At 12:06 AM 4/6/2009, francesco messineo wrote:
On 4/6/09, Edward Cole kl7uw@acsalaska.net wrote:
I guess no one considers the FT-847, yet I consider it superior rig to the venerable FT-736R. I comes ready to interface DB-9 RS232 jack. Only issue is it is now out of production. They show up used on e-bay at about $900-1100.
I agree, it's a great satellite radio, but I always used it with manual tuning :-) However it has a lot, and I mean a lot of more or less strong birdies on the 2m band. Also the power switch fails too soon and too often if you use the original yaesu part. I also noticed that NB has almost no effect on the typical impulse noise that is silenced by all other NB of my other rigs. This NB problem has been confirmed by another friend owning the FT-847 (I still have to go and listen for the 2m birdies).
73 Francesco IZ8DWF
OK, good observations.
The very early production of the radio had a problem of either solder flux residue or improperly tightened screws on the audio board, that resulted in internal birdies. Mine was a 1999 radio and I sent it back to Yaesu to correct that. They cured a lot of birdies (not all). Most of my birdies are eliminated with an external preamp, so that leads me to conclude they are generated external to the radio in the shack. Placing a 50-ohm termination on the antenna connector can confirm this. The Kenwood TS2000 birdies on popular satellite freq. is a much worse fault in my mind.
My power switch failed at about the 5th year and I simply rewired to the extra contacts (its a DPST switch) and has cured the problem, so far (note my radio is now ten years old). The NB is a disappointment. I had a FT-842 HF radio that had a terrific NB. Why Yaesu couldn't copy the design is beyond me. So if your main use is for a mobile radio perhaps the new 857 or 897 is better. I don't have a lot ignition noise issues in my home station (occasionally, snow machiners), so I overlook this.
The DSP NR and filters work well. Especially on CW. But this is an area that I expect the K3 is probably much better. I do mainly EME and MS so my needs are much greater for Rx performance. For satellite work that is generally dealing with stronger signals, the FT-847 works quite fine. I thought it was fine for AO-40! I use it less for the Leos, though that will change later this year when I get my satellite antennas back up (also, planning to add a dual-band Lindenblad). I have auto-track/tuning that was never implemented and expect that to make mode-LS on Leos easier (high-rate Doppler changes).
I now have 175 stations worked on 2m-EME with the FT-847.
*********************************************************** 73, Ed - KL7UW BP40iq, 6m - 3cm 144-EME: FT-847, mgf-1801, 4x-xp20, 8877-600w 1296-EME: DEMI-Xvtr, 0.30 dBNF, 4.9m dish, 60/300W (not QRV) http://www.kl7uw.com AK VHF-Up Group NA Rep. for DUBUS: dubususa@hotmail.com ***********************************************************