YAESU FT-890 review

CQ

REVIEWS:

The Yaesu FT·890 HF Transceiver

BY JOHN J. SCHULTZ·, W4FA

Y aasu

"world

bile" transceiver . Well,it iscertainly true
that the FT·890 is compact, and

claim toincorporateinonepackagea host

o

ffealures

HF transceive

low-noise circuitry. dual VFOs for each
band,32tunable memories,general-cov-

erage r

audio response tailo
a bui

thoughYaesureferstothe

bile transceiver. it definitely represents a

lt

-in automati c antenna tuner!

describes

's smallest high-performance mo-

notavauabreinoth er

rs-

ec

eive,AFspeech processing with

the

for example, modern

ring

FT

,built

FT

·890

-in

-890asa

as

it does

compac

keyer.and

the

Al-

m0-

t

new-generation compact
that is really suited for any portable,

bile, or

FT

-890does havesome innovative circui­try,butits realgenesisliesinputting anun­usuallybroadarray of features intoavery

compa

Well,since I've already used the word

"com
serves some quick clarification.
know if the FT.a90is the
est." Consideringallof itsbuilt-infeatures,

the statement isprobably true. Consider-

ing

that the

fixed-statio

ct

HF transceiver package .

pac

t"

a few times, its meaning de-

FT

-890hassomanybuilt

n

HF transceiver

applic

"world

ation

I don

's small-

mo-

. The

-in

fea-

't

T

hefront

piing and I feel they are conservatively
correct.

panelof

butit'

s a

the

nicel

FT

y ba

-890conta
lanced

arrangement

ins a fairnumber

of

controlsand

for such a

automatic antenna tuner.Thecontrolsfor

the built-in keyer are on top. "Power-up"
customizing

compact

of

various featuresseems to

pus

transce iver.

hbuttonfields,

tures,canbe comfor tably manually tuned,
andhaseasily viewable frequency,meter,
andcontroldisplays,it'sanotableachieve­mentina

"c

ompac

t"

transceiver design.

Specifications

Table I sno

FT

-8

90

.

They

look,although you do haveto slowly read

through them to appreciate their scope.
The

are clearly described.

physicalandelectrical characteristics

ws

the specifications for the

are notquiteas" dry" asthey

Qperatlonal Features

The FT.a90 is a very sophisticated trans-

ceiver.However,thedesignerofanyt
ceiverfacesanenormouschallenge intry­ingtopresentthefeatures ofasophisticat­edtransce ivertothe user.Thefront-panel

layout/controlsareprettymuchthe keyto
thesituation.Weall like the sophisticated
featuresof the newertransceivers.butthe

front-panellayout/controls haveto bevery
strongly "user-friendly" ifweare going to
enjoy a given radio.

rans-

be standard on most sophisticatedtrans­ceivers these days, and the
exception .

Table
Actually.theyareworth abitofstudy.since
they summarize various features that
would be too tediousto detail inthe basic
specificationsfor atransceiver.

seen.thetuning rate canbechanged,

offset displayed, speech-processor IFoff-

set varied, scan modeschanged,etc. The

FM

shift can be varied up to 200kHz and any

mode has beenwell treated. Repeater

II presents the

FT.aOO

FT.a90 is no

's menus.

As canbe

BFO

Some ofthe moreinterestingele

spe

cificationsincludethat forthetransmit-

t

er

dutycyc
sponse.theautomatic antennatuner's
pedance range, and on the receive side,

the excellent IF/Image rejection figures
andthe excellentshapefactor ofthe
dard SSB/CW, wide/AM, narrow/lF filter.

I didn't try to vigorously check every

specification, but

-30

2Glasgow

le. shaped SSB aud io re-

I did check out a sam-

Lane,Gree nville.

