[Yaesu] Best rigs on low band noise

[Deon Erwin]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Geiger" <ne0p at lcisp.com>
To: <dx-list at yahoogroups.com>; <cq-contest at contesting.com>; "ICOM Reflector"
<icom at mailman.qth.net>; <kenwood at mailman.qth.net>; <yaesu at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 1:46 AM
Subject: [Yaesu] Best rigs on low band noise

Which radios are the best at handling and eliminating low band (80-40m)
noise-both man made and natural?  Interested in ones in the $1300 and less
range.  I am sure that the Icom 7800 or Yaesu FTDX9000 are great, but are a
little out of my price range (just slightly).

73s John NE0P
===========

John

John Devoldere ON4UN publishes a survey of the world's top low-band
operators in his book "Low-Band DXing".  He categorises the Top Group
as 160m operators with at least 225 DXCC countries, 80m operators with at
least 250 DXCC countries and 40m operators with at least 275 DXCC countries.

This survey is updated with every new edition of his book and includes a
list of equipment used by these operators and ON4UN remarks on the
transceivers as follows:

[Quote]
It’s interesting to see how these figures change over the years.  Yaesu has
made remarkable progress in popularity through the different Editions of
this book. Ten years ago Yaesu ranked only in third place, with a mere 12%
score.  Six years ago this had grown to 44% (52% in Top 100) and now Yaesu
has reached the 60% Total Group score.

The number of Kenwood users has dwindled from 30% to 20% in the Total Group.
The TS-830 is still considered a very good Top-Band transceiver by many
(good tuned frontend selectivity, low first IF making for good close-in IMD
performance).  The TS-850 and TS-930 also remain popular radios, while the
TS-2000 was used by only one station.

ICOM has made significant progress, especially in the non-Top Group (17% to
27%), while it remained at a constant level in the Top Group (20% to 21%).

The percentage for Ten-Tec remained constant but with the new Orion
transceiver, a real breakthrough in many aspects, I expect them to take an
important slice of the cake in the near future.
[Unquote]
From: Low Band DXing - Fourth Edition 2005 by John Devoldere ON4UN

The most popular choice of these top-class low-band operators is the
FT-1000 / FT-1000D / FT-1000MP / FT-1000MP-MkV / FT-1000MP-MkV Field

The MkV is well equiped with various DSP and noise blanker facilities to
deal with natural interference and the radio has a further advantage with
its VRF (variable RF front-end filter) to deal with man-made interference.
The VRF only operates on 160 - 20m and is a high-Q input "preselector"
filter ahead of all active devices in the front end, including the main
bandpass filters.  This filter system protects all the sensitive front-end
components of the receiver, particularly where a receiver is suffering
intermodulation interference from strong signals, compounded by extremely
strong 7 MHz broadcast signals, for instance. The VRF circuit provides
narrowband selectivity which prevents this unwanted signal voltage from
hitting the input side of the bandpass filter switching diodes, where
2nd-order IMD is most often created in an HF receiver.

I am very satisfied with the way that the MkV deals with QRM and QRN on the
low bands and I am sure you would find a used MkV / Field for $1300 or less.

Regards
Deon ZS1ZL