Time for a Review of the FT-817nd

As hinted at earlier this week, six months' use of a little Yaesu FT-817nd has yielded enough insights for a blog post.  Bottom line up front: It walks and talks like its big brother the FT-857d, with the two major differences that (1) it has 1/20th the output power, and (2) its all-in pack weight is 1/3rd of the 857's, at 4.5 lbs.

Now, 1/20th the power (i.e. 5 Watts) doesn't sound like a lot, and truly it isn't.  However, it is plenty to have effective communications using digital modes (yes starshine, that includes CW), and when the ionosphere is a good mood you can occasionally manage a voice contact too. (ps: there's now a fix for this; see bottom of post)  There's an entire sub-hobby within ham radio called "QRP" (the old Morse shorthand for "reduce your power") that generally sets 5 Watts as the upper limit.  Think of it as guys who bring fencing foils to broadsword fights and win, just to more fully enjoy the experience.  Here's a recent book explaining the compulsion, Minimum QRP.  Strangely, the author shares his name with Spiderman – with less power comes less responsibility, I suppose.

Back to the weight issue, my full-up field-ready kit (radio, tuner, coax, antenna, battery, & misc. cables) weighs almost exactly 9 pounds less than the analogous kit with the 100 Watt FT-857d.  That is an enormous difference in a backpack.  What's more, the 817 fits into a Camelbak.  Admittedly it's a larger Camelbak MULE, but it's still easily bikeable or hikeable.  That's where the 817 really shines.  The actual dimensions are 5.3"x1.5"x6.5" vs. the 857's 6.1"x2.0"x9.2".  That's less than half the volume, and in a small pack it makes all the difference.

For accessories, I'm using an LNR Precision EFT-10/20/40 antenna.  It's more-or-less resonant.  Sure, you can tune it perfectly for one arrangement, but pull it down off one bush and hang it in another tree and it won't be quite on the low-SWR-money anymore.  But it's not bad, and an LDG Z-817 tuner cleans that right up.  After that, we've already discussed which batteries to stuff into the radio's internal tray – the black Eneloop Pro AA's.  They weigh in at a half-pound and give 3 hours' operating time, which is plenty for a day hike.  If you need more than that, an external battery like a Bioenno 12AH will give you a weekend's worth of fun for right at 3 lbs of pack weight.  Finally, pop for the Portable Zero side rails.  As you can see from the picture below, they give a lot of additional protection to to the controls, and they cost less than one trip to a repair shop.

Back to the internal battery issue, 3 hours' operation is fine for a little afternoon fun.  However, if you're contemplating serious time in the backcountry and need a VHF/UHF radio to stay in touch, you're probably better served by something like Yaesu's FT-60r hand-held.  It's lighter (0.8 lbs) and has some remarkable automatic-yet-compltely-unobtrusive power saver features that give it 2 to 3 times the useable life on its internal battery at the same RF output level.  Either one will pipe just fine through something like the Jurassic Duck Mk II antenna, and either way I'm getting 20+ mile reach to some local repeaters.

Here, have the pic now; review will continue below:

With tuner.  Faceplate is 5.3" across; you can judge the small size from the BNC connector on the left.

What are other people saying about the FT-817nd?  The biggest gripe seems to be that the receiver isn't state of the art.  It is a 17 year old design, after all, and Yaesu could probably stand to do an update.  Also, there's no digital noise reduction!  That's been standard on most radios for a while.  However, keep it mind that it still clearly receives a lot of stations that its little 5 Watts can't reach back to, so the whole point seems moot.  The youtube channel Outdoors on the Air gives a decent rundown on the newer FT-817nd over the older non-"nd" version here (7 minutes).  What it amounts to is that the newer version includes the 60 meter band and won't run down the internal batteries as quickly while it's switched off.  People are going to moan about the Yaesu menu system.  It's almost exactly the same as on the FT-857d (sans DNR controls of course), and I've said my peace on the matter back here – steep learning curve, after which it's pretty useable.  The nice part about this is that if you know how to run one of these radios, you've pretty much got the other.  Finally, there's the inevitable comparison with the other great hiking radio, the Elecraft KX3.  You can read a complete comparison over at a SOTA guy's blog here, but for me the choice was clear.

It's also worth noting that it's fairly easy to program in memory channels, either manually or by computer.  The procedure for the later was discussed here last summer.  Not bad at all.

So... how's it perform in the wild, really?  Frankly, it's hard as hell to make contacts on voice under the current solar weather conditions, but it's a performer using PSK-31 and that little LNR antenna.  From a frozen tent back in December, I managed to hit from upstate NY to Venezuela and west to AZ, and everything in between on 20 and 40 meters... but couldn't quite reach out to a special event station in CA.  So there, it's a success.  Moreover, on a home base antenna I squeaked out a contact to the Czech Republic with it last summer on 40 meters, so that's a rousing success.  The main thing though?  It weighs 4.5 lbs all-in.  There are lighter radios out there, but none as capable for the money.

Most of all, it's just a lot of fun.  Dialing up Europe on a handful of AA batteries?  Sure!  Fun, that's the main thing.

ps: If you've read this far and are interested in using an FT-817 for voice comms, check out this speech processor post, made since this original review.