{"id":14,"date":"2016-02-02T18:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T18:02:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2016-02-27T03:06:58","modified_gmt":"2016-02-27T03:06:58","slug":"first-ride-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/n5hrk-blog\/first-ride-review\/","title":{"rendered":"First Ride Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

My new Yaesu FTM-100DR seems to be working well. One of my biggest concerns was whether or not I could hear the speaker and it is loud and clear where it is.<\/p>\n

In the driveway at home, after installing the radio, I could not hit the 145.33 repeater. Now is seems that I may have been hitting the repeater, but not hearing it.<\/p>\n

With the 35 watt HT\/amp combo, I could hit the repeater, but reports were that I was noisy while still a few miles from home, with readability dropping to essentially unusable by the time I got home. Last night, reports were that it was still clear all the way to my neighborhood road. A little more power (50 watts) seems to have made a difference.<\/p>\n

Receive-wise, however, the Yaesu did not seem to hear the repeater as well as I got closer to home, especially once I was off the main highway. However, we had also had a little rain and there could have been some propagation issues, particularly at the fringe. Receiver sensitivity, as measured by the ARRL labs in their reviews of both the FTM-100DR and the ID-51 (two years apart) indicates only a 0.01 microvolt difference in favor of the Icom. I’m not sure that figure alone is enough to account for the perceived difference between the two radios, particularly since the ID-51 in my truck had a coax jumper to the amplifier, the amplifier itself and a different coax to a magnetic mount for the same antenna, versus the Yaesu’s much simpler direct connection to a new coax to the same antenna. I will just have to see how it works over time; that was only the first day.<\/p>\n

Thus far, however, I really like the radio. I can hear the audio, it reaches out and the display is large and clear enough to see. Well, when I can see<\/b> it.
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The steering wheel spoke is in the way.<\/p>\n

So, as I was planning anyway, I will remote mount the head, but I can leave the main unit where it is, with the mic still plugged directly into it. There is no need to extend the mic as well.<\/p>\n

Also, there are firmware updates for all pieces that can be updated, the control panel, the main radio and the DSP. Updating the radio and DSP requires flipping a switch on the main board, accessible from a rubber covered hole in the top of the case and the control panel has it’s own update switch, too. I may make a video of the process since I haven’t found where anyone else has.<\/p>\n

BTW, I have not chased down a Fusion digital signal at this time, so no review on that yet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My new Yaesu FTM-100DR seems to be working well. One of my biggest concerns was whether or not I could hear the speaker and it is loud and clear where it is. In the driveway at home, after installing the radio, I could not hit the 145.33 repeater. Now is seems that I may have … Continue reading First Ride Review<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-n5hrk-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135,"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/1135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.n5hrk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}