Yaesu FTM-350 Review

[Moleculo]

Anyone experience the radio lockup described on eHam? Required a hard reset.

I have not experienced this. There are a lot of reasons why a radio could lock up, like RFI in the shack. But, maybe that guy got a bad one...who knows?

Also, how about an update on the suction cup mount. Is it viable or problematic?

It's definately viable, but it could be better. It doesn't have that much adjustable range; you basically can only swivel it left and right and rotate it very slightly counterwise and clockwise. You can't adjust it so the face tilts up and down, at all. So, it will work great for fairly level surfaces, but not if you're trying to level out the face on a very slanted dash. A Lido mount is probably a lot more viable solution.

 

[KO4GS]

It seems that a ball joint on that L-bracket would make a huge improvement.

 

[climbr]

Thank you so much for these reviews & pics!! I look forward to your APRS summary! op:

 

[Moleculo]

Because the APRS functionality is one of the main reasons for buying this radio, I figured it was worth it's own thread. I also thought this would be a good way to isolate any questions related to that functionality. Check out the review here:

http://www.worldwidedx.com/vhf-uhf-...539-yaesu-ftm-350-aprs-review.html#post173491

 

[Moleculo]

I just had my radio lock up hard on me. Has anyone else that has purchased this radio experienced this? I was messing around with the COM port data settings, trying to connect to the radio at the time with a terminal software. It's entirely possible that the cause of the lockup was something related to the PC and not caused by the radio. I'll keep an eye on this to see if it happens again.

 

[Skysho]

Did you have to do full reset or was just powering it down able to get it back in operation? Also I noticed on RT Systems website they expect to have the programming software for the VX-8AD done in about 4 weeks and the FTM-350 shortly after that.

 

[Moleculo]

I didn't have to do a "full reset" of the radio; I had to disconnect the power. After this happened, I decided to see if it would happen again all on its own. So, I left the radio powered on but did not use it at all. It was left with the APRS modem on, beaconing every 10 minutes and monitoring a simplex 2m frequency. The radio locked up again today, after about 20 hours or so. I reset it again and within about 5 hours it locked again. I had not used it at all during this time. I saw on another site that a voltage drop was thought to be the cause, however my radio is in my house on a 100 amp power supply, running at 14 volts. My suspicion is that it recieves a malformed APRS packet that locks up the radio.

 

[Moleculo]

I just locked up again, 30 minutes after the last post. This time the screen was solid white / clear...with no text.

 

[Skysho]

Uh oh...something isn't right. I've only had mine on with APRS functioning for an hour or less. When I leave today I'll turn it on and keep the radio on all day if I'm able and let it beacon more frequently to see if anything happens.

I will flip the other band over to a simplex freq too, just in case. Made my apologies to the repeater owner for my disruption last week. I could have shut up because the local ARES groups are doing packet training and he said it always seems to happen afterward.

 

[doctordave]

System locking up?

Good morning Gentlemen,

Thanks for the superb reviews!

My Kenwood D-710 just died on me after almost 4 years of good service.....looking around for a replacement and am intrigued by this new release from Yaesu. I'm actually just gonna buy something just for the radio & related bells/whistles - and likely not use APRS.....I've loved the design of the D710....and even more so like the Yaesu design.

Have you had any lockups at all when just using the radio function and not using APRS? An eham reviewer mentioned lockups - but didn't specify in what setting they occured and another ham posted elsewhere regarding a few lockups in about 2 days. Any issues at all when just using the standard transceiver part of this package?

Thanks much. 73's.

Dave

 

[Moleculo]

Good morning Gentlemen,
Have you had any lockups at all when just using the radio function and not using APRS? An eham reviewer mentioned lockups - but didn't specify in what setting they occured and another ham posted elsewhere regarding a few lockups in about 2 days. Any issues at all when just using the standard transceiver part of this package?

Mine has started locking up frequently. I started a log here: http://www.worldwidedx.com/vhf-uhf-bands-vhf-uhf-rigs/42309-yaesu-ftm-350-lock-up-problems.html where I'm publicly documenting what features were in use when it locked. Hopefully this information will be useful for when I have to send the radio back in. I encourage any others to contribute to this log so we can help get this issue resolved.

I still haven't posted the review of the GPS funtionality. I want to shoot a short video to show it, but it's been raining so bad here that I haven't had a chance to do it. Hopefully I'll be able to soon.

 

[Bubba]

Displaying Frequency and Alpha

moleculo,

Thanks for all the great info!

I wondered if it is possible for the display to show the frequency in the large font and the alpha tag in the smaller font above it?

Bubba

 

[Wise87]

moleculo,

I wondered if it is possible for the display to show the frequency in the large font and the alpha tag in the smaller font above it?

Bubba

Good question.

 

[Moleculo]

moleculo,

Thanks for all the great info!

I wondered if it is possible for the display to show the frequency in the large font and the alpha tag in the smaller font above it?

Yes you can; it's a setting in the Display Setup menu. Here's an example showing a single band displayed, and it works the same way if you're showing both bands:

 

[Bubba]

Display

Thanks for the pic moleculo!