NC

ct

rical

stan-

27

im-

858

The lront -pane

strikesanice balance.Theknobsthe user

islikelytousefrequently (maintuning,gain
controls.and
ly dimensioned. Then there are several
fields of pushbuttonswhich allow access

to all sorts of functions. Generally , the
pushbuttons to the left

allow for mode selection, meter function
selection
SWR
constant,etc.

all haveto
except for two. which control the built-in

readout).processoron/off,AGCtime

(ALC,

sere

The

do

with frequencymanipulation

llayout

ctlvttycontrotsjare nice-

of

poweroutput,orautomatic

pushbuttonsto the right

of the

the main tuning

FT

-890

c

ress

The
talmodesandcomputercontrolusedto
mote ly handle practically any feature on
thetransceiver. However.Yaesu,muchto
theircredit,does notethattheoptional

Hz narrowCWfilter is notavailable lor re­ception inthe
transmission.The2.2or 2.4kHz

widthswill work,ofcourse.butare notopti-

mum for receiving narrow-shift A

The FT-890 has a wide variety of fre-

quency setting/manipulation possibilities

besides justturning themain tuningknob.

tonefrom67.0to

FT

.a90can

SSB

be

readily used fordigi-

modesneededforAFSK

250.3Hzselected.
re-

500

SSB

band-

FSK

.

36 • co • December 1992

Say You Saw It In

CO

Fl

Super

Hi-Q

Loop

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...

coverage antenna e

36 inch diameter --

ve

• Only

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•

All

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for

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fla

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ham radio . . .

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$19995

When was the last time you saw a welded butterfly capacitor

-Illy

hal fits in the back

assembled multiband HF antenna with no rotating

of

a tiny Toyota? Reason 3. You

co

don'

ntac

Only 36 inches in diameter. the need a separate control

- 1784

ts

,

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ciency 10-30 MHz continuous

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mallest high efficiency 10 to 30 MHz carries both RF powe r and

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",''"''

ONR" AOER SERV'CE

CARD

It would

be

impossible

to

describe

all the
possibilit ies,buttheyrevolve arounda total
of

84 tunab le

Two

limitsfor

tantly

s
Scanning

spe

cial

sc

scan

can

squelch is opene d
ceed

afteratime

and

memories

scannable

accept

memorie

frequency

s.

anning in caseyou wish to con-

a

small

be

made

delay. Frequencies

segment

to

stop

or

to stop and thenpro-

of

a

when

band

the

can

betransferred around between memories.

no

There is

user has to

ired

s
aro
do

spe

FT-890

dozen

fre

und

as

with 84

cific

I've

of

Speaking
along a
the

start

bit, you

VFOs for
orie

tioned

numbe

s. In

84tunable memories.

rs

keypa d frequency

start

qu

ency

de

sired .What are you going to

tunab

an

swer

on

the

of

each

the

add

me

of

memories

the

band

preceding

up? Well. I

fused at first,but

by

and

le

mem

. In h

ly

utilized

mor

may

article

the

tuning a VFO to a de-

then

transferring

or

ies? I have no

ours

perhap

ies.

,if you have read

have

noticed

I m

entioneddual

and 32 tunable

paragraphImen

wasrather

numbers

entry

of

usingthe

s a

Howdo

are

correc

. The

few

that

mem-

those

co

at

n-

t.

it

General

R.Kei

Tr

.

Frequency . t3bility. < :t 10ppm. Or

EmiM

Bui

Ant~n

Supply

Pow

-

DimVlS
Wright

vlns

....

milling

l60-mlNnd. 1.8 to 2.0 MHz

llO-m

4O-m
Jl).m
2lJ..m

17·m band, 18.0 to

150mband,

12·m

10.11'

<:t 2ppm from - 10 10+50"C w1TCXQ.:3 optlon

A.

'i

c

frequ

100 Hz for AM

16.5t"1500 with ATU(u

13.S·V OC ±101.,

~r

1.5Areceive

20 A lransmit (100

f

requ~ncy

f~""'

biln<!.3.5

oond,
han
band. 14.0 to 14.5MHz

blo
oond, 28.0 to

ion

WE),

....

Unped;o

vallage:

«>".ump

ions

(apP"'"'-):

7.0 to 7.5 MHz

d.

to.

