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- marcellabraga (386)- Feedback left by buyer.More than a year agoVerified purchasea+++++
Reviews (1)
Jul 08, 2015
A fun little rig ideal for portable operating on vacation or camping
5 of 5 found this helpful The FT817ND is an amazing piece of technology in a very small box. It probably shouldn't be the first choice for a home station setup due to its low QRP power but it's ideal for amateur operating portable from campsites or mountain tops with an external battery or solar power. It covers from 160 meters to 23 cm with all common amateur modes including cw, am, fm ssb and digital. It also has a general coverage receiver. It's not a high powered radio but with the proper antenna and propagation conditions it is capable of working amateurs around the world.
There are menus to select the various modes that with some practice become second nature. The buttons and knobs are tiny but how else could you keep the physical size of the radio so small? If cw or digital modes are going to be used, it is strongly urged to install a narrow bandwidth crystal filter since the standard ssb bandwidth is too wide for most receiving conditions other than ssb. The filter made all the difference in the world for me using cw primarily.
There are only a few other multi-mode QRP radios out there these days but none can compare with the same features and band coverage of the FT817ND and the Yaesu is priced considerably lower than the others.
I've been enjoying using this new rig for portable ops and it's serving as my home station rig temporary full time since my "big rig" is out of service for repairs.