Tuesday, March 16, 2011 — Don’t have a lot of time to write, but wanted to strike while the iron is hot to discuss the “PEP” update to the Yaesu FT-2000 series.
I’ve owned this rig … a couple of years or more? …. and the update has been available for some time; in short, I’m sorry I didn’t do it earlier! My FT-2000 had not received any software updates since new; a TV engineer with the Christian Broadcasting Network owned it, and he sold it to me in late 2007 as he prepared for the 2008 elections (he traveled with a remote crew) because he wouldn’t have time to operate it. There’s been updated software for it since I’ve owned it, I just never updated it for several reason: First, it seemed complicated, and secondly, with my radio in place on my desk, I really didn’t want to have to pull it out to do the update.
Last year on eBay I picked up the Yaesu cable to update the software; its sat around the shack since. I decided it was time to do the update, since I had kicked around the idea of selling the station for something Icom, and if I planned to sell it I probably needed to install the updates.
The updates weren’t nearly as difficult as I imagined they would be to install; the updates installed quickly. The most difficult part was getting the rig out of the shelves to plug in the update cables.
The difference? Holy smokes! It’s a tremendous difference! I’m still listening to the rig and checking it out, but its a lot like having a new rig.
For starters, the received audio just sounds completely different — about 10 times better, too. With my old FT-2000, I had to set the Contour to “peak” in order for the received audio to have any real punch; not now. No filtering, peaking or DSP, and the audio sounds excellent. It really did wake up the receiver.
One of the new features with the update is the sub VFO display now displays some of the settings as you adjust them, including the contour, the notch and others. This took me by surprise, as the old firmware did not do this. It really makes the rig more user friendly.
There are two parts of the update; one for the rig, the other for the DSP. I’ll check out the DSP changes as I use the rig, but I can add my accolades to the rest who found the firmware updates to be a substantial improvement — they were correct!
-30-