21.0 to 21,5 MHz

nd,

24.S

mod

n:

FY. (F3E)

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tl

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(WHO):

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and

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30

UII

w

of

First

FT-8

the t

90

op

it is not in

all,

.Ten m

one

di

VFOs per band
There are 32 tunable
memory
back

has what Yaesu calls a front

half,

or
feature ,since
areaccessed

pushbutton.As

laced

p

with in

tran

sm

into e

an

amateur

ission

withouthaving
amateur

band

there

eters

are

ten

band

is split into

two

startingat 29.0 MHz, although

cated in Table I.Therefore,

account

what I

the

front andba

by

mean

long as

ither

band

as

we

to

getba

half

ll as

s for

memo

would

s of

of

,it

recept

ck

20

memories.

ries, but

ca

ll a VFO

ck

the

any

any
can

freque
mem

be
iond

to

one

memories.Therefore

32 = 64 andthen add 20andyou

When I first used the FT-890 , I was

s in the

bands,

two

each

and

AlB

" halve

VFO

AlB
ncy

ory

used

irectly

of

the

, 2 x

gel

10

s"

is

for

20

84!

too

Transmitter

Power

Duty

MoJuution

M....

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S

purious

SSB c.urier

l.'nd"m",,- ,

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MicrophoM

output

adju..t4ble U?

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SSB,B.1tan

AM: Low-level

FM:

lmum

>40 dB below

"tlm~l

not

'

l~

typ"s:

red,

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mol'(' tha"

b!e

F!"A.

i. tion: >

ndi.atior:> 40 dB

supp

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SO

c!lbelow p'-"k OUlput

IMD:

imp

to

100

_tIS

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filt

ered

(~arly

r""

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~

dni~lion,

SOdR

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$ion:

peUoutput

supp

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~31

dB

!YP.It100 W PEp, 14.2

e d.n,,

~:

(25 wat

.tlS

PEPSSB

c"rner

. tage)

±2.5kHz

below peak

bdo

w peak

reui

on:

500 to 600

t!i

{1

A.

'>l:

output

output

Hz

(arrier)

MH

~

Inws~

IF
IF Notch

OMit;",

M.nim

Audio

rejection

Shift

um

. tl~

...

out

(1.8

- 30 MHzJ: ?OdB orboetter

0rlSe

,:t1.2

mt~ralt~nu.ttion

tuni

ng

.ud

io

t 1.5 watts

pu

llmped.",,~

kHz

n

ng.,jst~r-

pow

~roUlp

into4

AutomaticAntenna

lm~dal>('t

F~u~ncy

Min. •

Sv.

Mal

ulo-lun~

'R

wh

(hing

SJA

-eif",,'iM~"rt

tech"i

ons

f':

nIlf;'"

&; Max.

.......

time:within 30

CllI

imprrJlKmnll.

tdl~d:

16.7

-1S«}

_ Tl'a/lRl'li

p"w~r

""'" than 1.4 1

subj

«!

witlw~1

:

:lOdBOr better

:

:t9.99

ut:

n with < 10%

:

4 to 8 n

Tuner

(\Int.lanad)

tbng

r.n~

~«ond.

10

r

ro.

nso, i

noli",or obliS4lum.

kHz/t

Options

rang

:

r.

O

Hz

lliD

...,.

OO

Yf

8 - 120 watl5

the inlo,...1 of

hungup
used in the
band pu
acce
band.The
such
hadto use a diffeent
used
didn't catch on

cause
the FT-890, if you

on

thedualVFO

FT-1

shbutto

ss either

FT

-890doe

asintbe

is simple

of

my

000,

n either

VFOAor

snothavea keypad,

FT-1

000,soobvious

sc

and

to

stra

it immediatelysimply

exposure

select

per

where

band

once

scheme

you

pres

or twice to

VFO B for a given

IyYae

heme. The sc

ightforward

10

the

FT-1000. In

A and then tune

around anygivenamateur band,VFO

return 10

one

of

the

the

ten

last used

amateur

frequency

bands

. In

on

effect

s a

su

he

me

, but I

be

Awill

any

Table 1- Spe

cif

ications for the FT-890.

-

,

there are

VFO

B. If you

tenVFOA

togg

B, the last used band

VFO is disp layed. The
other
with either VFO on a given

bands

is

not lost whenyou tune around

's.The same is true for

le

between

frequency

frequency

band

The scheme allows great flexibility

engage in

spur

ing VFO AlB s

che

to
toggling
con

ck

a

give

the

tinuing to

Of

crossbandoperationus-

etu

ps,

or

jf you

n frequency

VFO AlB pu

operate

on

simply

on

shbutton,while

another

VFO A

in e

datafor

.

a

band,by

band

and

ither

if you

want

.

