After several hours of preparation here in the shack, I've pulled my venerable IC-756PROIII out of its place as the mainstay of my shack and replaced it with my new Yaesu FT-2000 and accessory DMU.
First, let me state unequivocally that the FT-2000 is heavy. It has the thickest instruction manual of any HF rig I've ever seen too. I set it in place about 10 p.m. and fired it up. Wow!
The rig is 3 inches wider than the PROIII, and several inches deeper. Because of this, I had to do some major rearranging on my shelving in the shack; I had to move some supports around, reroute some cables, and make room for the much wider and deeper rig.
Because I have no place to put a monitor, I bought a wallmount off eBay and fabricated a bracket so I could mount the monitor bracket on an arm that will allow me to move the monitor 2 feet one side or the other.
The Yaesu isn't brand new, but you wouldn't know it from looking at it. I bought the rig from a broadcast engineer from Virginia who bought it new in February this year. He said it had less than 10 hours use on it, and I believe it. You can't tell it from new, I'm not sure he had it out of the box long enough to get the thing dusty.
He listed the rig and the accessory DMU unit on QTH for the price some folks are getting for the rig alone; I had been cruising QTH listings every so often just looking for an FT-2K. I e-mailed him as soon as I read his listing, and he replied that night. He had a long commute to work and spent long days there, so he was hard to contact by phone. I finally got him the next night and told him I would ship him the money. He had gotten a number of inquires, but none had followed through and he was a bit “yeah, right!” when I told him I definitely wanted the station and was sending payment the next day. I called him back the next night to confirm the check was in the mail.
Shipping such a big rig safely was a big concern for me. But Yaesu's factory packing is really superb, plus the guy double boxed both the radio and the DMU unit. They arrived in perfect condition. I was relieved.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. This are very preliminary impressions, mind you — The receive audio is superb in comparison to my PROIII. I'm not sure I can hear things the PROIII won't, but even using the built-in speaker, the receive audio is noticeably better. I suspect if I had the accessory SP-2000 speaker the audio would be better yet.
The number of individual controls on the FT-2K is nearly overwhelming at first glance. But on closer inspection, they front panel arrangement was very deliberate, and the control placement makes a lot of sense.
The rig's display uses many of the same icons and techniques for illustrating current settings that are found in the FT-450 and FT-950. Having used the FT-450 awhile, that part of the rig was very familiar. The DSP and related controls are on the far right side of the rig grouped together.
The DMU unit sits to the right of the radio; the monitor is to the upper left of the radio. I bought a secondhand LCD monitor off eBay for $40 and that's working great right now. I don't have a keyboard connected yet to the DMU so I can use the logbook and more easily make changes on some of the other settings. The entire menu system can be displayed via the DMU monitor, and it makes it simple to make changes.
The DSP filtering is very versatile; with one control you can vary the receive bandwidth from 4 kHz to 200 Hz no matter the bandwidth. And that doesn't include the Digital Noise Reduction, the Notch Filter and VRF (Variable RF Filter). The VRF is an RF preselector circuit that improves selectivity and maximizes rejection of out-of-band interference. With the optional RF u-Tuning filter in place, the VRF allows for a much more narrow passband for improved interference rejection.
Having used the Icom rigs (746PRO AND PROIII) for more than 2 years, the Yaesu represents a much more complicated user interface — or it appears to be more complicated. There's certainly a steeper learning curve than the Icoms, which I was expecting.
My kids were shocked to see the PROIII gone from the shack; there's no denying that even they knew the PROIII was my “baby,” a rig I saved and scrimped for for nearly three years. I explained it doesn't mean I don't like the rig, but there just wasn't room for both.
After I demo'ed the bandscope, map, and other display features, my son wants to play with the rig tomorrow. I told him we'll do it together since I'm learning too. There are so many settings to try that I'm like a kid in a candy store.
I'm going back to the operating desk and poke around a while. I've got to get a keyboard for the DMU next chance I get.
73 … de KY4Z .. .dit dit …