Yeasu FT-897

PauloMN

Anyone got one? I'm looking to buy a new one while the sterling is good, but would like a user's opinion of the radio.

One question I have is about the 2 SO-239 sockets on the back - one is marked HF/50Mhz and the other 144/430MHz. I have a tri-band vertical for 6m/2m/70cm, so I'm wondering is there a way to program the radio so that it uses the same antenna for those 3 bands, rather than using the HF socket for 6m?

watty

I've always fancied one. I have at least two friends that have them. It was close to €900 when I bought my FT817ND.

It seems to be close to €500 right now. If I had €500 to spare I'd order today.

Download
http://www.rigpix.com/yaesu/ft897_manual.pdf

I've tried tri-band aerials like you mention and found them very poor. A dual 10m/6m whip on my car works better on 6m. The dual band 70cm/2m seem better.

So for house I now have W300 dual band for 2m/70cm and discone for 4m/6m.

On car I have dual 2m/70cm and occasionally add tri-magmount with the monster 10m/6m whip. Works on 10m/6m with no ATU and pretty good SWR down to 40m using elecraft auto ATU. I have an 80W home brew HF amp with internal 12V battery or external supply for 817.

Most people would prefer the 6m on the HF connector. You can use a diplexer.

watty

The FT817 by default has the BNC for 2m/70cm/6m and the rear for HF. Infact either socket works via menu for all main bands (100kHz to 30Mhz treated as one band for aerial socket).

FT897 doesn't seem to have that feature. However the FT817ND does have features that are not quite what the manual suggests and some "secret" features.

Menu 091 for Transverter "seems" to let you choose either socket A or Socket B OR MAYBE, VFO A or VFO B? It's not clear.

See also
http://www.70mhz.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5359&sid=f5f6a09ac9287fbfdca6009066241347

And
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/2432


I have friends that have the IC 706MkIIG (more expensive and no portable battery option) and the FT 857. The FT857 and IC706 really are designed for car use. Their duty cycle on 100W doesn't come close to 897 (much less heatsink).

PauloMN

Argh... had a long reply typed, went to post and got a database error. Lost the reply text. :mad:

Anyway thanks for the info Watty. Long and the short of it is I've had the license a few years and not used it really, so want to put some time aside to get active and the FT-897 seems to fit the bill wrt what I want and my budget. Would like a new radio as well. Have a Kenwood TS-50 which I'll keep as backup for HF, but only have an old handheld for VHF/UHF.

Seems like a good time to buy from the UK given the exchange rate. I reckon around €540 is what I'd get one for (plus P+P of course). From the reviews I did see online, it seems to score very highly and the general concensus seems to be it's a lot of radio for the money.

As regards the tri-band antenna - I don't know how it will work on 6m as I've never had any 6m gear. But I do know it works very well on 2m and 70cm. The few watts from the handheld got me plenty of contacts with that colinear and I could work the Dundalk repeater and the one on 145.650 on literally milliwatts from here in Dublin. Could also work the 70cm Mt. Leinster repeater from the handheld using it which I was surprised at.

The diplexer - I assume this would let me join my HF antenna with a separate 6m antenna into one feeder to go into the HF/6m socket on the back of the rig?

watty

I can occasionally work Mt. Leinster on handheld standing in driveway.
Works most of the time with 5W on the Watson 300 (at about 40ft). From just west of Limerick City.

You'd need 2 diplexers. One an HF/6m splitter and the other a 6M/(VHF+UHF) splitter.

The TS-50 is a bit more modern than my FT101ZD (even though it's a MkIII with WARC and AM or FM).

The spiltters are relatively easy to make as a pair of hi/low pass (one at about 39MHz and the other about 85MHz, Geometric mean of 30MHz/50MHz and 50MHz /144MHz).

Make a box with 2 aerial sockets in and two sockets out.

6M to 70cm = In B --> spilt high (> 85MHz)to Out B and low (< 85MHz) to input of "A out's" Hi in.
Internal 39MHz hi pass from In B low pass (85MHz)
up to 10m = In A -> low pass @ 39MHz to Out A across internal above.


I'd personally not bother, I'd just put an 22m end fed wire via ATU on TS50 (for 160m & 80m), an "silver stick" 18' to 21' long vertical with CB match coil removed from base to FT897 via ATU. My "widebanded" "silver stick" works fine with ATU from 40m to 6m. Depending which model of of CB base aerial it s (£24 from Rocket Radio) it can be adjusted as a 5/8th or 7/8th for 6m. It'll work about 3dB better than your triband.

You can tune such a short whip (near 6m long) even at 160m, but efficiency is poor below 40m.

