Yaesu FT-8800R
- Thread starter SLWilson
- Start date
- Status
diskmonger
Member
SLWilson said:Anyone here in the Ohio Forum have any experience with the Yaesu FT-8800R? Good, bad? I'd appreciate any info on it you might care to share !!! Thanks,
Steve/KB8FAR
It's a really nice dual band radio. My only complaint is none of the buttons are back-lit. The display is the only thing back-lit, so operating it when it's dark is a little tricky.
Lighted buttons.....
The info says that the mike buttons are lighted. Mayve they just assume that you'll use them at night....Hopefully, I'll not need to change much while using it after dark. We only have a UHF and a 2 meter repeater in our county. I can program neighboring counties so I just have to hit the UP or DN button on the mic to change things....
I went ahead and bought the kit so I can separate the head unit from the radio body. I'm running out of space !!!! Universal Radio says that it should all be delivered on Monday !!!
I just bought the VX-6R portable recently. It has lighted everything on it !!!!
Steve
diskmonger said:
The info says that the mike buttons are lighted. Mayve they just assume that you'll use them at night....Hopefully, I'll not need to change much while using it after dark. We only have a UHF and a 2 meter repeater in our county. I can program neighboring counties so I just have to hit the UP or DN button on the mic to change things....
I went ahead and bought the kit so I can separate the head unit from the radio body. I'm running out of space !!!! Universal Radio says that it should all be delivered on Monday !!!
I just bought the VX-6R portable recently. It has lighted everything on it !!!!
Steve
Last edited:
On the car I have a Larsen 2/70 low profile black thing - can't recall the model number - just a 1/4 wave on 2M. At home it's a Diamond XR50A. The scanner antennas are a discone and a 2M gnd plane.
Boy I hope you don't have an accident or have to make a sudden stop!
Boy I hope you don't have an accident or have to make a sudden stop!
ed_azailia said:...."Boy I hope you don't have an accident or have to make a sudden stop!"
The only things NOT bolted down there are the HT1000 portable and the cell phone. I don't have anything "loose" anywhere behind me either!!! The portable is usually in the charger in the office & the phone is usually on my belt. I wear my seatbelt. The stuff mounted isn't in the way of the front or side impact airbags....Does look a little cluttered there though, huh? Steve
I might add the radio is not the most user-friendly thing! In fact when they first came out I thought the specs were great and ran right down to the radio store to try one out. I was kinda disappointed. But after going thru several other brands, and the fact that good software programming appeared (FTB8800), I ended up with the two I have. Again performance trumps user-friendlyness for me. All this is primarily for ham radio use but it also serves as a public safety scanner. I've never been really happy with commercial scanners, especially hand-helds) in the car. I basically have the same things programmed in both sides (486 out of 512). That way if I want to monitor two ham or PS freqs at the same time they are in memory on both sides.
SLWilson said:Anyone here in the Ohio Forum have any experience with the Yaesu FT-8800R? Good, bad? I'd appreciate any info on it you might care to share !!! Thanks,
Steve/KB8FAR
I like mine. Good sensitive receiver, good selectivity, wide RX coverage right out of the box, and easy to install.
BTW, unless it's thrown in as part of the package, don't waste your money ($60) on the remote mounting kit. All it has is a speaker extension cord, a simple little plastic bracket for the control head, and a 6-conductor phone cord with RJ-11 connectors. All can be obtained at Radio Shack or built for cheap except the control head bracket, and you could always improvise one of those.
Tom WA8PYR
- Status
