Hi gang - I have recently bought a 1991 vintage (s/n 1J series) FT990 and
have some questions I would like to bounce off the contesting community.
I have posted these questions to the Yaesu list as well, but that list
seems to have been overrun with spam...
What is the general consensus on 250 Hz filters? Can the bandwidth be
stepped down sufficiently with the 500 Hz CW filter in conjunction with
the audio filter? What is the prevailing opinion on INRAD vs. Yaesu
filters?
>From the Yaesu list, it looks like the biggest gripe is the hiss on the
audio with the 500 Hz filter engaged. That was the first thing I noticed
that I didn't like on the rig. Is this a universal problem on all 990s?
Does everybody just cut it out with the audio filter?
Does anyone else's audio distort starting at about the 10 o'clock
position?
Is ROM version 1.3 the most current?
The biggest complaint I have is that CW is really choppy when used in QSK
mode. I looked through the Yaesu list archives and saw a complaint about
this in August 96, but didn't see any suggestions. If you turn the speed
up to about 12 o'clock (30-40 wpm??) and lay into it with a string of
dits, about every tenth did is truncated. I noticed this at first in
regular QSOs when I just couldn't seem to get the rythm of the internal
keyer. If you turn VOX on so that QSK is disabled, the problem goes away
- it's like the switching transistor can't quite keep up. This happens
with both the internal keyer and an external one as well. I have checked
this problem on a later model 990 and it seems to have the same problem.
Is anyone else experiencing this problem, and if so, how do you fix it? I
talked to Yaesu a couple of days ago, and they said there were about 6
update bulletins out on '91 vintage 990s, but keying problems weren't
among them.
Thanks in advance for any help. Please respond direct to me at
fanning@hiwaay.net. I can live with all the little things quirky about
the 990 with the exception of the keying problem - just put my finger on
it tonight and boy, is it really annoying.
73,
-Mike Fanning, K4GU
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