[Yaesu] FT-817 and Miracle Whip

[Clark Savage Turner]

On Thursday, February 20, 2003, at 03:27 PM, Martin Arsenault wrote:

> Could someone can give me some feed back on the FT-817 ??
> I'm looking to buy one in a near future.

Way fun little radio.  However, it really evidences certain tradeoffs 
that are important to note before you take the plunge.

1.  It is NOT a backpacking radio.  It draws a half amp on receive and 2 
amps on transmit (this is not very efficient!)  The internal battery 
will run the radio for a few hours at best.  This is OK if you carry a 
larger, heavier battery to power the rig (which I do, happily).  The 
weight and power consumption do not make a very "backpackable" radio (if 
you consider multi-day wilderness hiking where weight matters)

2.  It has only semi-QSK, not full QSK.  If you are a CW op, this might 
mean something to you.  I am OK with it, considering all the other 
advantages of the rig.

3.  The user interface is a bit complicated, the rig has only a few 
buttons and knobs and to perform many functions you'll need to learn a 
multi step process that is not intuitive.  Again, I'm OK with it since 
the rig is so small and I made up a little card with the major things I 
want to remember.  If you've used the FT 100 or the Icom 706 you already 
know about this.

> I'm also interessed about the miracle whip antenna. Could
> someone can give me some feed back too!?

I've only known second hand about this antenna.  However, consider that 
a small antenna will not be very efficient.  5 watts is not much power.  
A simple wire in the trees with small tuner will vastly outperform such 
an antenna.  Maybe you can let us know more about it if you go and visit 
the mailing list.

I like to stick here with my FT 817 questions and information.  It is 
free and open to anyone at all.  The Yahoo groups are maintained (very 
well, by the way, Pres is first class with his FT 817 group) by a 
commercial provider who does not allow universal participation in the 
group activities or files.  For example, there are yahoo groups that 
maintain very useful files of information contributed by amateur radio 
operators, but the general amateur cannot get access unless they join 
yahoo with its privacy (lack of privacy) agreements, things like that.  
I object to closing doors on general amateur information, I am more of 
an "open source" sort of guy, I prefer the wide open dissemination of 
information.  I'll be here to discuss the FT 817.

Clark
WA3JPG