[CQ-Contest] ft-107m as a contest rig??

[Dan Robbins]

At 08:44 AM 1/5/98 -0500, Randy wrote:
>
>I won 4 ARRL Sweepstakes CW contests using FT-107Ms!  That was 1981-1985
>so this radio is a bit dated.  I think I was the only serious contester
>who ever used one.

Well, I used two of them for years and they still occasionally get some use
during a M/M.

> [Some of the FT-107Ms have problems with
>severe key clicks on the leading edge of CW characters if the RF output
>is turned up to the full 100W.]

This is true.

>The FT-107M is (was) a great radio for its day.  It was the last JA
>radio that still had a real VFO (i.e., the last of the non-digital
>rigs).  It had a very hot receiver that worked great on 10 meters.
>Unfortunately the front end is pretty wide open so it has some trouble
>with strong adjacent signals.  The S-meter makes you think the bands are
>really open because all the signals are over S9.

My two radios were not that hot on 10, although they worked OK, and the S
meter was stingy, so there were evidently production differences.

The FT-107M worked well for several reasons:
        1. VFO and crystal oscillators (No-PLL!) yielded very little phase
noise.  Very clean RX even with big pile-ups.
        2. AGC was exceptional, it was easy to peel off layers of guys
calling and it handled heavy polar flutter better than just about anything
in its time.
        3.  On SSB, the 6/60 db points with stock filters were 2.4 and 4.0
kHz, which is very good for a rig in that price range.  Better than many
modern rigs under $2K.

On CW, the '107 was fine on RX, but TX had the click problem and clunky old
T/R relays.  Another problem with the '107 was that some headphones mushed
up the audio,  Wrong impedance?

If you work primarily SSB the '107 will probably outperform anything you can
buy for twice the price.  If you work only CW, you might be better off with
another rig. 

                                                Dan KL7Y 



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