FT-950: first impressions...

I have had my 950 for about a month now and I love it. the price at R&L was cheap. I was able to buy the external speaker and the MD-100 desk mic for about the cost of a 746 pro.

I have no problem with the RX. I have been able to pull out stations I would have missed in the past, due to QRM. I have gotten more great signal reports then I can ever remember. I'm very happy with it.

Still learning the menus, so I will let you know how they go.

Overall I'm happy camper.

 

ft950 comparison to ic746pro

i have tested these 2 rigs with the same antenna the ft950 yaesu verses the icom 746 pro
on an extremely weak dx station and trying every posible adjustment the signal could be understood on the ft950 yaesu and could not be understood on the 746 pro icom this was an extremely weak signal and the difference was not enough to be of a lot of importance since both recievers are excelent pieces of equipment the recieve audio is better on the icom 746 pro the ft950 has too much base in the audio but with very careful adjustments it can be improved

w5vzm

 

Puzzled?

I am a bit puzzled by the negative response to this radio. I purchased one with the newest pep 950 firmware direct from Yaesu and couldn't be happier. The rx is every bit as hot as the 756 Pro lll but without the high price tag. Additionally,I have compared the new IC 7600 side by side with the 950 with the pep 950 upgrade and notice very little difference. Maybe I stumbled upon a few operators on the forum that have had a bit of problems with the older firmware. But with the new upgrades, most of the rx issues discussed have been remedied; turning this radio into a real valuable addition to the shack. 73

 

I hear that! As I just found out about my '857, there's tweaking to do to get it to sound good. The last new radio I put on the air was an ICOM 701 & it had the classic panel and no menus. Today's radios, OTOH, whew! They require a whole new set of instincts. but...the good news is you can tweak stuff that on a '701 would have been formidable, like transmitted carrier placement, etc.

I don't know if I'm talking apples and oranges here ('950 & '857) but my experience with the DNR in the '857 is very good. While mobiling, it does a really good, in fact, surprisingly good job in cleaning up the audio. It's possible that it's optimized for the type of noise one gets from a car. Come to think of it, it doesn't do squat with the horrendous line noise I have at home.

As far as bassy received audio goes, that's kind of a stumper. That, of course, could be because your BP shift is turned on and set wrong, but I'd be surprised to hear that you haven't already checked that. Other than that, does you radio have a bfo or received carrier setting in the menu? I believe mine does, and that could be contributing...but again, it would be surprising if it came stock with it set "wrong."

Finally, the stock mic levels in an '857 are way too high. I don't know if this situation is the same in a '950, but it'd be worth checking that out. If you get a report of muffled audio, that could be the problem. If the mic level is too high you'll have excessive ALC action, resulting in muffled audio.

Good luck & have fun!

 

hi,
it is posible to the ft950 user and md100a8x write on this forum the settings to the eq and proc, i look the best audio settings to the md100 desk mick and ft950.

 

Ft 950

I have had an ft 950 for a year now and other than adding the heil hm10 mic the radio was perfect right out of the box. I have had nothing but excellent reports. I added the upgrades and the receive was improved a little. The problems I hear with the audio complaints can be solved by resetting the radio back to factory settings and leaving the single-wide-band audio to the professional radio stations. There is no since in spending allot of money for a good radio and then making it sound trashy. As for processor, well, you know!
As for the receive, well, I had to change only the contour because of my hearing problem. And most of the time I don't use the contour at all. That was easy. If you have poor receive audio after trying a few minor adjustments you may by some slim chance got one that may need to go back to the factory or again just do a reset.

I have had radios of all makes over the years and other than the ts 520s that I still use the ft 950 is hard to beat.

 

FT950 soft

HI
New version of software for mic equalizer and menu-settings-backup ft950
http://82.210.182.160/FT-950menu.zip
73!
Tom

 

Owner of a Yaesu FT-950 Now

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I have read all the reports and decided to buy a 950 from a local Ham moving to a Flex radio.
This is the first Yaesu purchased by me since the early 80's a FTdx 401 always had kenwood before.
I was a bit worried that a really old idiot would have trouble with a rig that had a larger menu than Denny's but decided to give it a go
I have had no problems setting up menu's, the set from default works fine for me and I have only changed the slow agc to 4000 max a 1 sec delay on s and alc meter, and the only change to any settings is menu 104 I increased to 5 to boost transmit audio with processor.
I am not a camp follower and do not believe any manufacturer is best all are good for differant reasons and I do not believe more money means more radio,
I rate the 950 as fantastic for ssb and DO NOT add the phrase "for the money" ssb is now all I use, the filters and dsp are good and if you are looking for a good rig I would say choose the Yaesu FT-950.
I looked at adding an extension speaker but almost died at the amount of money some companies want for noise cancelling speakers.
I purchased a set of Logitech X-230 2.1 speakers and these are very well made good construction and well worth the extra money to add to the audio output of the 950.

 

Think of the fun you miss, searching for the manual, so you can find the sub-menu that you use to set RF output for tuning up.

Actualy, I played with an FT-950 a few weeks ago at HRO in Denver. They asked me if I wanted the manual. I could only reply that if I needed a manual to check it out, I sure wouldn't buy it.

Seriously, it has some nice features, but I am somewhat confused why some basic functions are on sub-menus.

I have a MK-V, and it has lots of BS that I don't need in the sub-menus, but at least the basic stuff like keyer on/off, keyer speed, RF output, mic gain, proc gain, and other functions are on the panel.

It seems there is a disconnect between the engineers, and actual people that use the radio everyday.

Ergonomics? What's that mean? It means I never need a sub-menu while operating, only during setup.

But that's just me. I would rather rebuild a boat anchor, then spend hours reading manuals.

 

I'm with you on this!