The re

ar

panel

conta

ju

st

inssome less frequently

abo

ut

any

sortof

external

used

con

controls

plus

nection or

connectorsgalore for

contro

l.

38 • CO •

December

1992

Say

You

SawIIIn CO

involves a trial-and-e

rror process. but is

Power-Up

P

..

Bunon

Di&play 8FO
Display

or Last

MakeFAST Buttonpress-orVpr

~

Press

CaU$El

operating on a momory
Cloar All Mornorles and return seltings

dulauilS

1::::

1

Memor

~

RPTll

C1a

.1

Reslma

....

SaIaa

LocI<

Beeper

0fIsef0l

Q.H

~

Freq:::;::cy Digil al righl

al8l"

aaairllfB

rifi

Of

(I

10activate U8mory Tl.Ol mode

Iv'ode:

ElliIbIlWOisabIe

Shifl

(Otl200

""'"-

Mode: TU'Ii1g Knob

Functions

Carrier

~)

(

A/way$

Frequency in

t'SS

kHz.

.

~i

alief

"'CIt.

'()()

sablu)

5-sec pause. or

Only.

......

cw

ond

01

or

aetive-Qll/y

lIHz

def

10

01

Krdl

H

old

this

button

turn

NOTCH

modo

display. BANDIMEM

~

voflDI'I

factory

BANDiMEM

'

HAM

DOWN

"'

,

AS>

.

"'

N8

c

&

on

"

GEN . VF

U<

.

,row

&

COCK

surely

compression level is set by a rear

worth

the

ettcrt

. The processor

-p

anel

control. I would suggest leaving it at the

Comments

Press • bulIon 10 _ if h

•

iIbIBd

beeper

is

factory

"s

queeze ou

setting

processing.

rather

t"

another

than

trying

dB or so of

to

On CW the built-in keyer performed

BFa

Offsel

.ods

7~rl~~~

~

....

)'911

cw ./IJleetsd· I . smoother thanI had expected.TheYrinch

orSO oftravelonthespeedcontrolappears

N!ecIs display only,

small, but the control isnot difficult to ad-

FAST15displayed when active.

JUSt.

Full and semi

break

-in

worked

smoothly. Weighting can be set at 1:3 or

Still. is d:spIa)'9ll.

DQWlWP10
Disable to a

\7ittlQu!

"

Ol>

MHz LSB.

aulQf11;l

and Memory 1

low

T~

Use

~

in

10kHz

e\arifl8r adjuslmenl

~ C

cMIch~

.

defau!1

~

IrQm Mem

to 7.000

01

•

1:4.5

The

(dot

dash)by the external controls.

sidetonepitchcannot beadjusted.

thosewhomight beinterested inCAP

For

CW
the power-level control allows the output
carrier power to be varied down to about

3watts.BatteryooerationcttheFT-890is

There

""'"

"LOCK-

MOX ar.:l POWER

is always I pause

.

t.""

bi"I<s

...nen

camol

buttons

~

der

are

be

squelch

.

Iod<ad

1Qo;lIed.

quite possible,and Ididtry it with a 12VI6

.

A.H. "Gel-Cell" rechargeable pack.The

limiting factor becomestheconstant,rela-

,

Tosl all Display Segments, and Check Fir

versron

FAST

Sel

Beepef

~IJuI~

.

Knob

'

00

Sgeedl

be

..

ulsplay
standard tones. def

.

Press NOTCH again when

~

Tuning Rale

....

Proc8"

WIansse

~

.

fSe le

Button

A\ldio F,equency (220 to 1000 Hz. 800

Combinations

cere

.

-

Salec

,~

..sor

or AM

cl

IF

CTCSS Tona Fraquoncy 1hom

ault

Iion

:!OIJgle

Ciltsa

mode

l

~

.

Pres.

88.5 HZ), P,oss APTIT agllin

5 & 50

(

:I:

300Hr). Uusl

.. PROC againwhen

-"'~.

TogglI CI.nenI

Sea ' flO- .

