I had a good bit of fun this afternoon messing with my humble YAESU FT-2980. It was the 145 Alive event that fellow YouTuber Tim G5TM has been organising. Its a great idea and certainly does exactly as intended and indeed 145 Megahertz is definitely alive today with lots of signals coming through on the 2 meter FM part of the band. 

I was on for just over an hour and enjoyed making QSOs with both portable and fixed stations that were coming in quite nicely with my mono band Diamond F23 vertical antenna. 

The WX is wet, so I was quite happy to be in doors today enjoying playing radio. Thanks to all that went out and set up portable, it was good to hear plenty of operators making waves on a usually quiet band. Despite my long absences I do enjoy 2 meters FM simplex and it's good to get on my FT-2980 for a change. It is my most simple but effective radio in the shack and is definitely still going strong. It was spot on for the job with a very good output power of 85 watts into the high gain mono band triple stacked co linear antenna. My signal reports were good but although I am high up here in the Pennines there are so many big hills and mountains I don't hear everything as good as HF and Satellite bands but still did reasonably well with some great contacts in the log. Thanks all. 73.

Last night was another fun filled event as the MegaStream crew once again hit the live stream button on YouTube. We all managed plenty of QSOs and the pileups were fantastic fun, in the end I logged 89 stations. The best DX was Prince Edward Island, Brazil and Lithuania. I managed quite a few EU stations and lots of Inter G. The results will be available more than likely by next weekend, I wonder who was the first to work all of the MegaStream Stations which were - LB0FI, MM0OPX, 2E0UKH, M0GQC, G5STU and M0XXT

 I just wanted to thank everyone that called in and helped to make the event another successful one. I also want to thank everyone that watched live on YouTube and kept me company on my live chat. Sorry I did not get much live chat talk time as you could see I was nonstop working stations through the pileup. It was great to see and hear so many fellow Hams, I was very happy to have my YouTube friends supporting my station from around the World Thanks All! We even had No 1 YL Radio Amateur R1BIG Raisa on the channel chat live and direct with us, from St Petersburg in Russia. 😍. Catch you all again soon and enjoy your day! 

The ISS is back passing by at a time where I am more likely to catch it. Tonight the signal was good both from ISS and from my Ground station.  The Video above was the earlier pass, followed by a next late night pass around about 2310 local time you can see it below. Thanks for visiting check out my YouTube channel for more satellite and ISS videos.

Its just over a year since I parted with my savings 😁 and treated myself to the YAESU FTDX101MP.  Since owning this fabulous transceiver I have had hours of pleasure getting used to it which was quick enough and reasonably painless. The radio has been fantastic to operate and the reception quality is the best I have ever experienced. I have been using the YAESU M-70 desk mic which if you remember I got free as part of the deal along with £85 cash back from YAESU. The microphone is nice to use with a good ergonomic design and with the radios onboard equaliser set for my preference the audio reports have been coming in with compliments especially from the more weaker DX contacts. 

So my friends, you can guess I will be holding on to the FTDX101MP and my FT-1000mp will be there as a portable or back up transceiver. I am really happy I got this radio and since installing it at my QTH I have been using it barefoot with the standard 200 watts rather than running my amplifiers. I have been working up and down the bands with no messing about tuning. This is very enjoyable and less tedious. Maybe I will use my amplifiers again when propagation is poor but currently I prefer the lower risk of any fireworks occurring which tends to happen with HF amplifier use. 

I still haven't fully accustomed myself with everything that this fine transceiver has to offer and I have not been bothered to carry out any firmware updates as yet. I checked my FTDX101MP out against some of the display read out issues that I have read in various groups but didn't have any faults showing on my model, so unless you get something really special in the update I will be hanging fire for now. 

Overall verdict is:

Awesome radio, way easier to operate than expected, lovely looking and performance is faultless. I love the large display, the layout is clear and the waterfall or 3DSS spectrum display makes finding stations a simple task as well as easily seeing and selecting a clear frequency to operate on. Both waterfall and 3DSS displays can be set up easily to your user preference using the touch screen. The screen on the transceiver itself is large, so I personally do not use a separate monitor but obviously for those that have more space its another feature to explore. The DSP filters really make it happen when the low signals are struggling to be heard but in all fairness the receive quality alone is amazing and more or less all bands have 0 or very low noise levels which I have being enjoying and I found it most noticeable on 40 and 80m. These bands previously whilst on my older transceiver were quite noisy and sometimes quite difficult to work, but with the 101MP SDR receiver not a worry anymore.  The feeling of satisfaction is with me every time I power on this beauty. If you are considering spending money on one I can honestly say if you like YAESU radios this one is better than anything you have used already. Hope you find this short post helpful for you with your decision. 73 tnx for passing by. 

 

This pass was directly overhead which meant my antenna array had to turn a full revolution as it hit the stop point N 0 degrees. This happens sometimes but still good to see the antenna on video live as i tracks. The image is a bit dark but that is because it is actually my bedtime and its late here in Yorkshire England.  73 thank you as ever for following this old blog.Good DX!