I bought my first one at the $699 price and thought it was a bargain. After running it mobile for 6 months I couldn't resist buying a second one when I saw them at $629. This article is 100% accurate in my opinion about the FT-891. If you need a compact, high quality HF rig it will perform great! 73! Keith WD0FIA
It's interesting that you mentioned being able to work weak signals better with the Yaesu than with an IC-7300. I don't own an FT-891 but I have IC-7300 and a Yasu FTDX-3000. While I like my IC-7300, I found that my FTDX-3000 does a much better job pulling weak DX signals on a busy band. The Yaesu has a noticeably quieter receiver too. Obviously FTDX-3000 is a more expensive radio as well but I wanted to mention this.
I happen to own both the FTdx-3000 and the FT-891 and must add that for each intended purpose the rigs are great. I love my 3000 in the shack but would never ever think to lug it around as a portable. The 891 offers just enough amenities to make it a great portable. I'm content with each.
One of the reasons I am ignoring the Sherwood numbers on all but the top 3 or four radios. Too many variables with the rest, to call one rig that much better, and I don't want to be caught up in the sales hype. I will add that I am still miffed at the low output of my Icom 7300, due to an extremely agressive ALC. It may put out a very clean 100w, but if your voice is a comparatively peakless table chat at 100w, we have a problem vs other rigs that allow shouts to come through in peaks.
After reading the super detailed OP and many of the comments over the past few weeks, I am strongly inclined to purchase an 891. They are more expensive here in Canada than the prices quoted in the comments, but still a fraction of the 7300's and the like. I want a compact footprint radio - and can get over the no UHF/VHF. I don't see myself hiking up too many SOTA mountains (none here in Ontario), so the bigger battery needed isn't as much of an issue if portable. Thanks again for the discussion and the post. ~73 Mike VE3MXU
It's a lot of radio for the money, but it is not perfect. Keep that in mind. There is a thread about hiss, and I have some comments on that. There is some hiss in it, which in my opinion, renders my rear speaker port useless for headphones (it's mono, and I use the front headphone jack at the mic cable entry point, which is stereo, anyway). I also get a small amount of hiss from that front left side stereo earphone port, also, when the RF gain is turned completely up full, and I raise the AF gain. I do not hear it when using the internal speaker, or my external amped speakers. I took it up the mountain, today, to a low noise environment. I was not bothered by it. This radio is currently less expensive than every HF radio, other than Alinco, but includes a 3K roofing filter, 32-bit DSP, and it records/plays back your CQ calls. The DSP in it out-performs my Icom 7300, and it puts out a strong signal, where the 7300's strict ALC tamps peaks down far too much, imho. If you are on a budget, this is a great radio. It is NOT in the league with other radios costing $300 more, and higher, but it will pull signals in like them. Heck, despite the shortcomings, it beats my Icom 7300 at my noisy QTH!
I read the comments about the hiss which was quite interesting and the work around with the somewhat secret side earphone jack. With all the plusses and minuses being weighed in, and the real user experiences, I think I could be in for a good bit of fun should I get one. Thanks for the original post too. For sure food for thought. ~Mike
I have not noticed a low output on my 7300 but I've been using an external audio processor with a compressor and audio effects, with a quality microphone. My only issue with the 7300 is it's ability to copy weak signals. The FTDX-3000 does a much better job. There is basically nearly zero noise at my QTH. The S-meter stays at zero o both radios on 20-10 meters ( no valid signal) and it may get S1 noise on 40 meters on a bad day.
Have you turned off the AGC on the 7300, and boosted the signal? That is where I find the 7300's true power is (in addition to the bandwidth filter). Both are deep in menus. Maybe you know this, but long-press the AGC button in the menu. You will now see three settings that you can change. Set one of the 3 choices to zero delay, by turning the big tuning dial. You now have a choice that turns off the AGC. Choose that on a weak signal, and then boost the snot out of the signal with the RF GAIN dial. But be careful when doing this, because a loud signal will blow your ears out. My big problem is that at my QTH, it is too noisy to make best use of this, and I find better NR is more advantageous.
Yes, of course I tried different AGC settings, including turning AGC off and adjusting RF gain. I also use IP+ feature most of the time. The FTDX3000 just has a better receiver which is not surprising. Icoms have always been kind of noisy. I used to have an IC-756proIII and it was even noisier than the IC-7300. The FTDX3000 is just a lot quieter and I can take advantage of this because on my QTH being out in the country and the shack being about 80 yards from the house. All lights in the shack use incandescent bulbs only. The "air" is very quiet here. I don't know how you guys deal with horrendous RF noise in the city lots. This would drive me nuts. I still like my 7300. I bought it for camping and Field Day activities. It will go into our travel trailer and the FTDX3000 will remain being my primary HF rig.
Yes, dealing with noise is pretty bad. On the flip side, there are about a half million JA ops that are 750 miles away, if you just want to make contacts. I'm usually 5/9+10db at just 100w, to those guys, with my dipole.
Now down to $599 at HRO , getting harder to pass that deal up. That's getting down to Xiegu (sic) territory.
$599 wow! I about bought one and came across a steal of a deal on a 706 mk2g. I immediately installed a 500hz cw filter and it is real nice. At the current price, I still may pick one up. That is unreal....
I just bought one from gigaparts for $599 and had a $10 coupon discount, $589 delivered. Difficult to beat in my mind.