~=

10

be skipped

whentI.erroy

lTTW

01

are

10 &

AlB .. A

HOldFA

bUtt

Dress.

NOTCH

Tl,imCLAR

sw.

'.OC

-

~

-

RPTIT

I

VFOiM

on

-

:B

ST

and

.•

Display
fQltowod

saconds. and

tests porlormed

by ROM verarcn nurroer lor 2

relOrn

tor

1Sseconds.

to normal,

Comments

Repealing double beep
beep
acfu:;U

Choose

AI1IiK:ls

I,NlIeUed

lisllll'l
reooil'l!I wh

Dl

tunIng knob or DOWNIUP buttons

seect,

I

~,ts

frequency displayed in Hz while

Iof8 1ewls.

s~

T~

ay

10 y

s

OVI

ic

ton"

Krdl

adjus

rate

5igr1a1

~ng

frequoncy In Hz,us

.

0f1/y

. I eel

ITllrnQf)'

when

ae1!va:

scores

0f"Iy:

in an estemar

.

scarr

ed.

Slepsare

.:rv

."SKlP'"

and

10

tlvefy high current drain during receive

periods.

The automatic antenna tuner is one of

the fastest available and has a generous

matching ra

ng

ewhich exceedsthatshown
in Table I, especially on the high imped­ance side. I did have it loaded, with 100
watts power output beingindicated, intoa

plain 6 foot piece of wire on all bands ex-

II

cept 160,80, and 40 meters,but such us-

agebordersonabuseofthe unit.It is,how­ever, an ideal unit if the FT-890 is being

used ina mobile installationandyouwant
to CSY beyond the normal bandwidth of

e

the usual loaded, mobile whip antenna.

The

AF

circuitryof thetuner usesacon-

ventiona! T network with a long inductor

arm grounded atoneendandtwovariable
capacitors .Theadded

"tri

ck" istherelay

Table

11-

P

ow

Using the FT·890

Inspite of its sophistication,theFT-890 is

arelativelyeasytransceivertooperateand

hasexcellent

tsucs.

On the receive side,
quietest receivers
very smooth, and the fa

speedcanbe varied and the various pes-

recelvertransmu character-

it has one of the

Ihaveheard, Tuning is

ct

that the tuning

er-up settings.

pose there was just not enough space
available to provide much else.

Aswas mentioned before,the memory

possibilities are rather enormous, but it

really isa caseof using as much or as lit-

tieasyou desire.The basicmemory func-

nonsare

cl

early laid out,but you do have

to havethe manual.or acribsheet,handy

to get into the more advanced memoryl
scanning functions.

switched capacitorswhich canbe added
across the individual variable capacitors
or across theentire series combination of

thetwo variablecapacitors.Iexpect afew

hundred

were achieved by that " tric

paredtoaconventionalTnetwork.

more

mat ching combinations

k"

as co

Irs

rn-

also

easier on the variable capacitors.

Overall, Ican'tstopbeing impressedby

the smallsizeofthetransceiver.Jtdoesn

't

haveeveryoperatingfeature intheworld,
but it truly is a

lull-featured.compact HF

transceiver that goes farbeyondyour ba­sicbottom-of-the-linetransceiver.Itsortof

invitesyoutopick it upby itscarryinghan­dte and take it along almost anywhere.

sibilities forquickly steppingthe received
frequencies in 100 kHz or 1 MHz steps
makethingseasy to adjust. Ididnotreally
missakeypadforfrequencyentry.The

se-

tecnvttycontrols(notch andshift)provide

enoughflexibility for mostGAMsituations.
The
and just about a "must" for any CW fan.

I didn't havea chance to test the optional

SS
usefulif the FT
stationrig.Thebuilt-in2~inchloudspeaker

providestolerable audioquality,but Isup-

optional 500 HzCWfilter isexcellent

B filter, but I suspect it

co

uld be very

-890istobecome the main

Onthetransmitside,the

videaclean100watt

soutputona

FT-890willpro-

llbands.

