[Yaesu] FT847

[kb0nly]

Need the first four digits of the serial to determine the actual age of the 
radio.  But a number eight as the first digit means its a production run in 
1998.

>From the FT-847 FAQ..

Serial Numbers

Yaesu appears to use the following format for serial numbers on their 
amateur products:

Year of manufacture-Month of manufacture-Production Run-Individual Unit 
number, where the month of manufacture is offset by 2, so "C" means January, 
"D" means February, "E" means March, and so forth.

Example: 8G051234 = 1998, May (fifth month, or "G"), Production Run 05, unit 
#1234 in this run.

One key serial number range is 8G05. This seems to be the point at which 
Yaesu had corrected the bi-directional CAT issue and made some other 
improvements. This version was made in May 1998. Later serial numbers (e.g., 
8L09nnnn) all seem to have incorporated the earlier improvements plus new 
ones.

73,

Scott