Hi All
I have a FT857D for 9 yrs now.
Runs as back-up rig and portable rig.
I have used it quite a bit, never 1 problem with it as last time on 6 mtrs.
I think it was some strange oscilation in the finals or HF detection.
Never used 6 mtrs untill a few weeks ago.
I do not like this band at all.
I never used 70 CM SSB also, same as 6 mtrs do not like the band.
I work both SSB and CW.
I do have 300 Hz narrow CW filter wich works very good but gives audio distortion on RX.
Distortion is easely solved by using DSP on CW.
The RX is a bit noisy but very sensitive.
We have tested the FT857D against a whole lot off other rigs but it is a nice performer on RX.
What we could hear on every other rig we could hear on the FT857D.
Through the years we have tested it against IC7700, IC7200, IC746, IC7400, IC706, IC725, FT920, FT847, FT840, FT1000MP, FT900, FT450, TS130, TS140, TS450, TS2000, TS850, TS480, TS570, TS950, TS940 and many more rigs.
A lot of these rigs sounded better on TX a lot of them sounded better on RX, but we never had the situation that we could copy a station in SSB on one of the other rigs that we couldn't copy on the fT857D.
In CW it kept up a good performance to, but as I am one of the few CW users among my radiofriends, we couldn't test it against whole lot of radios, but it was as good as the FT920 with CW filter and far better as the FT450 , as good as the FT847 with CW filter and as good as the FT900 with CW filter.
TX SSB is not super but with a MD100 mike or the standard MD31 very good readable.
Do not try to do very good super SSB audio with this rig, this is the wrong rig for this.
We have used this rig on really big full size vertical fer 80 mtrs and 2 phased half wave 40 mtr verticls and on 3 phased verticals on 20 mtrs.
A 20 mtr monoband beam 2 x 40 mtrs doublet on 80 mtrs etc.
This rig is a solid performer and with smart use of IPO and ATT it will perform excelent.
It is complete shack in a little box.
73's Jos
