So on my way to DC last week, I stopped in at Universal Radio and bought a Yaesu FT-817ND.
I’ve really wanted a portable radio for travel that didn’t involve building and lugging a full-blown go box. Something I can carry on a plane and take to Florida, for instance. And I’ve discovered lately (see previous post) that you really can work long distances with a few watts. So the 817 seemed like a natural for that.
I didn’t do much more than charge the battery and fiddle with it on my trip. Not much time to begin with and no HF antenna available. So when I brought it home, I hooked it up to my shack computer and G5RV and tried some digital modes.
No dice. Absolutely no RF went out on the wire. Couldn’t figure out why.
So I set it aside and read the manual. I discovered that there is a dedicated DIG mode. Of course I was trying to send digital on USB, like normal. So I switched to DIG mode and voila, the wattmeter jumped and I showed up on PSKReporter.
With only three (3) watts, I was being heard at -12db in Portugal. I didn’t work anyone there but it was showing up on the PSKReporter map.
I think I could grow to like this little rig. I have an ATAS-25 portable antenna coming, we’ll see how that works when it gets here.