More on the new Yaesu FT-710

A couple of weeks ago I posted about getting a new FT-710 radio.  After getting a little more time on it, yes I am a fan and yes it is a keeper.  There are a bunch of reviews and commentary and exhaustive in-depth detail showings of features on this radio, especially on youtube (I'll leave the searches to you).  Here though, I'm just going to put out what I like and don't like so far.  Likes:

• Sherwood Engineering ranks its receiver as #4, on a very long list and way ahead of a bunch of crazy-good other radios.  Listening in, I can believe it.
• The user interface is good.  Yaesu has tamed the UI beast a fair bit, and while it's not quite Apple-easy, it is certainly not user-hostile. (ahem, FT-891, I'm looking at you)
• The multi-function knob is on-the-fly programmable to put things like RF Power output right up front on the panel where they are needed, as needed.  This seems almost like an evolution of the old "Custom Switch" of previous Yaesu UIs, and useful as those were, this is way better.
• The Step/Mem Chan/DSP knob works great for getting around the IF band width & shift functions, but it has taken a little practice.  A dedicated concentric knob for these functions would've been better (then you'd have to pack the AF & RF gain onto a similar concentric knob to fit everything on the faceplate), but this is the next best thing.
• The FFT scope is awesome!  I like the waterfall display.  The 3D display seems kind of gimmicky, but whatever, maybe somebody likes it.  The Multi-scope display is too cluttered, but I may play with it some more.  In the meantime though, the waterfall display works like gangbusters.  Or more like "pile-up busters."
• Digital mode doesn't have any weird offsets or other issues that have plagued other Yaesu radios.
• While the USB port was a simple plug-and-play to get useable output to the Linux laptop, and it displayed fine using fldigi, I still haven't gotten the USB port interface to key the transmitter and send data out.  Works fine with a SignaLink box to the serial data port however, and I like having the extra RX & TX level knobs.  I may eventually return to the direct USB cable connection, but for the moment I'm happy using the SignaLink.
• As others have found, the FT-710 tuner control doesn't work consistently with the MFJ-939Y auto-tuner.  That's OK though, it works well enough with semi-auto "sticky tune" control.  Here's how.  Others have had better luck using the control cable though, and I may revisit this.
• The internal tuner is good, though a lot slower than the MFJ-939.  Mostly I just use the 939, it's so much faster even with having to use the sticky-tune work-around.  Though for 30, 40, & 80m I still have to use the heavy-duty MFJ-948 external manual tuner to bring that mini-W3EDP antenna to heel.
• All three tuners are in series, and all three have a bypass mode, so any one of the three can be active with no interference from the other two.  With the MFJ-948 in the middle, the forward & backward power and SWR are all there on the crossed-needle gauge, leaving the FT-710's select-one-meter for anything else.  This is particularly handy for monitoring the ALC when running a digital mode.
• Even though the internal tuner only tunes the transmit path, this is not a big issue for the receive path.  If the SWR's < 3:1 having no tuner is perfectly OK for RX, and if the SWR's > 3:1, well, you're using an external tuner anyway and that's going to cover both the TX and RX paths.
• The digital noise reduction (DNR) is amazing, and is completely adjustable from minimal-but-nice to more than you'd ever want.  On its lower settings it's perfectly fine for listening to music on MW or SW.
• On a fading digital signal while using the DNR, it's kind of spooky how the noise is gone and the signal just fades into... nothingness, with no residual static to reassure you things are still working.  The first time this happened I thought the receiver had died.  Then I flipped off the DNR and heard the world of static it was removing.
• The noise blanker works and is otherwise fairly unobtrusive.
• The size and weight will make it easy to take car camping.  It'd be a stretch to take it backpacking, though I suppose that could be done too.  I'm looking forward to using it up at Wright's Lake, where there's not a lot of noise, but a little more than the FT-857d was comfortable with.

So far, the only real downside is that the direct-conversion SDR receiver doesn't handle lightning crashes quite so gracefully as the FTdx-1200's triple-conversion superhet on the low bands, especially broadcast AM.  Meh, that's not really what this radio's for anyway, and on 40m and up lightening noise isn't much of an issue.

After that... would it be too much to ask for simultaneous meters for power output, SWR, and ALC?  A triple bar meter would fit into the same space that pseudo-retro curved select-one meter takes up.  But with the external tuner's crossed-needle meter this base is covered, so it's just a quibble.

The verdict?  It's a keeper.  Now I've got to go buy a roll cage for it before next camping season.