Thursday 4 July 2013

Uprating the 857

I have owned my Yaesu  FT857D for about 9 years. I bought it to use portable and apart from a stint in the shack as a 6 and 2 metre rig that is what it has been used for.
However portable work usually involves less than efficient antennas, or at least the way I do portable does! In the past I have used the Buddistick and now I have the Pro Whip vertical, for what they are the antennas work quite well but are not as effective of course as my doublet at home.
To make the best of things then I need to use CW. My CW is still a bit hesitant but is coming along and of course I need to practice more! The 857 however doesn't have a CW filter and the standard SSB filter is a bit wide for CW when the bands are busy.
So I decided to bite the bullet and order and fit the 500hz CW filter for my 857.

it arrived today



So eager to install it I set about removing the top cover of the rig. I have never needed to take the cases off the 857 before, but I thought it would be easy enough, just remove the screws at the top......................but wait....the covers would not come off! The Answer? Read the manual, you have to remove these screws which are attached to the bottom panel too!

Once the covers were off it was an easy matter to drop the filter in






There is still space for another filter so I could add the 300hz one but I don't think I will need it and they are very expensive.

Anyway I put the rig back together and switched on:

As you can see the rig has recognised it has a 500hz filter so all is well. The filter makes quite a difference so it should give me an incentive to operate CW on holiday!

5 comments:

  1. You will sure find a pleasant difference using the 500hz filter. The 300 would be good for real busy times like contests. With the help of the filter your CW copying skill will improve as well.
    Mike

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  2. Hi Mike

    Maybe I will save my pennies and get the 300hz as well!

    Kevin

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  3. Good morning Kevin, yes the filters are pricey I just looked them up over this way and for the 300 it's 215.00.
    Mike

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Hi Ian,

    It certainly makes CW a lot easier to listen two as with the standard filter it wasnt unusual to have two or three different QSOs within the filter bandwidth.
    Hope to catch you on the key soon. I am around generally weekday evenings 8 to 9pm or so.

    73 Kevin

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