IC756Pro3 or FT-991A?

For use in chasing DX on 20m sideband or on digital modes, at home or while at the cottage.

Pros and cons? Which would you choose and why?

It's a purchasing decision.

73s

 

I'd choose the 991A if I were taking it "to the cottage". It's smaller, lighter, and with VHF/UHF all mode. . . a shack in a box. It's digital ready with USB connectivity and internal sound card. New in the states it comes with a three year warranty. It's a capable DX rig on SSB and CW. Excellent DSP capability, band scope, what's not to like?

 

It depends on what you need. The pro3 has two connectors for HF antennas and a separate socket for the RX antenna. But 991 has VHF/UHF.
Different size and ergonomics.
Oranges and apples...

 

For $1000 IC7300 is better than both. The only thing you will loose comparing to IC756pro3 is ability to hear two frequencies on the same band (helpful for DX operating split). I do not know if 991 can do that.

 

I used to have a 7300 but I sold it because the front end is too flimsy, too prone to overload, clipping and distortion. You wouldn't believe some of the QRM I have here.

I don't try to listen to more than one signal at a time, I do ham radio to relax.

73s

 

I only use HF, 20m is the main band I'm interested in but sometimes 17 and 15m have some activity. Where I am, 40 is barely usable. 80 and 160 utterly impossible here.

73s

 

Did you try to reduce RF gain? This radio has enough dynamic range to work with gain -12dB or even lower. In SDR you need to engage attenuator or turn RF gain down if you have high noise level.

 

Of course I tried attenuation, but the front end is still as delicate as glass bees wings. It made using the radio - when QRM here was bad - an exercise in futility and frustration.

Aside from local QRM from nearby industry and people’s household cheap Chinese wall warts, my wife has her medical devices here some of which also generate QRM.

I sold the 7300 and got myself with the funds a nice Kenwood TS-950SDX, now that radio has absolutely no problems staying afloat on an ocean of QRM. Everything seems superb on this Kenwood!

73s

 

The PROIII is vastly superior in too many ways to count, for HF only operation.

 

I have a 6 meter dipole set up in the attic. But I think the spiders in the attic are more active on that antenna than anything on 6m.

 

You have something really wrong at your location. I am almost sure that without sorting out QRM sources you won't have any success in working HF bands. You need to do this first before start swapping radios. Looking at Google map of your house - you have tall trees behind your house. Move antenna over there as far away from buildings as possible. Having longer coax is less evil than RF noise from devices inside your and your neighbors' houses. I lived in similar environment and had wire antenna hidden in trees and cables routed underground across lawn and trail.

 

It's a lot of local manufacturing about 5 miles or less from my QTH including metal fabrication, welding. A brewery, an autoparts plant. A Hammond electrical plant. a 115kV hydro line. All of them emit some sort of RFI. Plus my wife's medical gadgets, they also create some RFI.

The S meter on 80 and 160 is typically +20 here, on a good day it's down to about S9. 40 comes and goes but my stealth wire antenna works best between 20 and 15m.

73s

 

I have a similar situation and I can work on the air in the windows between the interference.

I have never had 991, but there is a big difference between my 706mk2g and 756pro3. The 756pro3 is much better. It seems to me there are too many compromises and savings in little radios. Even the tuner in 756pro3 works as an additional filter.
The power supply also matters. I changed mine and the local interference through the grid disappeared.

DSP in the yaesu can be newer and better, but without direct comparison on the spot this cannot be understood.

Personally, today I’m not ready to sell or change my old pro3 because this is a good old radio in excellent condition, which lacks only the best antennas.

 

Are you restricted by an HOA to using only "stealth" antennas?

Within 5 miles or less....?

Golly, I'm in a big city and within a few blocks there's all sorts of light manufacturing and about 2-1/2 miles away is the local electric power substation, although our residential distribution lines are only 7200V; I don't know what the high voltage feed to the station is, but it's high enough that it's all brought in on towers about 100' tall with enormous insulators so it may be in the 100kV range.

My noise levels are low, and all (other than atmospheric) are very locally generated, like within my own home or those of close neighbors. The "power line" seems to carry no interfering noises at all, as I can rotate my 20m beam full circle, making it aim at, away from, or perpendicular to the power lines and nothing changes -- still low. But a neighbor's fish tank heater drove me nuts for a while until I found it and he changed it; and small items like battery chargers, timers, the occasional "wall wart" type power supply, etc. all generated some level of RFI until I tracked down each one and unplugged or replaced it. My old (and now long gone) 42" plasma TV was terrible! But thankfully it's gone and I don't even think those are sold anymore so this problem won't return.

Have you tried tracking down the noise sources? I doubt any are 5 miles away and are likely a whole lot more local to you, including within your own home.

Buying a new rig just to see if it deals with noise better is a gamble. Using a separate "low noise" receiving antenna which is highly directional and can be adjusted to null noise may be a better option.

 

Yup, HOA condo here. Can't even put a darned clothesline up. But we're stuck here so I have to make the best of it.

Some radios work better here than others I have found. The IC7300, although very clever and neat, it cannot withstand the QRM here. The TS-950SDX can. The FTdx101D can with help from it's noise filters.

I'm thinking in terms of for going camping, to have a 12 volt operated radio for HF for phone and digital work, when not in use it would be connected up at my QTH and used the rest of the year, this is why I'm interested in which radio would prove to be better.

I did the tracking, that's how I know where the noise is coming from, mostly from local manufacturing and some from my wife's medical devices which I can do nothing about.

There's also some home automation which some of my neighbours have and only God knows what sort of miserable SMPS runs them.

It's a miracle I can hear any signals at all sometimes. 40 is only semi useful, 80 and 160 are hopeless. The QRM spreads up to 6m sometimes.

These digital modes seem to work well through the QRM.

73s