has cruddy support and I don't trust them after having three times and they never once fixed the problem of drifting once it became hot. I could literally not even rx via a local repeater once it got hot, tx was the exact same way. I was limited to 10 minutes of talk for just the mere price of 400 dollars.
N8QBD Rating: 2001-12-11
I'm sorry I got involved with this rig! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this radio 5 days ago. I'm on my second radio and it's also got problems. The first one worked like a champ for one day. Then I could get about 10 seconds worth of transmit time. After that it was dead on the transmit side. I tested this with a quality dry load and a quality watt meter (bird equipment)

Second radio is 5 khz off on the recieve side. I can bring up the repeater showing the correct frequency on the display, but then I have to de-tune 5 khz to hear anything.

To say I am disappointed is an understatement! I've always reasured my Yaesu rigs (ft-2200 mobile, still working great and an frg-100 reciever also working great.) I bought this rig for a trip I am taking tomorrow and now after two radios I will be without a radio for my trip.

Thanks Yaesu! Keep my money and the radio, it's worth it just to get it out of my hair.
KH6KINE Rating: 2001-11-29
A memory dump Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had my FT-90R for a little over 18 months now, and it is indeed a FANTASTIC radio. I have the radio mounted under the seat, and the control panel above the rear-view mirror in my Honda Prelude - pretty slick. Of course an external speaker is needed. Does it get hot? Probably, but the fan should cool stuff down. I've used it on extensive, hi-power simplex operations for public service events, and have had no problems - until this morning:

I turned the radio on, and UGH ! All my memories are GONE. After this short amount of time, how come this happened? Will the back-up battery need replacing once a year? Anyone else have this happen??

And yes, the unit is installed properly, etc.

I will re-program the radio tonight, and see what happens. I really do not want to send it out for service just for a "battery change" . . . . .

And I also have the VX-5R - awesome little HT, but the 6m part is weird - I need to find a decent antenna for it. And I HATE the SMA connector on HTs so popular nowadays. Back to BNC, please!

I also have the FT-847 Earth Station rig - ANOTHER winner! I love the band coverage. I recently took it to the Caribbean for the CQ WW DX SSB contest - Awesome rig, barefoot into verticals, wires and beams, with no filters (I use the filter between the ears). The only question is - how can I connect a "receive only" antenna - a Beverage - to the rig? Any ideas?
KB4TPP Rating: 2001-11-06
Decent radio, some glitches. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I recently purchased an FT-90R as it is the only VHF/UHF that will fit in my new Corolla. On the good side, it is easy to use: menus are consistent with othr Yaesu products (like the FT-50). It does have a decent RX sensitivity and selectivity. I like the alpha display, all my modes have names: easy to deal with when driving down the road. It seems to perform just as good as full sized counterparts.
Now the downers:
RX AUDIO STINKS!! The speaker is a joke. My Motorola STX821 at MINIMUM VOLUME is louder than this at full throttle. Can't hear it with the window down or at highway speeds. Speaker distorts and like most ham gear, poor PL filtering makes listening to a carrier with a PL aggrivating.
HOT HOT HOT!! Put an external fan on mine. This radio generates too much heat, even at medium power.
SQUELCH PROBLEMS: When the radio heats up, the squelch threshold goes haywire and squelch has to be opened all the way to RX on VHF. Seems to be heat related.
In summary, this is a good choice if you drive a small econobox and want a mobile radio in your car. It's glitches mar otherwise what is a very unique radio, and it is one of the few ham rigs with DCS. I would have probabbly opted for the Kenwood G707 had I known about these annoying flaws.
VK2JWA Rating: 2001-11-05
Audio / Mute problem Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Have only recently bought this second hand.
I think I know why it was sold, it is almost impossible to get a Mute / audio setting which is stable or practical.
Set the mute to just kill the noise, it clips the received signal. Set to not clip the audio, it won't close the no-sig noise. Can't find a adj method from the manual. Not bad on switch on, gets worse after warm up, no usable setting found so far.
ANYONE GOT ANY SUGGESTIONS PLEASE.
EMAIL - jalcorn@nor.com.au
Otherwise a good set. Audio quality good (if you open the mute), output low, small speaker. Ext speaker level better.
Reported tx sig and audio quality good.
Other features not examined yet, trying to solve mute problem first.
Fixed mute would get a 4+ rating at least.
Would not have purchased had I known the problem.
Tks fr any info, 73, John VK2JWA
VK3NM Rating: 2001-09-02
Good little radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Hi All
Bought the FT90R and within a week had problems with pops
and crackles on transmit just having problems with my FT817
I demanded a replacement unit and so far no problems
The RX is very sensitive and got very good pager rejection
compared to other rigs Icom radios are hopeless when connected
to my Diamond Verticle at 50 feet but with the FT90R I can monitor some
distant repeaters with not much pager QRM , I have a very nasty 24 hour a day
pager base station nearby on 148.240 Mhz running about 1 KW.
The receiver works very well on all VHF and UHF frequencies including the AM
aircraft band however I have discovered quite a few images which can be a bit
of a nuisance but that is a common problem with wide band receivers.
The transmitted audio is clean and I run mine mainly on 10 watts sometimes
I will use the 50 watt level for short durations under difficult conditions.
I also like the menu buttons on the microphone and in the future may
purchase a DTMF mic for IRLP use but in the meantime I can use my
tone sender for that purpose.
Overall I like the little radio and is very popular here in Melbourne.
73 Lionel VK3NM
K6HIP Rating: 2001-07-24
high power and tiny! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had my ft-90 for over a year. I'd say that during that time the radio's performed decently. I originally bought it to fit into
the stash box zone (near the radio) of my '98 Nissan Frontier.
The radio fit inside that area with only three holes to drill and was easily viewable from any angle, even in direct sunlight.
The onboard, top mount fan worked very well and the radio dissipates heat quite nicely. The hand grenade microphone is easy to work and the backlit keys are a welcome addition. What's especially cool is the quick access keys that default to 'tone encode' and 'power level'. The detachable face completes the 'Don't jack my truck because you'll get nothing' look :)
The four power levels are a real great advantage.
Works very well with packet.
But, every radio's got it's downsides. The FT-90 is no exception. Intermod in urban areas is atrocious. My Icom W32A was better than the '90 and that's not saying much.
At times, the face plate will wiggle loose and the radio shuts off. I machined a small wedge of plastic and jammed it in between the radio and face plate and it works fine now. Also,
the speaker is a total joke and will literally howl on received signals if turned up past 3/4. Do yourself a favor and get an external speaker.
All in all, a decent radio, especially if you need something stealthy that really packs a punch.