FT-450
I had a chance to play around with an FT-450 yesterday. One of my friends got one as his first HF radio. Within the past year or so I had the chance to sit down with one at Universal Radio and I liked it then, but I couldn't remember much about it - how to use the features and the feel of the radio.
For some reason I thought the radio was a bit bigger than it is. I had it sitting right on top of my TS-2000 and it was REALLY small, comparatively.
The first thing I noticed about the radio, besides the size, was the feel. The knobs are really well engineered - they are very smooth-spinning and the main VFO knob has really good grip on it. The selector knob had a real quality incremental movement to it - the notches didn't click or wobble any, they were stiff and smooth.
For a radio of this size to have the following features was really amazing - IF-DSP and FRONT PANEL CW key and headphone jacks! The IF-DSP works pretty well. I would have to sit down with it for a while and do a direct A/B comparison between that and my TS-2000 to have something to compare to better, but with how much I used it I was pretty impressed. I wish more radios in it's class would do that (companies probably will start putting IF-DSP in smaller radios now - the TT Argonaut V also had IF-DSP, though not a 100w class HF-6 transceiver). The front panel headphone and key jacks really are nice. All my other radios have front panel headphone jacks, but none have front panel CW key jacks. This is one feature I really would love to have since I operate CW. I always have to either pull the radio out or lean way over the desk to reach back behind to plug in my keys. For such a small radio it really is cool that Yaesu thought to do this.
The menu system is not too expansive. This is good for people just getting in to the hobby that may be a little hesitant to get a menu-driven radio. I didn't find the main menu to be difficult to navigate (my TS-2000 and FT-857D are much more in-depth in comparison). The front panel took a little getting used to. I had to look in the manual to figure out how to engage the CW break-in (you need to hit the function key and then VOX). Once you get the hang of how to select menu items and DSP items and then use the selector knob to control the features then it is pretty easy. I would say that getting the feel for how the interface works with the selector knob was the most challenging, but it wasn't overly difficult.
If any of you are looking for an entry level HF radio (and one that does 6m also!), I highly recommend you check out the FT-450. It isn't a perfect radio by any means (I don't think there can be a perfect radio), but it is a REALLY good starter radio. If they had one of these out 10 years ago when I got my IC-718 I would have jumped on it - it costs less (compared to what the 718 was 10 years ago), has IF-DSP, is smaller, AND it does 6m!
For some reason I thought the radio was a bit bigger than it is. I had it sitting right on top of my TS-2000 and it was REALLY small, comparatively.
The first thing I noticed about the radio, besides the size, was the feel. The knobs are really well engineered - they are very smooth-spinning and the main VFO knob has really good grip on it. The selector knob had a real quality incremental movement to it - the notches didn't click or wobble any, they were stiff and smooth.
For a radio of this size to have the following features was really amazing - IF-DSP and FRONT PANEL CW key and headphone jacks! The IF-DSP works pretty well. I would have to sit down with it for a while and do a direct A/B comparison between that and my TS-2000 to have something to compare to better, but with how much I used it I was pretty impressed. I wish more radios in it's class would do that (companies probably will start putting IF-DSP in smaller radios now - the TT Argonaut V also had IF-DSP, though not a 100w class HF-6 transceiver). The front panel headphone and key jacks really are nice. All my other radios have front panel headphone jacks, but none have front panel CW key jacks. This is one feature I really would love to have since I operate CW. I always have to either pull the radio out or lean way over the desk to reach back behind to plug in my keys. For such a small radio it really is cool that Yaesu thought to do this.
The menu system is not too expansive. This is good for people just getting in to the hobby that may be a little hesitant to get a menu-driven radio. I didn't find the main menu to be difficult to navigate (my TS-2000 and FT-857D are much more in-depth in comparison). The front panel took a little getting used to. I had to look in the manual to figure out how to engage the CW break-in (you need to hit the function key and then VOX). Once you get the hang of how to select menu items and DSP items and then use the selector knob to control the features then it is pretty easy. I would say that getting the feel for how the interface works with the selector knob was the most challenging, but it wasn't overly difficult.
If any of you are looking for an entry level HF radio (and one that does 6m also!), I highly recommend you check out the FT-450. It isn't a perfect radio by any means (I don't think there can be a perfect radio), but it is a REALLY good starter radio. If they had one of these out 10 years ago when I got my IC-718 I would have jumped on it - it costs less (compared to what the 718 was 10 years ago), has IF-DSP, is smaller, AND it does 6m!
posted by Steve at
11:55 AM
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