Unfortunately, the highly effective 70cm front-end helix filter has been removed from the 818. The reason is unknown, maybe it was discontinued by the supplier. This makes the 817 a much better choice for 70cm operation under critical conditions, e.g. on a mountain near a radio tower. The CW filter accessory is missed by CW operators. It's no longer available. After more than 20 years and about 200,000 units produced, the time has come for Yaesu to discontinue the 817/818. There are so many 817's available on the used market that nobody should care about Yaesu's decision to discontinue this great little Swiss knife. This little all-rounder has its place in ham shacks around the world. A word about power consumption. One of the main reasons is the frequency generation with a power hungry DDS and PLL. This part of the 817/818 sucks about 200 mA from the battery all the time. That is 50% of the total current. At the time of design, the engineers had no choice but to use a DDS and PLL to generate wideband transceiver applications. Remember that the 817 was designed in the late 90's when modern SDR techniques were far from reality. A lot has changed since then, and the technology in this rig is hopelessly outdated. Anyway, I have a second battery pack with me when I go outdoor with my 818. So I don't care about current consumption and outdated technology. It's just a fun rig. 73
