[VHFcontesting] FT-950 Comments?

[Michael Drake]

Hello Mark, even though your post is a week old I thought I would respond as I 
own a Yaesu FT-950 and use it on 6 meters almost exclusively. My station on 6 
however is nothing that incredible, I have no amp nor do I use a Yagi antenna. I 
have a KU4AB 6 meter square antenna at about 40 feet in the air mounted on a 
mast pipe to the peak of my roof. That being said the Yaesu FT-950 has performed 
nothing short of excellent on this band! I also was able to attach several 
different transceivers that I own to the antenna and noticed a big difference in 
receive audio as well as the ability to notch out unwanted signals. The FT-950 
has a menu driven system......but don't let that scare you. Most of the 
important functions are on the panel and there is a "Hot" key you can program to 
the menu function to assign your favorite option (mine is set to the RF Power). 
The 950 also has the ability to be run by ham radio deluxe with a 9 pin serial 
type connector that you an easily home brew (I made mine out of some junked 
Ethernet cable and some db-9 female connectors from the RAT-Shack). The internal 
tuner is just ok, it will not tune anything above a 3:1 if I remember correctly. 
Please let me know if I can tell you anything else about the rig, it's been 
great the past two years that I have owned mine. I would not like to rip 
everything out of my shack when I wanted to go rover either! That is what drove 
me to purchase a kenwood TS-2000 for the VHF+ contests. It also makes a nice 
backup rig. Hope to hear you in the next contest. Mike Drake KC2PLJ/R