Ok, I will admit right up front that I like this radio a lot! To help understand why, at little bit of background is in order. Like a lot of newly licensed amateur radio operators my first HT was the venerable Radio Shack HTX-202. I really liked this rig because it was sturdy and had good quality audio. I often wished that my scanner had this type of audio quality. When I went to an outdoor event, I noticed that people would gather around me and my HTX-202. I thought at first they just liked me, but later on figured out that the HTX-202 was one of the few HTs they could hear over the commotion!
Whenever we were expecting a bad weather day around here, I would strap the 202 and a scanner on my belt. Most every one in the building would know something was up and would begin to go over the emergency evacuation plans. Needless to say it really caused some confusion when I was monitoring another event besides the weather. So finally the old "I want a smaller HT that is smaller with extended receive bug bit", and I broke down and sold the HTX-202.
With my newly acquired funds, I procured a small marvel of modern technology. I could put this 2 meter puppy in my coat pocket and pick up the local NOAA station with its extended receive! Boy was I happy, now only I knew when to check the emergency evacuation plan. However, I noticed at the next outdoor event that this rig had the audio output of pip squeak and the more I turned it up the shriller the audio got. What was fine for indoors was not doing too well outdoors. However, when I checked around with some of the local club members with these newer and smaller rigs, they all had the same type of audio. It was funny going to an outdoor event and hearing all these little rigs going "eek eek eek."
Another factor began to raise it's ugly head that I never had with the HTX-202: the dreaded intermod monster. Around here we have some killer paging transmitters. This rig wasn't awful, it just wasn't what I was used to. I also began to notice that the computer equipment at my work QTH would drive it nuts, making it all but useless to receive our local 2 meter repeater.
Another annoyance was that this rig was a bit more delicate than I was used to. And it didn't look like it would stand up to a dousing in the rain. So I spent the extra HRSUs (Ham Radio Spending Units) for a soft radio case. (You know it always amazes me that an amateur will spend upwards of $300.00 plus on a HT and not spend the extra $25 to protect the investment.)
Our area eventually got a 440 repeater that I wanted to use, so I decided to part with my modern 2 meter miracle in favor of a dual band miracle rig. I then acquired what was considered one of the hottest dual banders around. It was pretty, had a higher extended receive range, dual receivers, could crossband, and even the keyboard lit up! Boy was this cool! However the fun was somewhat diminished when I noticed that his rig had the same problems as my previous 2 meter rig - again I was facing low, shrill sounding audio, a larger footprint, and an even more fragile radio.
After some time had passed I realized some interesting truths about my use of some of the features of this dual band rig: The lighted keypad made a real nice flashlight when the power went out. Well at least it gave off enough light to find your real flashlight!
I never found the crossband feature all that useful on an HT because of the limited power and heat build up. Cross banding to my mobile dual band made a whole lot more sense. I liked being able to monitor two repeaters simultaneously using either VHF/VHF, VHF/UHF, or UHF/UHF. However doing this really seemed to shorten the battery life, so I usually switched one of them off. I like to be able to scan numerous VHF/UHF channels, but I didn't like having to run both receivers to do it. I had often wished that someone would produce a rig that was a small, tough, power efficient dual band rig with great audio. When Yaesu introduced their FT-50R, on paper it looked like just what I could be looking for. To put the icing on the cake, the street price was extremely reasonable, not much more than most single band rigs and this was a High Power version to boot! So, I thought I would give it a try. Here are the results of my experiences with the FT-50R.
Size - The FT-50R is very small at approximately 3 3/4" High, 2" Wide, and 1" Deep with the FNB-41(High Power 9.6 V 600mAh) battery attached. With the FNB-41 battery the whole rig probably weighs in at a pound or so. I have found this size to be extremely convenient to drop into a coat pocket or pants pocket. However, with the FNB-40 (6.0 V 650 mAh) battery, I think the rig sheds a little more weight and depth making it even more convenient to carry around. The size fits very snugly in your hand and reduces the risk of dropping the rig during an activity. I have also found this size rig really fits more comfortably on your belt and doesn't get in the way that much.
