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Reviews For: Yaesu FC-301

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FC-301
Reviews: 4MSRP:
Description:
500 watt antenna tuner, watt meter, swr meter, antenna switch, coax or wire antenna
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0043.5
PA3BHF Rating: 2016-01-05
Will work on ALL Hf bands Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned this tuner for over 25 years (stored for 15 years) and it is now in daily use with my FT757gx (100W). What I did not see mentioned anywhere is that despite the BandSelector showing only the traditional amateur bands, it will actually tune across ALL bands including: 30m, 17m, 12m AND 60M.
You must select the closest 'main' band (eg 40 for 30m or 60m operation) and the tune and load knobs will allow you to perfectly match your antenna.
I my case I have a single inverted-L which I use on all bands.
It's sometimes fiddly and it's not automatic, but it has served me well.
VE6TI Rating: 2006-01-28
Good value, good performance with "Meter Fix" Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned this unit for 10 years using it on 80 through 15 meters with a variety of wire antennas and with good results. However, I was disapointed with results using the unit's own SWR and power meters and eventually switched to an external SWR meter. Recently I read another review of this unit on e-ham.net with the same symptoms and employed the same repair and now the unit's meters track very well with the outboard unit. The diodes on the coupler board (1SS16) are small signal schottky diodes. They were replaced with NTE112 units. Website: nteinc.com. Finding these replacements was the toughest part of the job, so I thought I would pass ths information along for others with the same issue.

While inside the box I noted, contrary to another reviewer's comments, that the layout, quality of componentry and construction were, in my opinion, excellent. Ceramic switches, low inductance, silver plated strap between components and good attention to grounding being the norm. All in all, good value at the kind of used prices I have observed.
K6ZB Rating: 2005-07-14
The FC-301 is a fine manual tuner, good to 500W . Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I obtained one of these vintage HF tuners and have been using it to match various HF antennas to my new 500W solid state liner amp from THP.

The tuner had been laying around someplace and when I got it, it worked well but the power and swr meters did not function right. I just replaced the two germanium diodes and the meters are right on the money.

The package is relative small and solid. Inside, the components are clearly high quality. You can obtain the manual from www.hamradiomanuals.com.
KG5FTK Rating: 2001-08-29
You can find better Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The variable caps are poorly made. The rotor plates are almost touching the stator plates for the tune cap. This may not be common but while trying to correct problem, I could see the poorest made caps I have ever seen. Don't put alot of power into it, it will arc. Otherwise, it works ok. On 160 meters, it has very little ability to tune anything very far off 50 ohms. You can find better.