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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-1500M

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

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-1500M
Reviews: 185MSRP: 229
Description:
This is the new Yaesu FT-1500M Mono-band 2 Meter mobile radio. 50 watts out, MH-48 mic, CTCSS encode + decode, DTMF encode + decode, 130 memories, 1200-9300 Packet ready (connector on back), Backlit display, and most other bells and whistles you would come to expect from Yaesu (including SmartSearch, Clock Shift, ect.).
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu.com/ft1500m.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001854.6
K1RTJ Rating: 2003-03-01
For it's price, size, and durability, it's a great value. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Although I've been a ham for many years, this was the first VHF mobile rig I have owned. I purchased it based on the reviews I read here, and to date, have not been disappointed in any way. It was very reasonably priced, very compact, easy to setup, and once I had all my favorites programed in, a pleasure to operate. I use it as my base 2 meter rig, and take it in my "go-kit" for local volunteer emergency use at a shelter location. My rating of "5" is based on price, size, durability and ease of use.

73,
Fred (K1RTJ)
KC8UFI Rating: 2003-02-28
Nice Mobil Rig Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Built like a brick. I have been using mobil with no problems. Good features for the price tag. If your looking for a good basic 2 meter rig this is a good choice. I like the mounting arrangement of the radio. I would buy again
NK7J Rating: 2003-02-27
Pretty nice unit Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The reason I bought two of these radios is SIZE. They are small and fit very nice in small openings in the pickup dash.

They are simple units, not much for the gadget folks but if you want a radio that is just simple and talks well this is a good choice. Not the best choice (IMHO) but a good one.

Here is my major grip with this radio, YAESU improve the stability of your Non-volatile memory. I have one of these mounted in a diesel pickup and found that it is sensitive to voltage drops when the pickup is in"warm-up" mode (glow pugs going). It scrambles the first 2 or 3 memory channels on a regular basis and once in a while I have to do a total reset becuse it looses its mind. I have another one mounted in the XYLs rig and she has similar problems due to voltage drops.

I have had many other radios in these rigs including the cheapo alinco DR-140s and never had a problem like this. Just to satisfy my own curiousty I took one of them out and put in on the bench and lowered the voltage down to around 9-10 Volts and then back up again and sure enough there goes parts of the memory.

Oh well what can you expect for $139.00 or less.
Jack NK7J
KG4RUL Rating: 2003-02-27
Great Radio! Bad Software! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Let me start by saying I no longer own my FT-1500M as it had to make way for an FT-100D. Using the FT-100D for accessing 2M repeaters is nowhere near as easy as using the FT-1500M.

However, while I had the 1500, I was totally satisfied with any and all aspects of it's operation. I especially miss the weather band capabilities.

As to the ADMS-2F programming software. For something as rudimentary and faulty as this is, Yaesu whould give it to you for free.

I use the TravelPlus software from the ARRL for locating repeaters. It generates repeater lists that are supposedly importable by the 2F software. WRONG!

This feature has never worked and Yaesu pr0ovides no help. Going to the folks, RT Systems, who wrote the software for Yaesu also got no satisfaction. Their solution was to sell me a 'better' software package' ARDTS-1500, that they assured me would work with TravelPlus. WRONG!

Having to sit and enter each repeater's info by hand totally negates wone of the MAIN reasons for having programming software.

To sum it up: Great Radio! Save you money on the software!

Dennis - KG4RUL

p.s. my rating for this review would be 'Great' instead of 'Good', except for this issue.

