Just looking...

[MrGClips]

I was just looking for Mobile radios and came across this one: Yaesu Original FT-857D
http://www.amazon.com/Yaesu-FT-857D-Transceiver-station-type-ultra-compact/dp/B004TB9JUI

WOW! What a unit! It almost has everything in a portable way. Way out of my starter budget, even at the much lower sales price at other websites, but still, if I could pick one right now, this would be the one!

The other one I saw was this one: TYT-TH-9800
Amazon.com: TYT TYT-TH-9800 Two Way Radio: Car Electronics

Much less expensive, looks great, however, there is NO US Warranty or local repair if I understand it right, so people MUST buy extended warranty and ship their radios back to China for repairs (on their own expense???), which is absolutely ridiculous.

Sounds like a pretty big gamble to me. Either someone gets a good working unit, or not and then what?! Keep shipping it to China and wait for weeks (or months) to get it back? Nah, that would give even a snail-blooded ham a heart-attack or a mental breakdown!

Not too many good options out there for mobile 4 band VHF/UHF, and especially not for HF/VHF/UHF radios on a budget. But that's OK, I was only looking.

Ps: Some of those base stations are absolutely amazing! As a newbie, I enjoy just looking at them! I'm so jealous of some of you guys having those wonderful toys, I can't even tell. Playing with them must be the true meaning of fun for you hard-core hams. Damn, I AM jealous!

 

[NZ4ZN]

The FT-857D is an excellent radio, as is its QRP cousin, the FT-817. I would like to have either one, although for a portable radio, the FT-817 will get more battery life, not only due to less output power, but also less idle current.

I have a Yaesu FT-8900r, the radio that the Chinese TYT-9800 is copied from. There are a couple limiting factors and the four bands are not as useful as it would first seem.

First off, the Chinese VHF/UHF mobiles and HTs are considered throw away radios. They are not especially durable or reliable. If they die, there is no real recourse unless the retailer chooses to replace it for you. If you can accept that your Chinese copy of a decent radio is unrepairable, you can look at features.

The original FT-8900r is FM only. It can be set up in the menu to hear AM, but it only modulates/transmits in FM mode.

The four band capability of either radio is of limited utility because of the single antenna connection. One of the antenna manufacturers makes a miracle antenna that defies the laws of physics and provides superior performance on all bands, or so reads the marketing. In reality, an antenna cannot really perform well on all four of these largely unrelated bands. By adding coils/traps/capacitance, we can force an acceptable match, but don't worry about actual radiated power being anything close to your radio's full output.

I have had my FT-8900r for two years and have had it on a 6 meter vertical, a 6 meter horizontal dipole, a 2m/440 J-Pole, a 1/4 wave 2 meter ground plane, and a 1/4 2 meter NMO mount on my truck. I've never used it on 10 meters, because of antenna limitations. I have gravitated to using the FT-8900r for 2m/70cm FM and for crossband repeat as an HT extender.

For 6 and 10 meters, I just use my TS-590s HF+6 transceiver. That radio has two antenna jacks and I can run HF on antenna #1 (80/40/20 fan that will tune for 10 & 6) and run 6meter FM on my other antenna (6 meter vertical).

 

[chrissim]

I would sit back and really consider what you want to get out of the hobby. I was never interested in anything other than HF. I was more fascinated with the idea of working some rare far away entity, so I built my station accordingly. That's not to say that you can't work something esoteric and exotic going mobile, or with that particular radio in your post as a desktop radio - you can, but there are better options out there. You should also consider purchasing from a company such as DXEngineering, Gigaparts, or Ham Radio Oulet. By the way, I've recently used a company called R&L Electronics for a new rotor and control box. Most of their prices beat the rest and shipping is fast. They get good reviews, too. I saved fifty bucks on a control cable alone using R&L compared to Gigaparts.

In terms of affording what you want: sell things. I had three major former hobbies to pull from. Astrophotography, shortwave radios, and bicycles (yes, bicycles). By time I sold all of my astro gear, the Drake, Ten Tec, and Icom receivers and associated antennas, and a bike that I no longer rode, I had enough to invest heavily into other hobbies, namely amateur radio. I bet if you look around, you could do the same. It all adds up.

Most importantly, start researching good antennas. I've had discussions on this board about dipoles, wire antennas, and beams. We all have our opinions, but try to start out "right." Although I have grown to enjoy an open wire fed dipole, it doesn't compete with a modest beam. There's an older QST article entitled "Why a Beam Antenna?" It's one of the first articles I stumbled across back when I was considering antennas. It will help explain a bit. Also, please don't neglect the value of the bible of antenna books, aptly named "The ARRL Antenna Book."

