EVERY HAM RADIO ENTHUSIAST NEEDS ONE OF THESE!!! 

I came here to say just this. there is a fuse that gets shorted when you connect the power. The fuse can be replaced of course but its super tiny.

It's also called the Yaesu VX-5r

made in japan then, made in (insert poor quality manufacturing company country) now

The triband version is US only

I own the th-f6a for about 8 years. Purchased an aftermarket antenna and 4 milliamperes batteries and it’s unbeatable!

The 4ah battery rocks

@@The-Skinnwhat antenna is better foe vhf, uhf and hf?

I hate that when you can't use a better antenna for MW. Force you to the ferrite coil inside. External antenna port should be just that...External! Or switchable without micro surgery.

From the manual, page 35: “Although the supplied wide-band helical antenna is used for receiving B-band frequencies, due to the size and length limitation, it may not be suitable for low HF band (below 10.1 MHz) reception. The transceiver features a built-in bar antenna for the reception frequency below 10.1 MHz. The transceiver automatically switches to the bar antenna when you select a frequency below 10.1 MHz for the B-band. However, you can connect an external antenna to the antenna connector instead.” Menu selection 26 enables/disables the ferrite antenna.

@@rah1420usa Thank You Rich.

I wouldn't take anything on trust given how his was just taped to the battery pack.

Same here.

I believe that the TH-F6A and the TH-F7E are the same vintage. The F6 is the tri-bander for the US market and the F7 is a dual-bander for Europe and most of the rest of the world. They are both covered by the same owner's manual.

Good point. More recent rigs like FT-817/818, IC-705, Xiegus and many more are not much larger or heavier than the MXs and do give you all the bands plus a raft of bells and whistles. However, a modern version of the MX could be made tiny, cheap and efficient. I suspect there would be a healthy demand for a decent commercially made modern MX type CW/SSB single bander.

I had one of those as well. First proper radio I had, it was amazing. I opened up mine as well.

Full circle Colin! How you doing?

@@andykirby not to bad, off work for the last 2 months with an herniated disc in the lower neck. How are you.

Oh blimey, not good, plenty of time for radio?! Yeah I'm good thanks, seen much of Neil?

@@andykirby yes, we are still crew mates.

Yes you are right. It is a shame. A kenwood answer to the 705 would have been great I'm sure but I think they've been slow to move over to the SDR space. Icoms software can't be beaten at the moment

@@andykirby I'm not sure, but I think I heard that Icom just bought this technology from Rohde & Schwarz

Kenwood transceivers are superior in audio compared to the other brands.

Yes they do but don't worry the cells inside are not at 1V the battery has a protection circuit which cuts off the output when the cells get to around 2.5-3V

@@andykirby Ah...greatly relieved!

Where did you find a drop-in charger? 73

@@John-cf5im Batteries America EMS-42K...

@@donr2670 Thanks for responding. 73

It does 🙂

Cheer Mick, thanks for the coffee 😉👍🏻

Funny you mention SSB on V/U, in handheld terms. I was discussing similar about the lack of even a rudimentary (even monoband, but multimode) handheld - thinking more that it would be killer 10/6 item, but as a V/U (or V or U monobander), I'm sure it would sell to those who owned stuff like the IC-251 'transportable' MM sets as a handheld extension of the setup. Now given most DV radios use DV over FSK or tunnelled FSK over an existing voice modulation mode (depends on actual DV mode) a multimode handie or even say an SSB/FreeDV dual mode handy would be something a bit special - even an SSB/DMR or SSB/*insert preferred DV mode* on U/V or monoband upwards of 30 MHz would be interesting at least - personally I'd buy it for novelty value as well as to aggresively use. After all, you get then two bits at DX potential (SSB definitely is DX ready even on V & U) in a small package. What probably made that Kenwood a short lived one-off or a short run model, was the cost - sadly there's really been no 'new' Kenwood handies that weren't out of newbie price range but even that radio new was well into high end scanner money+ (probably walked over every scanner too in it's time I suspect, as I remember Trio/Kenwood gear having pretty solid receivers of old). But certainly that's definitely an spec relevant alternative to the often out of stock Yaseu VX-series, even if it's a used item. One for the collection at least as feature wise it's in a bit of an exclusive rarified air territory.

Yes SDR's are cool, I have several dongles but even with the smallest PC (I use GPD win) you can't pull it out of your pocket and listen quickly or TX 😉

@@andykirby this is Why We have a Nice Hobby that We can Explore All Aspects of Ham Radio!

That SDR alone is a third more than I paid for my TH-F7E this summer. :)

Yes, se radio but your has the extra band.🙂

Of course! I'd rather use my big HF radio too but the point is this fits in your pocket!

@@andykirby Exactly, that's the stuff. If you're in some place with that radio and you need power to get out and don't have nothing more than the 5w of it and other factors...

It's the TH-F7E or in the US it was the F6 I believe.

Thanks, yeah someone else said that. I didn't think the volume level between the two was a lot different, the yaesu audio was more harsh, that was my first impression.

But Andy does the music for Louis I do like both equally

Just receive unfortunately.

@@andykirby Thanks KO4HPC 73

No, shame..

Radio will throttle back to protect itself. These radios aren't that sensitive to antenna issues. If a radio was to fail at the first sign of an antenna fault it would be a very expensive and frustrating hobby! 73

Yeah a radio transmits on FM and a transceiver is a Crossband mode DMR repeater. Some transmitters have a multimedia path resonator.

Hahaha! Fortunately it doesn't smell at all but I know EXACTLY what you mean ewwww.

@@andykirby YEPPERS!!

I tested SSB up to 27Mhz, it works there but yeah I think once you get into VHF it's not available.

@@andykirby on the th-f6a it is available on 2meter and 70cms.

RX SSB is available up to 470 MHz. Beyond that (up to 1.3 GHz), it's just AM and FM.

Yeah, I hear ya but the radio shuts down after 15 seconds on TX, that's not right👍🏻

Ohh shit now I see that little shit dose Upper and lower side band as well wow

😅👍🏻

Briefly then when I went mobile I switched radios.

Try it and let me know 😅

@@andykirby I think I regained consciousness about a hour later.