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Reviews For: LDG YT-100

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : LDG YT-100
Reviews: 17MSRP: 199.95
Description:
Automatic antenna tuner for the Yaesu FT-897/D, FT-857 and FT-100
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00174.1
KO4PJW Rating: 2022-02-10
Excellent tuner that interfaces with the FT857D Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Purchased this to use on HF bands with my FT857D. Works great. Use it to tune across the 20m and 40m bands for CW using Shark Ham Sticks horizontally mounted on a 30ft mast. Canada is not issues at low watts. I would recommend to anyone using the FT857D. Updated: use with inverted v antenna and it tues 17,20,30 easily. Have contacts as far away as Australia, Japan, Russia, South Africa. Wascreading other reviews and thought I should comment. 1. Memory does not mean when you tune to the freq is is automatically tuned, it means the tuned remembers how to adjust that antenna to tank frequency and thus does it quicker. Which it does. 2. If the unit tries to tune and the red light keeps blinking ,you have a horribly high mismatch in your antenna system which a tuner cannot probably solve.
AA2LF Rating: 2014-07-29
worth less than $1 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
In the last review I promised to have a full review of the product. After I printed on my cost the manual I was trying to make it work with the FT857D. Myself and 2 other Extra class hams !
In fact is nothing I can review. From the beginning the red led was blinking and never stops!. Checked the cable (no bent pins), checked the CAT using a laptop and N1MM software and check all settings in 857D.
Finally we all agreed, what can one expect from a company without a minimal QA/QC procedure? I am not talking about 6-Sigma, just trivial QA!
We made 5 phone calls to their tech support, left 3 voice mails but nobody bothered to return any call... We wrote 3 e-mails, no answer (yet) and I do not expect any answer. They are very unethical and unprofessional, as a minimum at least return a phone call with an excuse.
There are many ATs on the market, when it looks too good to be true, better stay away!
A ZERO review for this company is a mild one, they deserve probably -100
Probably the few good units are already sold, good luck to those who own one !
K6MTS Rating: 2014-07-03
Great with 857D Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Going on over 1 yr mobile with 857D. Just push tune button on the face and in a split second or a few seconds in some cases you are dialed in and ready to go. Also run the IT100 on the IC7000 in the other mobile. The Yaesu/LDG combo is not quite as slick to operate as the Icom, but both have been quick to tune and trouble free. Highly recommended!
M3ITE Rating: 2014-03-10
great tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have owned the LDG yt-100 for little more than a week. Its my first tuner I've owned and its not let me down at all. It tunes my hf vertical from top band through to 6m without no problems. Im new at all this hf malarkey but I have a few antenna designs I want to try and im sure this will tune them with no problems :)
I recommend you buying one of these as they are simple and idiot proof to use.
N7GH Rating: 2013-07-15
Actually better than my manual tuner Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I used this little tuner for about 6 months along with my 857D. All I can say is: WOW! I am impressed. We were out at the Grays Harbor Lighthouse for the ILLW and I needed a low band antenna. All I had was a spool of wire, so I hooked one end to the top of the lighthouse and ran the wire out and put out a counterpoise. I hooked both ends into a SO-239 connector and ran some cable--no balun. I pushed the tune button on the YT-100 and it tuned the 127 foot long wire on 15, 20, 30, 40, 80, and 160--I don't know why I didn't try it on 6, 12, and 17! The memory features work great too. I am a 20M buff and I like to run around 14.2000, so I dial over to 14.2000 touch the button on the YT-100 and I'm there tuned, no full tune process it just looks it up in memory, and it stays tuned until I change freqs. In my trading around, I ended up trading off the station, but I'm in the process of getting another 857D and YT-100. Great station!
W3HI Rating: 2012-08-22
Excellent! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The YT-100 works very well at 100 W from 80 thru 10 with my FT-857D, laptop computer using logging software and a dipole fed with 450 ohm ladder line. No glitches noticed and I don't miss a manual tuner at all! Good work, LDG!
JP1LRT Rating: 2012-04-21
Easy to use. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am using this tuner with FT-857D.