One other thing I should mention, and it has some value, though that value varies according to who you ask, take a look at Sherwood's site: Receiver Test Data It will give you an idea of the performance of certain transceivers/receivers. Again, what value it actually has is in the eye of the beholder, as I doubt you and I would notice a difference between a radio ranked #1 and a radio ranked #20.

Finally, don't give in to being impatient as I did when I first got started. Do it right the first time and save yourself significant amounts of money.

 

[popnokick]

I sold my Alinco DR635 dual bander and got the TYT TH-9800 four bander. Six months installed in vehicle now and love it. Used it in the last ARRL VHF Contest as an FM-only Rover. Don't think of this as any sort of HF rig. It is FM-only on all bands (70cm, 2M, 6M, 10M). (Yes, I know 10M is an HF band. But 10M FM is its own thing.) You have to be into and want FM mobile operation. I was and I am.
Yes, antennas are difficult. I've settled on a Comet / Maldol EX-510 tribander attached to my center roof mount NMO when I'm working 6M FM. There is a quad band antenna but it's a monster and I don't want it on the the top center of my roof. I also have a magmount for the EX-510 but SWR suffers on 6M with the magmount. Most of the time I am on 2 and 70cm and use a short flexible duck (Comet SBB-1). Rig comes with a detachable remote head. Main unit mounted under passenger seat... ext speaker on center console. Only two things I don't like: when in scanning mode every time a signal opens the squelch it beeps; and there is no backlighting on the faceplate function buttons (although microphone buttons are lit). Unexpected appreciation for me: the "Hypermemory" buttons. At first I thought I'd never use them. They allow you to set up the radio exactly the way you want it then save every channel /crossband op pair to "A", "B", "C" or whatever Hypermemory you want. Press a single button and you are instantly set up for VHF contesting. Press a different hyper memory button and now it's an FM satellite rig. Press another button and it's your everyday FM mobile. Press another and it's set up as a scanner and out of state mobile rig. Saves a LOT of programming time every time you want to change the "flavor" of the radio.

 

[K4EET]

<snip> The other one I saw was this one: TYT-TH-9800
Amazon.com: TYT TYT-TH-9800 Two Way Radio: Car Electronics

Much less expensive, looks great, however, there is NO US Warranty or local repair if I understand it right, so people MUST buy extended warranty and ship their radios back to China for repairs (on their own expense???), which is absolutely ridiculous.

Sounds like a pretty big gamble to me. Either someone gets a good working unit, or not and then what?! Keep shipping it to China and wait for weeks (or months) to get it back? Nah, that would give even a snail-blooded ham a heart-attack or a mental breakdown!

First of all, a good website for product reviews by actual users is EHam.net (eHam.net Home - Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) Community Site). The TYT TH9800 radio reviews can be found at TYT TH9800 Product Reviews.

As an owner of the Baofeng UV-5R HT for about $25, I will say you do get what you pay for. One downside of this HT, as tested by the ARRL, is that the 2 Meter transmitter is not compliant with the FCC regulations for out-of-band transmitted signal levels. It has out-of-band "spurs" or spurious harmonics that can potentially "wipe out" critical life-and-death radio calls in the Public Safety band (as an example). On the other hand, the ARRL test engineer found that the 70 cm portion is compliant. For that reason alone, I only use the HT on rare occasions and then only on the 70 cm band.

Not too many good options out there for mobile 4 band VHF/UHF, and especially not for HF/VHF/UHF radios on a budget. But that's OK, I was only looking.

Ps: Some of those base stations are absolutely amazing! As a newbie, I enjoy just looking at them! I'm so jealous of some of you guys having those wonderful toys, I can't even tell. Playing with them must be the true meaning of fun for you hard-core hams. Damn, I AM jealous!

Two comments here. First, I personally never did like having all of my eggs in the same basket. If one part fails, all parts fail until the rig comes back from the repair shop. For that reason, I like to keep the 1.8 MHz/54 MHz radio separate from the 146 MHz/440 MHz radio and the 920 MHz/1.2 GHz radio, etc.

Second, don't overlook starting out with some older used equipment to get your feet wet and truly figure out what bands, modes, etc. you want to "play in" with ham radio. For my 40+ year career as a ham radio operator, it was only this year that I ventured outside the phone and CW modes of HF communications. This hobby can be very expensive if you get every bell and whistle on a rig and all of the peripheral equipment to run all of the various modes (fast scan TV, slow scan TV, Earth-Moon-Earth transmissions, digital modes, etc.).

