2011/1/12 Ernie Howard w8eh.ernie@gmail.com
I have three of the FT-8800 mobiles. They work great for satellite.
I have FT-8900 in my car (which is pretty much the same radio, except with 2 additional bands, 28 and 50 MHz). I am quite happy with the sensitivity of the radio, no problems hearing AO-51 and having few QSOs with suitable passes with Diamond NR770 mobile whip in the tailgate of my vehicle. Usually passes rising not higher than ~60 degs are quite good but the whip is not that good in higher elevations.
What I particularily like (besides the sat-capability) is that normally I am using the left side of the radio for monitoring the local repeaters while right side acts as an APRS transmitter (with TinyTrak attached).
What I don't like is the wobbly and fragile feeling of knobs of the radio.
The first FT-8900 I bought was DOA right out of the box, but after it got replaced with another one, the current unit has served few years flawlessly.
73 de Ari OH3KAV Tampere, Finland (grid: KP11)