The internal cooling fan did cycle on and

off attimes,but ithasalow noise level. On
SSBand

AM (!) you can easily tailor your

transmit audio by means of the carrier

point adjustment provided . The offset
(which can be displayed on the readout)
can
Hzindependentlyfor

tween ­edupwith a

be set between - 300 Hzand +500

LSB

and

USB

andbe-

3 kHz and +3 kHz for AM. I end-

+250 Hz

SS

Bsetting and re-

ceived excellent reports.Theadjustmen t

Manual

I'm impressed by well-written operating
manuals.Nomatterhowmuch sophistlca­tion the engineers put into a transceiver,

itdoesn't meanmuch unlesssomeonecan

conveyto you and me in fairlysimple

clear terms how to use the features.

Themanual for the

FT

-890 is very well

writtenandverywell organizedwith

tyof illustrations.Ifyoujustwantto

bastcal-

Iy get the transceiver into operation, it is

and

oren-

40 • co • December

1992

Say You SawItIn CO

This topviews

hOws

theextremelylargeheatsinkwhich isbacked

Removing the bottomcover, you can see

a l

ar

gePCboardand

up

by

aninternalfan.Ak is suckedinfroma venton therearpanel

andexits tothe rear

isobvious.

To

the left

of

top-mounted keyer controls .

only
want to

modes

detailed discussion s.

nece

get

or

ssaryto reada

intothe details

computer

theheatsink.

of

it andtowards the front panelare the

few

control,

pages.Ifyou

of

using digital

there

The

are

smallinternalspeaker

heavy-duty
butIdidn't
of

this writing.

patibility, I

have one available at the

would

power

Jus

part

of

theshieldingfor theautomatic antennatuner(totheright

To the upper left

the optional IF filters.
to the right

sse

filter.

of

The

the hardly visible, very small, standard ceramic

PCboardhastobepartiallyremoved forasolder-

type installation

supply for the FT-890,

time

t on the basis

suggest the use

of

com-

of

the

of

the PCboardare the mounting spaces for

The

ertransceivers. But the

ferent,

AC

front-panel

larger CW optional filter is installed

of

the optional filters

especially

power

where

line in the

switch

in a

wiring

sw

power

transceiver

may

itching

supply

).

be dif -

of

the

by

a

is can-

PowerSupp

The FT-B90 I

FP-700

power

~IY

L-

tested

supply. The FP-800 is the

was

used

w

ith

_

an

FP-800

bu

ilt-in

audio.

A

note

The rear-panel

FT

-890 is similarto that usedon someoth-

power

speaker

of

caution

supply. It also contains a

for

power

improved

should

connector

receive

be

mentioned

on

the

cerned
but

manufacturers'equipment

.

similar
tions! The power-supplyconnection

FT-890 isabsolutelysimpleand straightfor-

ward
apparentlyalreadybeendamagedby ama-

teurs
connector
changeabi

.lt

if you

connectors,check

, but a

who

seems a simple enough caveat,

are

lity.

going

few

thought

s

of

equate

to

intermix different

which

the

the transceivers have

similar power-supply

d

irectly

connec-

w

ith

have

of

the

Inter -

.

1:

-

Accessories

The FT-890will

rarqeotYae su

theDV$-2 digital
module,which is averyhandy item f

testing. The YF-100

2.4 kHz IF filter, andTCXO-3 crystal oven

are alldedicated accessoriesfor the

interface

accessory

vo

ice

500

recorder/playback

HzIFfilter,

with a verywide

ite

ms

including

or

co

n-

YF·1

FT

01

-890

Summary

The FT-890 is pri

ced

at

$1

529.00 (

wi

th

.

Since I had removedthe bottomcover, Icouldn't helpbutnotice this array
potson

42 • CO • December

one

side.Apparentlyitisintendedtofacilitatealignment/

ad

justme

ceiver without having to access every individual PC

1992

nt

board.

of

14+ trim

of

thetrans-

built-in
$299.00
$159.00 ; YF-101 , $159 .00; and TCXQ-3,
$99.00 .Brochuresare available from
ersorfrom

Rd., Cerri tos,

a

ntenna

:

DVS-2,

Yaesu , U

CA

tuner).The

$299.00

SA

, 1

721

90

701.

Say You Saw It In CO

FP-BOO

;

YF

·100,

0 Edw

is

deal-

ard

s

001