Construction - Construction seems tough. Yaesu says this little rig is MIL-STD 810 rated for shock and vibration. I would believe that. Yaesu also seems to have gone to great lengths to keep water out. The PTT switch, Lamp switch, and monitor switch are heavily rubberized. The holes for the external DC and Mic/Ear connectors have rubber plugs that fit very tightly into the holes (for a change!). However, since these plugs aren't permanently attached to the rig, you have to be careful to not lose them. There is a gasket around the antenna connector (SMA type) and the antenna screws down to complete the seal. The SMA connector could be a bit of a problem if you want to use your extra BNC duckies or connect to an external antenna. However, SMA to BNC adapters are available. The antenna is also on the right side of the rig rather than the traditional left. This did not seem to be a problem at all.
The FT50-R is designed as a "clam-shell" with the battery as one half of the shell. The battery seems to fit very snugly to the rig and provides some additional water resistance. I also bought the alkaline battery packet (FBA-15 holds 4 AA Alkalines) and was impressed that an O-ring gasket was used to help seal out moisture. In the manual, Yaesu says that the rig is not waterproof and gives some recommendations of what to do if the rig becomes submerged. The belt clip is plastic and seems to be very durable and a lot better than some of the metal ones I have used. The belt clip can be removed very easily by sliding it off (no screws). It also appears that you get a clip with every battery pack. This makes it not necessary to swap the clip every time you change a battery.
The keyboard has rubberized keys and the spacing was good for a small keyboard. As usual, I went ahead and got a softcase (CSC-68 for the FNB-41 and FBA-15 batteries). The soft case is of good quality and adds a great deal more padding to the rig. My only complaint is that it slides over the rig and can be a bit tough to get on and off. However of all the HT's I have used this one looks like it needs the soft case the least. The case however, does add even more padding and protection if you are going to be using the rig in very demanding situations where it may be dropped or thrown around. Editor's note: I neglected to buy a soft case for my Icom HT and wish very much that I did. While I carry the HT inside a soft compartment briefcase almost all the time, the lettering on the keys has warn off from the constant rubbing against the soft interior of the briefcase bag. I should have bought a case!
The transmit and receive led indicator is well placed and easy to see. I have used several rigs where these indicators are useless because they are covered up by your hand or the rigs' soft case. The power button is slightly recessed and activates the rig with a quick press and turns the rig off with a longer press. I have found that you can accidentally turn the rig on when picking it up. It beeps to let you know it turned on, but if you missed it the Automatic Power Off circuit will shut the rig down after a preprogrammed period of inactivity.
The display is pretty good. It can be viewed pretty well at most angles and the lettering is adequate. The only small problem that I saw here is that when using the dial light, the characters tend to blend into the background when viewed at steep angles. However, I did not find this to be a big problem. The sub-display which is shown in smaller letters can be turned off or be used to read the condition of the battery. This is a nice feature for keeping an eye on your backup alkaline pack or checking that the HT is getting the right power from an external DC source.
The rig uses a combination of quick key presses and short key presses, but the manner they are used in seems logical. There is only one set of knobs on top of the rig. The inner knob either tunes the VFO, memories, or sets menu options and the outer knob is used only for volume. Some of the less frequently used menu settings are accessed via a menu by holding the top knob down for a second while quicker presses allow you to select the different bands or menu options.
Where is the squelch? Well it's a set and forget type menu option. However, some of the more frequently used commands can be accessed via shortcut keys. For example to set the squelch, you can press the top knob for a second to get to the menu and rotate the inner knob until SQL is shown in the display. Then pressing the inner knob quickly brings up the squelch level setting in the sub display. You then rotate the inner knob to your desired setting and then finish by pressing the PTT. However, if you read the manual and learn the shortcut, which is to press Func, then the button labeled Sql, you can set the squelch very quickly. The squelch action also seems to work very well.
