Good Questions Steven,
Here's another 'grain of salt'.
Under most conditions no one will notice the difference between 50 watts and
200 watts much less 100 and 200.
What I dislike about the IV in no particular order...
1) Noisy Fan. It really mucks up your tx audio and it's tiring to listen to.
2) Lack of receiver sensitivity. We tested an off the shelf MP along side a
stock IV using the same antenna. This is not a scientific test mind you, but
one I rely on to compare rigs when shopping for a new one. In most cases the
MP produced readable signals when the IV heard nothing but static. The IV
did seem a little more sensitive to weak signals in the presence of stronger
nearby stations. Changing the rf attenuation on the MP usually made up for
the difference. You decide.
3) The IV transmits a very short duration but very high power spike on key
down/ptt. This behavior will shorten the life of most QRO PAs. A call to
Yaesu netted the suggestion that we change the agc settings and change the
timing on the PA tx. Yeah right... The initial spike from the IV drove our
Alpha to an instaneous power output in excess of 10KW! Illegal to say the
least not to mention a real source of QRM for others on the band and a great
way to generate revenue for Eimac.
4) The new and 'improved' filter selection method on the IV is for those who
don't care to have fine control over their receivers. If you frequently go
from QRP ops to PSK 31 to SSB to Contest to Nets, etc... then setup is a
pain and suboptimal for most conditions. The HF band conditions and modes
are simply too dynamic to restrict the operator as the IV does. Of course
Yaesu touts this as a convenience, whereas I think it was done to save money
and keep the price down.
5) 75 watts of Class A audio. Uh Huh. This is where the money from 4) went.
Are you really going to run processing, compression, _and_ Class A. Possibly
Yaesu marketing is targeting the our newest refigees from 11m? You know the
type, "I'm running a superstock D-104 with a 100 watt audio amplifier by
Koss into a vintage Browing Super Eagle with an afterburner. How's it
sound?."
6) External heat sinks only a mother could love.
7) External power supply... More RFI in and out. Not even Mom likes it.
8) And Tweet Tweet go the birdies. Place an MP alongside IV and tune from
Top Band to nosebleed. With the exception of 10m where the MP could use some
improvement, the IV will tweet, crackle, and pop while the MP simply
receives _external_ signals as intended.
9) Price... until very recently the IV was running over $1,000 more than the
MP. That's changing. Gotta ask yourself... why was the initial price set so
high, and now why is it so low?
73
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Karty, Steven" <kartys@ncs.gov>
To: 'Geos Major' <hfshack@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Yaesu] Filter Questions on the FT-1000MP Mark-V?
To: <yaesu@contesting.com>
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 08:20:20 -0400
I have the original FT-1000, and I was looking for something newer to
replace it. I liked the MP, but it ran only 100 Watts. I believe the Mark
V is 200 Watts, just like my original FT-1000, so I thought it would be
good. I haven't heard anyone else complain about the Mark V but you. What
don't you like about it?
73, Steven - N5SK
-----Original Message-----
From: Geos Major [mailto:hfshack@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 7:18 PM
To: W3YX@aol.com; yaesu@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Yaesu] Filter Questions on the FT-1000MP Mark-V?
Scott,
IMHO it would be best not to throw more good money after bad. Keep the box
and packing nice and try to return it. Yaesu really dropped the ball on this
model. Use the return money to buy a late model MP and bank the rest.
73
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