Two Week Impressions: Yaesu FTM-7250DR VHF/UHF Transceiver

Responding to one of those "you bought it from us, would you now please review it" emails, here's a short piece I wrote up on a recent radio purchase.  Enjoy!

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I needed a dual-bander for my home shack that could put out something in the 50 watt range, and this one had the best combo of features and price.  The Fusion digital aspect is a bonus, which I may dig into later.  So far though – two weeks – it's all been analog FM, and I'm getting good signal reports. Manual programming is pretty easy (you tube has at least one good how-to video), and operating is even easier.  The lack of a squelch knob bothered me at first, but the auto setting works well.  The fan is quiet, and it does keep the temperature under control.  In an hour-long QSO at 50 watts, the finals temp never got above 125F, which isn't even up to "parked car in summertime" levels.  The front-firing speaker is a nice feature, and the sound quality is fine for voice comms.  Beyond that... it's compact, and it does everything it should.  Finally I have to mention the price again.  It's about the best deal going on a dual-bander from any of the Big Three.  Throw in a sale at MC and this buy was an easy choice.

Now... the only problem is that I still love my FT-2900, but have no real use for it anymore.  Guess some friend is about to get a deal.

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Well, that's all for that quick review.  As to why I bought this thing, along with an exhaustively detailed programming guide, I'll point to last week's post.  Going from 75 watts down to 50 is a loss of about 1.8 dB.  I never like taking a step backwards, but in reality it's only a small change that'll never be missed.  More than anything, I'll miss that ginormous heat sink on the 2900.  I mean, lookit the thing (pic right); like something that came off a Harley engine.  It is good to step up to having the 70cm band now though, and circumstances now dictate that I have it.  Anyway, if you're interested in a good, clean, used FT-2900R 2m radio, I'm hanging onto it for a few more weeks, just to be sure everything's holding up.  After that, say sometime in July, it may go on the block.