I'm sure that there are a lot of hams here that will be willing to help you with the building of your first ham station in the area of advice, comments, suggestions and perhaps even low-priced equipment that has been in the basement unused for 20 years to help you get started. Don't hesitate to start new threads with specific questions whenever you need some assistance!

73, Dave K4EET

 

[PrimeNumber]

I was just looking for Mobile radios and came across this one: Yaesu Original FT-857D
Amazon.com : Yaesu Original FT-857D HF/50/144/440 Compact Mobile Transceiver provides base station-type performance from an ultra-compact package that&#39;s ideal for mobile or external battery portable work. Wide frequency coverage, outstandig recei

WOW! What a unit! It almost has everything in a portable way. Way out of my starter budget, even at the much lower sales price at other websites, but still, if I could pick one right now, this would be the one!

I've got to throw in that there are MUCH better prices on this model at various ham-specific dealers. As in, $100+ less. Do some shopping around.

I keep looking at these too. Though I'm set at the moment (FT-450D HF & FT-2900 2m), the 857D's a tempting little backup unit for field day and hurricane season.

 

[prcguy]

I agree the link price is not the best and I bought the upscale version of the FT-857, the FT-897 with optional batteries and charger brand new in the $800 range. My used but perfect condition FT-857 cost me $400. The FT-857 is a great starter rig and does a lot.
prcguy

I've got to throw in that there are MUCH better prices on this model at various ham-specific dealers. As in, $100+ less. Do some shopping around.

I keep looking at these too. Though I'm set at the moment (FT-450D HF & FT-2900 2m), the 857D's a tempting little backup unit for field day and hurricane season.

 

[popnokick]

The discussion has turned now to all-mode, all band, all in one i.e the Yaesu 857. If you're looking in that price / capability range, look also at the Icom IC-7100.

 

[MrGClips]

Two NEW mobiles for the beginner ham?

The discussion has turned now to all-mode, all band, all in one i.e the Yaesu 857. If you're looking in that price / capability range, look also at the Icom IC-7100.

That IC-7100 is one heck of a radio for sure. Love the touch-screen operation. Really cool! WOW!

Meanwhile I just came across these two NEW Mobile radios that are coming out soon from Baofeng. Review of the BTech UV2501 & UV5001:
http://www.miklor.com/COM/Review_UV2501-5001.php

Actually the bigger one is out already, the smaller one is not available at this moment. Both seem VERY inexpensive and a GREAT starter-radio for any beginner ham looking for a cheap dual-band mobile or home base radio.

BTECH MINI UV-2501, 25 Watt Dual Band Mobile Radio (not yet available)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017MRIWUI/

BTECH MOBILE UV-5001, 50 Watt Dual Band Mobile Radio (already available)
http://www.amazon.com/BTECH-MOBILE-UV-5001-Mobile-Radio/dp/B017MRQAK2

I think they're both worth checking out for beginners like myself. I wonder if they have Duplex/Repeater or Crossband-Repeater features. That would be nice. If not, no big deal. Yes I know that NAME again: Baofeng, right? ... couldn't care less! I love my little Bao HT! It's perfect for me for the moment.

 

[k6cpo]

I was just looking for Mobile radios and came across this one: Yaesu Original FT-857D
http://www.amazon.com/Yaesu-FT-857D-Transceiver-station-type-ultra-compact/dp/B004TB9JUI

WOW! What a unit! It almost has everything in a portable way. Way out of my starter budget, even at the much lower sales price at other websites, but still, if I could pick one right now, this would be the one!

The other one I saw was this one: TYT-TH-9800
Amazon.com: TYT TYT-TH-9800 Two Way Radio: Car Electronics

Much less expensive, looks great, however, there is NO US Warranty or local repair if I understand it right, so people MUST buy extended warranty and ship their radios back to China for repairs (on their own expense???), which is absolutely ridiculous.

Sounds like a pretty big gamble to me. Either someone gets a good working unit, or not and then what?! Keep shipping it to China and wait for weeks (or months) to get it back? Nah, that would give even a snail-blooded ham a heart-attack or a mental breakdown!

Not too many good options out there for mobile 4 band VHF/UHF, and especially not for HF/VHF/UHF radios on a budget. But that's OK, I was only looking.

Ps: Some of those base stations are absolutely amazing! As a newbie, I enjoy just looking at them! I'm so jealous of some of you guys having those wonderful toys, I can't even tell. Playing with them must be the true meaning of fun for you hard-core hams. Damn, I AM jealous!

That Amazon price for the FT-857D is high. You can find the 857D at Ham Radio Outlet for $824.95 with a $50 mail-in rebate bringing the price down to $774.95.