Yaesu FT8900r
Yaesu FT-8900R Review
Yaesu FT8900 Review, I have had my radio for about 4 months now and thought I would do a little bit of a review for you. I bought the rig of a guy on the internet for about £180 second hand and it arrived a couple of days later.
At first glance of this Yaesu FT8900 I was surprised at how small it was it looked so much bigger on the net. I received it at work so as I don’t have a power supply at work I had to wait to come home to turn it on, it was a very long day!
I rushed home and plugged it in so to speak and was met with a very cool yellow display, The radio has duel receive so that you can listen to two frequencies at the same time which is great if you want to listen to 2m on one side and 70cms on the other, The rig also has two independent volume and squelch controls and you can set the power levels independently of each other and use either the memory channels or VFO on either side.
The menus are very extensive which is no surprise being a modern radio and you can change a lot of the settings like, CTCSS and the tone frequency. All of the menus are:
APO = Selects the automatic power off
ARS = activates/deactivates the automatic repeater shift
ARTS = selects the ARTS beep mode
BAND = enables/disables the VFO band edge for the current band
BEEP = enables/disables the beeper
CLK SET = Shifting of CPU clock frequency
CWID W = stores your callsign into the CW identifier
DIMMER = setting the display brightness
DCS COD = setting the DCS code
DCS N/R = selects no0rmal or inverted DCS encoding
DSP SUB = selects the sub band display format
DTMF D = setting the DTMF autodialer delay time
DTMF S = setting the DTMF autodialer sending speed
DTMF W = loading of the DTMF autodialer memories
HYPER = enables/disables the automatic writing feature for the hyper memory
INET = selects the internet connection mode
INET C = selects the access number
INET M = selects the access number for non wires
KEY MOD = selects the key functions
LOCK = the key lock feature
LOCKT = the PTT lock feature
MIC = selects the microphone type to be used
MUTE = selects the audio mute feature
NAME = stores an alpha-numeric tag for a memory channel
PCKT S = sets the radio’s circuitry for the packet baud rate to b e used
PCKT B = sets the operating band for packet operation
PG P1 to P4 = programming the microphone P1 to P4 buttons
RF SQL = adjust the RF SQL threshold level
RPT MOD = sets the repeater shift direction
SCAN = selects the scan resume mode
SCAN M = selects the memory scan mode
SHIFT = sets the magnitude of the repeater shift
STEP = sets the synthesizer steps
SPCONT = defines the audio path to the external speaker when used
TONE F = sets the CTCSS tone frequency
TONE M = selects the tone encoder and/or decoder mode
TOT = selects the time out timer
VFO TR = enables/disables the VFO tracking feature
WIDNAR = reducing the mic gain
X-RPT = switches the cross band repeater feature on and off
AM = enables/disables the AM mode
AUT AM = selects the receiving mode
One of my favourite features of the Yaesu FT8900r is the cross band repeat feature, it is awesome it lets you receive on 2m and transmit to say your 70cms handie and then you transmit on your 70cms handie (I would recomend the Puxing PX-888) to the Yaesu and then the rig then transmits the signal on 2m if that makes any sense at all! You can also set the power of the transmit to your handie and you can encode it using CTCSS so as not to cause any interference to other users on the band which I think is a fantastic idea!
In the time that I have owned the radio I can say I haven’t used about 70% of the functions available and I have found it very complicated to use to its fullest capacity if you are looking for a no frills does what it says on the tin type of radio then this is definitely not for you!
The output socket on the Yaesu FT8900r is an N-TYPE connector so you might need to get an adapter for your PL 259 to fit into, the microphone that I have is a DTMF mic and I have to say that I am not overly impressed with it, it seems very cheap and so to do the volume and squelch knobs on the front of the radio I think that for the money Yaesu could have at least put some better knobs on it!
I have used the radio on 10 watts on very long over’s and had conversations for long periods of time and the rig has never got hot once I know that 10 watts isn’t a whole lot of power but still it gives you an idea. One thing I don’t like about the radio is the buttons on the front of the radio don’t light up! Come on yaesu it’s a mobile rig, how are you supposed to change the settings at night!
Overall I have to say I really like this Yaesu FT8900 radio, it has loads of functions to play with and of course it’s a quad band radio so has the 6m/10/2m/and 70cms band on it. It’s well made apart from the horrible cheap buttons I mentioned earlier and it generally seems like a good solid rig, and once I get my head around all the functions I’m sure it will be a great part of my shack for years and years to come! I hope you have found this review useful to you and if you are thinking of buying this radio then all I can say is if you like a technical radio, this is the radio for you! Check out my Kenwood TMG707 Review! Just added a review for the Palstar PS-30M Power Supply!