FT-dx9000MP Test Drive

Universal Radio currently has an FT-dx9000MP on display in their showroom, for a limited time. I was passing through that end of town this morning so I decided to stop for a test drive. I ended up being in there for a couple hours.




I have operated an FT-dx9000D before, but I never really played with all the adjustments to see what it would do. I took this opportunity to really dig around and see what the radio was capable of.


Unfortunately, the bands weren't too good. 20 meters was the only band I really played around on - and CW at that (I do my serious rig comparing on CW). 15 meters was dead with the exception of a bit of sideband activity, so I did play with the rig on USB for a bit.


After acquainting myself with the controls, which only took a couple minutes, I was ready to to hunt the bands. The first thing I played with was the DSP and roofing filters. There is a welding shop next door so there was no shortage of RFI from the arc welding HIHI. The roofing filters seemed to help out with quieting down the band a bit. Opening them up to 15kc really put crap all over the band, but the 3kc roofing filter did make a noticeable difference.


The DSP filtering works pretty well. I like the large knobs for the width and shift controls (middle set on the right side). The TFT display made it nice showing the filter parameters (which are also displayed on the square LCD screen on the basic MP without the TFT). I found the DSP filtering to not ring very much. Down at 25 and 50Hz the ringing was noticeable, but even down to 200Hz the ringing was very minimal making CW sound very nice.

One feature I was really honing in on was the VRF/Mu-Tune control. The FT-2000 also has the VRF (stock, out of the box) and the option of the Mu-Tune's. The Mu-Tune's are the same and I believe the VRF is identical as well. I don't know that the 9000MP had the Mu-Tune's, but being an MP and considering it has the TFT display option I would assume it does have the Mu-Tune's, so I wasn't totally sure which control I was using. Turning that feature on does not allow you to select between VRF and Mu-Tune and the menu did not have an adjustment for selecting VRF or Mu-Tune. I am under the impression that if the rig did have the Mu-Tune units installed that those would be active on the bands they control and VRF would be for all others (Mu-Tunes cover 160m, 80/40m, and 30/20m).


When engaging the VRF/Mu-Tune control the function was very apparent. Being in a dead band I was definitely NOT using it to it's potential, and designed environment use, but turning the feature on really decreased the radio's sensitivity outside of it's narrow passband - enough that I was easily able to tell.

I believe the purpose of the Mu-Tune and VRF (Mu-Tune is much narrower, higher Q than VRF) is to de-tune the receiver outside of the frequency you are tuned to on the VFO. This is very different from mechanical, and DSP, filtering in which frequencies outside of the passband are cut out (in theory). The best way I can describe what it seems to do is to imagine (or if you have done this yourself) a VERY narrow bandwidth antenna (one that uses a lot of loading and has a very high Q, such as a short vertical for 80 or 160 meters or a small magnetic loop) on a crowded band. Signals within the passband of the antenna (where it is resonant) are very strong, yet the signals outside of that passband are much weaker.


Now, imagine that passband being only a couple of kc wide and it follows you wherever you tune, with the addition of being able to shift (just like IF shift) that passband up and down around your VFO frequency. That is what the VRF and Mu-Tune's do. When you add the DSP filtering on top of the high Q of the VRF/Mu-Tune you get an abnormally quiet receiver! I did notice, however, that the signal strength of the station I was tuned to did decrease quite noticeably when I engaged the VRF/Mu-Tune feature. The signal-to-noise ratio was much improved, however.

The main tuning knob seemed to be a bit big for my size hands. The grip felt great and the accuracy of the tuning was superior, on top of the ability to navigate the bands quickly. I think the resistance of the knob was a bit high, but that could be the weight of the knob, too. I loosened the friction break as far as it would go but the knob still felt a bit "stiff" when turning slow. The knob did, however, spin when I cranked on it. Not too many knobs do that! The finger spinner was very deep. I am not sure I liked that aspect, but it did work very well and was very smooth.

The other smaller control knobs were good as well. The grip and feel were superior. The only drawback I noticed, which might just be a characteristic of these, is the ring knobs for Notch and DNR seemed to be a bit loose up and down, left and right (they moved around the center knob a bit). However, there was no backlash, they had the right amount of resistance, and the feel was still very good.

The large AF/RF gain and Shift/Width controls were unique. The feel of those were all very good. The VFO B knob was very good as well. The resistance of this one was much less than the main knob, and to me the feel was a bit more to my liking. If the main tuning knob could be dialed in to have as low of resistance/freedom of movement that would be great.

I did not play with the filtering in the speaker much. I turned the filters to their default open positions and used the rig itself to do the adjusting.

One feature I REALLY like about the FT-dx9000 series is that Yaesu put analog meters on them - and the analog meters they use are VERY nice! I don't know about your views, but to me nothing beats a true needle bouncing around. All the LCD displays, and now the newer "simulated needles" on the LCD's, just don't quite cut it. They "work" and display the information (and I bet they are faster, for those that will want to bring that point up), but they just don't give the feel of "this is a serious radio." Yaesu gets bonus points from me on this one.


The FT-dx9000MP is a fabulous rig - it is Yaesu's flagship radio. Unfortunately, I don't ever seeing myself being able to afford one (in it's configuration the display unit comes in at roughly $12,100 w/o Mu-Tunes, $13,400 if it has all three Mu-Tune's). However, if you are able to buy a radio in this price range it is worthy of sitting down with for a test drive.


Knowing that Yaesu did a lot of work to get the FT-dx9000 bugs worked out, including major hardware changes, I am sure this would be a great rig for many years to come. That won't change the minds of those who experienced problems and inadequate performance early on and have given up on Yaesu, but for someone starting to look at this range of ultra high-end radios the FT-dx9000's are worthy of a close look. Just make sure you get a few extra people on hand if you decide to buy one - the radio is H.E.A.V.Y.!!