Yaesu FT-8800

[Napalm]

Just a little niggle (I said niggle ) with scanning.

I have the two "VFO"'s set up with two seperate memory banks, both scanning at the same time. I have noticed the two interacting with each other occasionally if I happen to be on one frequency (344MHz ish).

I also notice that if it changes from AM to FM, or hits a certain memory on the "Right" side, if there's a transmission on the left, there's an audible "thump" noise. Minor problem considering it's essentially two scanners in one, albeit slow.

Anyone else use an FT-8800 for general scanning? I've been running it on mil-air recently, which it seems to do "OK" at, even if I do have to manually set AM for each channel (unless I use software). Can't really comment on overall sensitivity on mil-air, but it seems to be good enough for my purposes.

All I have to do now is work out if I can get my VR-500 programming lead to work with it - its the RT Systems lead, so I assume its just an RS232 level converter.

 

[OpSec]

I needed that laugh (re: niggles)

I was looking into replacing my current VHF/UHF Motorola setup in the car with a pair of FT-8800R's due to the flexibility. I wasn't aware that they covered MilAir.

As for the "thumping", I had an FT-8100R back in the late '90s and it did the same thing when doing the dual scan thing.

 

[SCPD]

Last time the T-birds were in town it heard better than the BC780XLT and Pro-2052 I also was using. AM volume is a lot louder than FM though.

Good software is FTB8800 by g4hfq at http://www.g4hfq.co.uk/ftb8800.htm

 

[Napalm]

Thanks guys

I bought the FTB8800 software straight away, and currently using a friend's programming lead.

Milair on the 8800 seems to vary with frequency - if I had the test gear I'd run some sensitivity tests, but so far its just based on observation. I'll test it more this coming week when the warbirds start flying again.