KG4WLP Rating: 2003-02-27
No bad habits Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I am a beginner, but I can't think of anything about this radio I dislike. Some seldom used functions I do have to refer to the manual, but otherwise it's not hard to use. Has never gotten very hot like some reports. For $139 I can't imagine getting more radio. Will buy another for home use. There may be better radios, but my "5" rating takes price in consideration.
KD7MWR Rating: 2003-02-26
I really like the mike Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchased this radio mainly due to its size. It is not much bigger than some older HTs. I was initially hesitant to buy it because there is no squelch knob (Squelch is a menu item). After using the radio for a year I have come up with a list of likes and dislikes. First the likes:

The microphome is very good and intuative. Once you learn the four buttons on the top of the unit, you have learned how to control it remotely with the microphone. There are four buttons on the mike that correspond with the buttons on the unit. The only reason to touch the unit is to power it on and off and control the volume. The microphone illumination can be turned on and off as well. The missing squelch knob is not as big of a deal since it can be controlled remotely with the mike. I use the radio in the dial locked mode all the time and control everything other than power and volume through the mike.

This is a VERY durable unit. I use it as a portable unit from car to car. Once I ran it over (on accident) with my wife’s full size van (It reminded me on the picture on the brochure). It suffered no damage.

Now to the dislikes:

The biggest disapointment is the display. For starters, it is too small and is difficult to view at even the slighest angle. I think if the display was not as recessed into the radio it would be MUCH better. I was never really big on the blue display as it is much to hard to see in bright light. One cannot display the channel number along with the alpha tag or frequency. This makes it difficult to program if you want certain frequencies in channel number order.

Why can’t the microphone light be the same color as the display. I know this is petty, but it looks like it dosen’t belong.

The audio is not up to standards of other radios I own. It is somewhat tinney. The ICOM IC-2100H has very good audio.

Overall, this is a good durable radio with too small a display and a very good mike. I think the ICOM IC-2100H is a better radio.
KR2J Rating: 2003-02-12
Solid Radio Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
There are no fancy stuffs on this rig. But good enough functions to operate everyday. Working very solid and stable. $129 is good buy. No complain.
N7RD Rating: 2003-02-09
Great Rig Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
After having this little and I mean "LITTLE" rig for 3 months now I can say it has great bang for the bucks. I use it mobile and in the shack and it gets nothing but good reports on audio. Gets a bit hot if ran long on high power but for the price this is a great buy.


Ron N7RD
Sun City West, Arizona
KG6IOK Rating: 2003-01-27
One solid little rig!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
For the price it is a steal. For $129 I cannot beleive the quality of this thing. I am constantly getting great signal reports even in my noisy econobox commute vehicle. Just about every feature is accessible from the mic keypad (very handy). I find myself using 25 watts out most of the time, because that is all I need. But when I first got the radio I was transmitting a full 50 watts all of the time. Sure it got a little warm but that is the way it was designed, it's case is it's heatsink. If I had to pick something about it to improve, I would say that it could use more than one scannable memory bank.
K2YWE Rating: 2003-01-07
Soild but has operating flaws Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
A very very solid and well-built transceiver, but has operational features that are flawed. I use the radio strictly as as a mobile rig. It has proven reliable under extended high power operation, and I like the way it mounts. What I don't like:
Microphone connector - The microphone connection on the side is vulnerable to sideways stress damage. In fact the first FT-1500 I bought had to go back the second day due to an intermittent connection at the microphone to radio interface. I now use an extension cord and coupler to stress-relieve the connector.
Display - Blue only. I could not find a setting that is easy to see in the daylight that doesn't light up the inside of the car at night. The display polarization on mine is such that I can't read it at all with my polarized sunglasses on. Luck of the draw, I guess.
Squelch - The squelch adjustment, both RF and audio, requires menu operation. This can be accomplished from the microphone keypad, but is a cumbersome up-down button adjustment instead of an always-ready-to-use knob adjustment. Excluding channel changing, Audio Gain and Squelch are the two most used adjustments and should be immediate and easy to adjust.
Microphone/Audio - I get consistent reports that the audio is too "hot" or distorted. I have adjusted my voice and distance from the microphone, as well as tried both narrow and wide deviation settings. My best compromise is speaking in a low voice and across the microphone rather than into it. I have no such audio troubles on any other rig, VHF-FM, HF-SSB (Yaesu too) or AM.
I would love to have the operational features of my Icom 2600 and the size and quality of the Yaesu FT-1500. If you can live with the flaws, it's a great buy. If not, look elsewhere.