Topband: Yaesu FT-980 Transceiver

[Ed Swynar]

'Morning All,

I wonder if anyone who might be reading this has had any experience in the matter of eliminating key clicks from their Yaesu FT-980 transceiver...?

It seems to be relatively obscure to-day, but it certainly made a splash when it first hit Ham Radio circles in the early 1980's.

There are PLENTY of references on the web to specific key click cures for the likes of the more advanced (and key click prone) Yaesu FT-1000MP, but absolutely ZILCH for the FT-980. I've e-mailed INRAD --- and others --- re. thoughts along this line, but have thus far drawn only blanks. A couple of weeks ago I even went to the task of writing a snail-mail note to Yaesu Musen headquarters in Tokyo, and am still awaiting a reply...

There seems to be a LOT of ready criticism of to-day's crop of transceivers in the matter of key clicks, but precious few descriptions re. possible cures. As I mentioned to someone the other day, model-specific references are great if one owns that particular marque, but let's face it: comments like "...solder a 0.01 ufd capacitor in parallel with C1218" just doesn't cut it for the rest of us...

Are there NO experts out there who might have the wherewithall to get into some "...generic detail" as to which specific stages in modern-day rigs need to be looked at, and what step(s) should be taken to remedy them...? I can handle myself reasonably well around most anything radio-wise, but have come to the sad conclusion that to-day's crop of key clickers need far more than mere RF chokes & bypass capacitors at the key in order to "cleansed" of clicks.

Any & all comments/suggestions/help is solicited, and welcomed...!

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