Once you get the hang of it, you can program several channels very quickly into the rig. I like the way that the rig will indicate if the channel you are about to store data into has been used or not. There are 100 memory slots that can be used. Each memory slot can store frequency, shift, step, power level, DCS or CTCSS tones. Each memory can also store an optional 4 character label. The memory name feature can be turned off and on individually for each channel. I will admit that after setting up about 80 of these memories with labels, I had sore fingers from pushing and turning the top knob. For that reason, I will be getting a copy of the ADMS-1C program when it is available. This program should let me program the FT50-R's memory contents quickly via computer if I want to change its configuration for traveling or working a certain event. There are also 5 scan edge pairs memories available. Like most newer rigs, the FT50-R has automatic repeater offsets that make the repeater programming task a bit simpler. This of course can be turned off. Once the FT50-R is setup, it is very easy to use.
One of the things I liked about my traditional dualbander, was being able to monitor the VHF and UHF repeater at the same time using it's dual receivers. I thought that this was something I would have to give up on the FT-50R with its single receiver. I was pleased to find that the FT-50R could accommodate this need through a feature called Dual Watch. There are several ways to set up Dual Watch. One way is that Dual Watch will automatically check between two memories for activity as long as one of the memories is channel one. This allows the radio to sample the sub-channel for any activity every five seconds. If it finds anything there, it will beep and switch to that frequency. Depending on how you have the scan resume option set, the radio will go back to monitoring the main frequency when finished.
Okay this was close, but 5 seconds is a long time when monitoring two repeaters, and dual watch would interrupt the audio from the main channel every 5 seconds to during a check of the sub frequency. Fortunately, there was a better way. If you enter the two frequencies you want to monitor into VFOA and VFOB and activate Dual Watch, the checking for activity is done every 250ms and is completely transparent. This is more like it!
Basically I can achieve the same goal as before with the dual receivers. If one of the repeaters I am monitoring becomes active, I will know it immediately. The radio then switches to the VFO that is active and I am ready to communicate. I can also tell which repeater was last active, because the last active repeater's frequency is shown in the main display. As far as I can tell, if both VFO's become active the rig does not switch to the sub channel but beeps to let you know it heard something there. After using this approach, I have really come to like it better than using the dual receivers. I don't have to fumble with the second receiver's volume control or turn one up or down if both repeaters become active at the same time. Plus it appears that this method is more energy efficient.
The dual VFOs also let you work odd splits for cross banding purposes using the VFO Duplex Mode. For example, you enter a 2 Meter receive frequency in one VFO and a UHF transmit frequency in the other. When you transmit, the rig will automatically switch to the UHF transmit frequency until you release the PTT and it then automatically goes back to the 2 meter receive frequency. This can be used with any combination of frequencies that are in the HT's receive and transmit range. These types of odd splits may be programmed into a memory channel for instant recall.
There are many different battery saving features that are available on the FT-50R. For example you can turn off the Beep or the TX/RX LED. There is the typical receive power saver that puts the rig to sleep for a predetermined time. There is also a transmit battery saver that automatically adjusts the output power depending on the signal level it received from the other transmitter. I haven't really used this feature since I try to keep the power output pretty low anyway. I have found a way to tell when the FNB-41 is going to go belly up. The audio becomes slightly distorted before the battery is going to die. When the battery does become too low to operate the FT-50R goes into a fit of beeping to let you know the battery needs replacing. It will finally shut itself down if the battery gets too low. When this first happened to me, I accidentally left the rig on in the glove box of my car. All of a sudden I heard an increasingly urgent set of beeps. I couldn't figure what was going on and thought I had triggered a hidden self destruct button in my car until I realized the FT-50R was simply telling me that its battery was dying.