This tuner is very nice. Easy to use.

With 15m random wire and 1:4 balun , 20m 5D-2v , this tuner can tune 160m to 6m. Off course 160m and 80m not so good. But I can TX.

I think this tuner is the best for FT-857D.
WA7TZ Rating: 2011-07-11
My LDG YT-100 sparked a fire. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
In the early hours of Saturday June 25th my LDG YT-100 sparked a fire that if it had not been witnessed and put out right away could have caused contrivable damage. Luckily this occurred while the equipment was set up at field day and not in my home.

I was set up on a table in the 20X40 ft. walled tent our club uses for Field Day. It was pleasantly cool and dry. The tuner was hooked up in exactly the same configuration and to the same radio and computer equipment as it has been since I originally purchased it. My Yaesu FT-857 radio was hooked up to the Radio Cat Port and Computer Cat Port was connected to my Dell Laptop computer using all of the same cables that I usually use with this set up. The Cat jumper that came from LDG and the Yaesu YT-62 Cat interface cable I got when I bought the same time I got my FT-857D. I was hooked up to a 20Meter Dipole that is cut for the low end of the phone portion of the band. I had made a number of long range contacts with the equipment in this configuration the prior evening.

At the time of the malfunction the radio was not in use and was not even powered up. The computer was running on battery power and was playing back a movie. No software that interacted with the radio was running. A few of us were up early Saturday morning and were watching a movie on my laptop. It had been playing for almost an hour when I heard a “Phsset” sound coming from the tuner followed by a Tung of red flame and a huge amount of black smoke. The fire was smothered out and the cables disconnected very quickly without any damage to the tent or table but both of the Cat cables that had been connected to it were burnt up.

The computer appeared to have no damage at all and the port the Cat cable was connected to still function properly. The radio also appears to be unharmed although I have not been able to test the Cat functions as the Cat cable was burnt up and I have not purchased a replacement yet.

This marks the second time I have had problems with this tuner. The last time it went into an endless loop while it was attempting to tune up and it burnt out the Cat control chip in my Radio. I had to send it in and pay to have the Cat control chip in my FT-857 replaced by the manufacture.

When I sent the tuner in I was told all they did was to replace the Cat jumper cable because it had a pin that was bent over and upgraded the firmware. I was not really satisfied with the findings because I had examined the cable before sending it in and know for sure that all the pins were intact but since the unit now worked and there were no extra charges I just let it go.

I was subsequently told by LDG “The first return certainly was a code upgrade that fixed a small bug that caused it to continue tuning.” And that “we found the problem right away. Someone had built a custom cable that had crossed wires with the power and caught the tuner on fire.

I tried to explain that it was the factory cable and it had worked for years but they kept saying it was a poorly constructed custom cable.

LDG sure like to blame cables for their problems and if you mention writing a review about your experience expect a Nasty gram about how they don’t tolerate extortion and they will no longer reply to any of your email I wonder if they are even going to return the tuner I sent in.

I would be happy to provide photos of the unit and copies of the email exchanges if anyone is interested.

Tammy
wa7tz@comcast.net
.
W9CAC Rating: 2011-04-14
Great Tuner Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Am using this with my homemade G5RV Jr. and my 857d. Works 40 thru 10 meters like a charm. Couldn't be happier.
KG4RUL Rating: 2011-04-03
The best for the buck! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have now had occasion to use my YT-100 with my personal FT-100D, an FT-857 at our county EOC and a friend's FT-897. In all cases, and with a variety of antennas, the tuner worked flawlessly!

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Earlier 5-star review posted by KG4RUL on 2010-03-16

Unlike other users, I have had no problems using the YT-100 with my FT-100D and passing the data to the computer. Using a REAL serial port, I have no problems when the computer is off.

The tuner has tuned anything I have thrown at it from a 43' Flagpole to an OCF dipole to a Diamond BB-7V and an MFJ hamstick dipole mount.