Yaesu: Bought a used Yaesu FT-897D off of Ebay...

[gawgadawg]

So I bought an FT-897D off of Ebay from some rando and it appears to have a couple power mods done to it. I'm not familiar with the 897 but I was puzzled by it having and AC input and cable but it came in handy when I wanted to test it from the box it came in to make sure it was working. The person who sold it to me did a really bad half-ass job of packing it and one the the antennae mounts of the tuner were poking out of the box and I was pisssssed. The tuner's back panel was bent and I hope it still works properly. But back to the power mod can someone tell me about this modification and whether I can still use DC in the field? Also is there any performance issues when using AC since it just appears to be a converter. The other thing is I'm guessing the conversion sits where the batteries should be? I haven't popped the top on it yet.

 

[JackTheWebDev]

The AC power supply appears to be the Yaesu FP-30 (looks like its a optional addition, not anything custom), I have not owned one before but you should just be able to unplug it from the DC input in the top left and plug in another 12v DC source in its place

 

[KG4INW]

The internal power supply was a factory option to be used in place of the battery and should allow proper functionality, as seen here: Yaesu FP30 Power Supply for FT897

You should be able to simply unplug it and use an appropriate external DC connection. Bummer about the poor packaging. Certainly a pet peeve of mine (really, how hard is it to pack something carefully!).

 

[gawgadawg]

Apparently hard. On a brighter side I did get an 857 from an actual HAMer that was a completely different experience.

 

[KG4INW]

Yeah, that's poorly done. I hope you complained to the seller?

 

[vagrant]

There are various Yaesu accessories for the 897D and the AC module you have is one of them. Review the 897D brochure for other accessories. I had an 897D for a while and liked that the power draw during RX was low, but ultimately I sold it and picked up a 991A which has a tuner built-in as well as a USB sound card for digital modes and no need for add-on filters nor a TCXO. Still, the 991A is a power hog during RX but with external lithium batteries I no longer have power concerns and definitely no regrets getting rid of the 897D.

Honestly, I was glad to sell the 897D and have everything all-in-one with the 991A. I use it with a tablet PC when camping for digital stuff. In fact, I enjoy it enough that I purchased the older 991 with an Astron linear power supply for $400 at a ham swap. I keep one on the desk and another sits in a bag ready for camping/portable use.

 

[gawgadawg]

Yeah, that's poorly done. I hope you complained to the seller?

Yep

 

[gawgadawg]

There are various Yaesu accessories for the 897D and the AC module you have is one of them. Review the 897D brochure for other accessories. I had an 897D for a while and liked that the power draw during RX was low, but ultimately I sold it and picked up a 991A which has a tuner built-in as well as a USB sound card for digital modes and no need for add-on filters nor a TCXO. Still, the 991A is a power hog during RX but with external lithium batteries I no longer have power concerns and definitely no regrets getting rid of the 897D.

Honestly, I was glad to sell the 897D and have everything all-in-one with the 991A. I use it with a tablet PC when camping for digital stuff. In fact, I enjoy it enough that I purchased the older 991 with an Astron linear power supply for $400 at a ham swap. I keep one on the desk and another sits in a bag ready for camping/portable use.

I will play with this one for awile and probably get a digirig for it.

 

[vagrant]

It definitely worked, but I got tired of the extra cables for the tuner and SignaLink. I can live with the power and USB cables on the 991A.

Anyways, here are some numbers I got from the power draw using FM, so full power draw. I neglected to note what band or bands I was on when testing, so this is not 100% accurate but more of an estimate. Also, I had the internal batteries and ran it at 20W for SSB. On external batteries I ran my 897D at 40 watts maximum for SSB. For digital I would typically run 5 or 10 watts as my portable/camping antennas were a compromise.

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Power / Current Consumption 897D
RX 1A (Actually 0.6A)

TX
5W - 4.1A
10W - 5.4A
20W - 7A
25W - 8.2A
40W - 10A
50W - 10.9A
70W - 12.7A
100W - 21A (Alternate test was 15.5A?)