The receiver seems to very quiet with an absence of processor noise or lots of birdies. The FT-50R seems to reject noise from outside RF sources such as computer equipment very well. One of the things that impressed me about this rig is that it is the first one that I have been able to get to work well setting next to my computers. It also works well at my work QTH that is packed with computer equipment. I was even more shocked that I could scan through all of my 80+ frequencies with barely a sputter from the RF sources. My other radios would usually spit and sputter on over half of the programmed in frequencies.
But what about the dreaded intermod monster? I would have to give the FT-50R above average marks here. I took it through intermod alley and did not experience any problems until I was right under the paging tower. Most of my rigs would begin to get upset much further out. However, under normal use I haven't heard any problems in this area. I haven't had the opportunity to connect a larger antenna to the rig yet to see if there are problems with intermod.
AM aircraft receive works very well, I have found this area to be somewhat lacking on some HTs. One of the controversies around this rig has been centered around its' Wide FM mode. It appears that even though the rig is advertised to receive broadcast FM audio, the included Wide-FM filter is too narrow to receive WFM correctly. This is pretty much true. If you tune to a FM broadcast frequency you can receive the signal but it contains significant distortion. Even though it contains distortion, you can hear the voice portion of the broadcast pretty well, which would make the radio useful for listening to the local news. Music becomes very distorted and is unlistenable. I have heard that TV audio fares a bit better, but have not had the opportunity to test it here. This is a minor flaw in an otherwise an outstanding little receiver. It has become my favorite rig to use for most of my monitoring activities.
The new twist with the FT-50R is the inclusion of Digitally Coded Squelch that offers 104 different codes compared to the 39 CTCSS tones. The DCS encode/decode feature is built into the standard FTT-11 keypad that comes with the FT-50R. DCS is apparently used by some commercial radio services and offers the user a bit more security and performance over CTCSS. I haven't heard of any amateur radio repeaters in our area using DCS, but you never know. Yaesu has already devised a clever use for DCS built right into the FT-50R as well as the 2 meter only FT-10R and the 70 CM only FT-40R rigs. They call it the Auto Range Transpond System. This allows two rigs using the same DCS code to poll each other at 15 second time increments or every time you push the PTT button. If the two units are in communications range they beep and the letters RANG show up on the display. There is a CW IDer that will send your call in morse every nine minutes. Polling speed can be adjusted up to every 25 seconds. This is a very interesting feature and the suggested use could be for a couple of operators to know when they are getting too far apart to communicate while hiking or other such similar activities.
Another interesting feature that can be added with the FTT-12 keyboard is the Digital Voice Recorder. This feature lets you record either off the air or through the mike for 20 seconds. This could be handy to record that "special" repeater moment or as a memo minder. However, anything recorded can be played back through the transmitter. This might open up some other interesting applications. Another very interesting twist to this is called the Voice Mail Paging System. This allows an operator using a DTMF paging equipped radio to punch in your DTMF id code. When the FT50-R hears this code it will answer back to the paging receiver. The operator can then leave a 20 second voice message in the FT-50R and the FT-50R can send back a confirmation voice message of up to 10 seconds. The CW IDer can also be activated for this activity. Sure beats the old CALLME DTMF paging methods.
Another possibility would to turn around and send their DCS code back to them triggering the page beep notifying them that they should QSY to the calling frequency for an incoming call. This would be like calling CQ, but the rig is doing it for you automatically with your ID being sent via CW every nine minutes. Another use of this same type of program would be for events where net control needed to know if certain units where on the air and were in range of net control. Sort of like APRS without the positioning data. Of course I am sure that the above would be open to discussion as to how it fits into the rules and regs. Just a thought though.
Please do not reprint this without the express permission of the author. You can contact Mike Ellerson, KS4JU, at mellerso@uga.cc.uga.edu
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Mike Ellerson,
Manager of Microcomputer Support, University of Georgia
KS4JU
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