Yaesu FT-847 reviews

if this transceiver has shopped part-defective.
With little works it plays again.
For the price the device is great.
Unfortunately, I miss a FullDuplex-Crossbandrepeater, a Twin-RX and the Memory-name memory.
For Fielddays well suitable.
On small space a lot of technology for most use purposes.

I've owned the FT-847 for 9 years now. I am very happy with it and it is an excellent VHF/UHF radio. It is nice to have an all-in-one radio.

That being said there are a few things the buyer should be aware of before they run out and pick one up.

Right out of the box its HF performance is pretty poor. Many of the mobile HF radios produced during the same time period are better performers. All of the filtering is done in the AF and not the IF section of the receiver. This means the filtering offered on the radio is pretty worthless. This can be improved by aftermarket filters. One of the major flaws is the built in speaker, it is very loud or off, no in between. There are two ways to fix this, one is a well documented mod or use an external speaker. Another issue issue is on UHF, temperature drift has been documented. Again, this is a fairly simple mod to fix this problem. The fix consists of a crystal heater and/or covering the crystal with Styrofoam. Many of the problems and fixes have been documented here: http://www.kb2ljj.com/data/yaesu/ft-847.htm

Even will all the problems listed above, would I trade the radio? NO! This is still a great radio. It would not be a contester's first choice for an HF radio, but for just getting on the air for ragchews or casual dxing/contesting it works great. The only problem is when the bands get crowded and that can be fixed by aftermarket filters.

Bought my 847 when it first came out, and Im still happy with it.
The only flop I have found, is the power switch, but there are fixes online for it.
The other thing I don't like, is the noisy cooling fan.
But all in all, I have had a lot of fun with the rig.
Didn't get to use the sat features, since phase 3D did not work, and I have never got into the FM Birds....

I've had my radio since I bought it new in 2001, and cannot say anything 100% negative about it. I've used it for HF, weak signal, satellite, and some contesting, and it hasn't let me down. I've made only one modification to it which is for the power switch. I never had a problem with it, but since it is getting older, I didn't want the switch to fail on me. I have it on almost every day making contacts, and any problems I've had were operator error. The menu structure isn't complicated at all, and most of the common features are on the face of the radio for you.

I have not used nor own a big $$$ rig to compare it to, nor do I want one. I work almost any station I can hear, and the ones I can't work are due to my antenna (G5RV), and other stations running big power.

I've worked all over Eastern Europe, the Americas, and even Australia on the HF digital modes with the G5RV from my New England location. Computer controlling the rig for HF digital or satellite use is smooth and easy to set up.

The only note I do want to make about the rig (and it's not a complaint) is that it does NOT have VOX. I do have another rig with VOX, but I don't even use the feature. I can't justify spending another ~$500 on an upgrade to a rig with VOX - just press the PTT or build a voice recorder for it if that's what you need.

Over all, I don't plan on selling this rig anytime soon, and would purchase another one if I could! It's a great rig for what it does - if you have the chance, go ahead and get one. You won't be disappointed.

I found the Yaesu FT 847 on Ebay back in September 2010 and by the pictures it was in really poor shape. It had been taken apart by the last owner, (Now a SK) to be fixed (It must have been dropped?) but the job was never finished. The rig, and lots of other gear & transceivers was being sold by the SK's daughter and the Yaesu FT 847 was listed as a parts rig, so I took a chance and won the rig for the sum of $350.00. When the transceiver got here I had a puzzle of parts to start going through I was suprised to find there wasn't as much damage as it seemed to be in the pictures, and most all the parts were there. I ordered what I needed from Yaesu ($27.00 worth) and rebuilt what was broken and in October I tried it out and boy was I happy! I made several DX contacts on 10 meters, it was working fine on all the local repeaters, and I made my first contact to the International Space Station! I've got a little more work to do but all I can say is that Yaesu built these little rigs like tanks! I may be looking for a second one soon, thats if the XYL will let me! LOL!!