BTW both my friends have had the FT897 for quite a while (over 2 year? over 1 year?) and are very happy with it. One takes it to his caravan at salthill regularly.

PauloMN

Interesting, thanks. Might go with plan 2 as I already have a 5/8 wave CB antenna lying idle. I have an MFJ-949 tuner which has two inputs, so I could connect the wire and the vertical into that for HF, and connect the Watson (mine's the 2000) directly to the rig once I check the SWR (which was always fine on 2m and 70cm).

Damn.. just remembered the MFJ is 0 to 30MHz only, wonder would it function at 50MHz?

As regards the long wire, how is that fed? I don't like the idea of bringing wires straight into the shack here as I'd just obliterate the TV and computer etc. with RFI - is yours fed with coax? And if so what is the braid connected to?

watty

The longwire is only 8ft to 12ft above the ground (8ft at shack end). A 2:1 ratio transformer converts high long wire impedance to 1/4 (10t & 20t mains flex inner on a plastic pipe). There is a short L shaped section to the other end of 20T that drops down (4' along & 8' drop) to an earth spike. The coax was connected to the 10T winding.

I recently added a 1:1 true balun wound on an old PC SMPSU core. it's not a 1:1 transformer. A true balun has about 30x bandwidth and less core flux. It makes no difference to tuning or sensitivity. I'll maybe test this weekend to see of coax feed radiation is reduced.

An ATU is just capacitors and coil. The frequency it works on depends on how mismatched the aerial is. Also you need short (less 1/8th wave) or no feed between ATU and aerial feed point for best results. Try it on 6m and see. You need to remove any internal loading coil/transformer from inside of base of CB whip (mobile ones don't have any such device as the "spring" is the base loading coil!).

Make sure the telescopic parts of CB base aerial don't create an electrical 1/2 wave or 1 wave as that is nearly untunable. Note that physical lenght can be about 80% of electrical length, so if the aerial IS 6m long it's actually more than 1 wave and OK :-)

Experiment ...
(but at low TX power and with SWR meter!).

3:1 SWR is 25W reflected at 100W out, so 1/2 power is pretty safe. Open or short can be 100% reflected power, which is a problem at 100W, but no problem at 10W and probably OK even at 1/2 power.

Thus even at 160m with 5:1 SWR you can transmit on a 10m/6m Mobile Whip as long as the power is low enough. I had loan of a Miltary rig that could match 8ft whip perfectly at 160m. But efficency was very low. Perfect matching isn't everything.

Most of the Yaesu built in SWR meters are nothing of the sort. They simply measure reverse power (via reverse voltage). Of course this is actually more useful to safety of PA than true SWR or Return Loss.

paulbds

Hi There, Paul here.

I am currently in Wexford (just outside the town by Whitford house) until Monday afternoon. I have brought my Ft897d over with me - -I was going to try it on PSK31 whilst over here - -Only problem is I brought my Auxilliary psu and I cannot use it (as the psu has a different terminator to connect the power and I don't want to mess about with the leads whilst on a break)

Anyway, if you (or anyone else) wants to come and see the rig/try it you are more than welcome to - -if you do the could you bring a suitable psu

History - -bought form Martin Lynch, London, and is the D version

I am about to place an advert on ebay as I want a more portable rig t(FT817) o use on my travels.

It is in excellent condition apart from a scratch on the main tuning dial (I can send you a picture - -it actually looks worse in the photo than in real life)
I have brought the set over with box,manual, mike etc etc

Let me know if interested - -pm me and I will give you my mobile number

Price guide, €480 -and will save you postage -and this offer applies to anyone else who may be interested.

user name on ebay is paulbds to check out feedback etc

Paul

watty

Please do adverts on Adverts.ie in future.

Though this stuff is so specialised I shall as the Admins/Smods/Cmods if stuff like that can be advertised here.

paulbds

oops,sorry,
ok

Paul

PauloMN

Thanks Paul for the offer, I actually got one new in January from the UK. Haven't used it much on HF yet, mainly listening, but would like to try it on the data modes also. I put up my G5RV again and I have terrible electricial noise on 40m which I need to investigate. Going to try out a couple of different antenna setups.

Good luck with the sale, they're a good radio from what I've seen of it so far, but I agree not nearly as portable as the 817 or 857.

PauloMN

Looks like I got in at the right time. I paid £515 for mine a couple of months ago, all the traders were advertising them for that price or very close to it. Just reading April's PW, they are all now advertising them at £595 or £599, except Haydons (where I got mine) at £569.

The poor exchange rates for sterling must be killing them.

fatboymsport

yeah you were lucky its no fun having a real strong euro when the STG prices go up.