Lion_Dog posted a thread about his pending receipt of a new Yeasu FT-991. I asked that he submit a quick review about it once he was on the air, as I was in the market for the same rig. As fortune would have it, I wound up grabbing one from the local HRO, and so - if it is of interest to anyone - I guess the ball is in my court for a short eval.
As I mentioned in the other thread, I was looking at the FT-991 only because my brother was setting up his station and had selected this radio. We like to have twin gear where possible, as it can simplify things. My prior main radio was the Yeasu FT-897, which I have REALLY enjoyed. Left to my own devices, I would have stayed happily married to the old girl, but now, grumble grumble, I needed to change gear. Now that I’ve spent a little time with the FT-991, I must admit that the good ‘ol FT-897 does seem rather dated!
The biggest change I’ve noticed isn’t the whiz-bang touch screen, it’s the quality of the receive audio. Ever since I added a KX3 to the station, I’ve noticed how “muddy” the audio of the FT-897 was. It’s not that you couldn’t use it, but it was a little fatiguing to decipher weak stations. By contrast, the FT-991 has very clean audio. Stations just above the noise level are significantly easier to copy.
That touch screen is quite the convenience factor when it comes to setting up memories for my local VHF / UHF repeaters. Appending a name to a memory channel no longer requires slowly turning the VFO through a lengthy list of alpha numeric characters. It’s as easy as knocking out a text on your smart phone. Direct frequency entry is also possible through the touch screen. Again, considerably more convenient than having only the VFO.
Touching the “band” button brings up a screen which lets you quickly choose which band to jump to. Also, you can ”teach” this band screen which frequencies you wish to navigate to within that band. I use a similar function on the KX3 to quickly jump to the lower end of my general class privileges within a given band, and this is a real time saver.
The DSP and notch filtering capabilities of this rig are supposed to be quite good. Haven’t really played with them yet but will be doing so.
The built in antenna tuner has worked very well, tuning my Chameleon Emcomm end-fed on 10 through 75 meters without complaint. It even seems to tune up on 60 meters, which my LDG tuner on the 897 was reluctant to do.
The band scope feature is not something I was longing for, but it is interesting to be able to see that there is a signal just up or down the band and tune to it.
Despite its greater complexity, I found the FT-991 to be quite intuitive in operation. I hooked it up and ran it for a time with no issues, checking the manual only when I was ready to create and label memories for the local repeaters.
Negatives? Nothing huge noted at this time, but the control layout is a bit cramped. I have found myself using the VFO lock button, as I frequently bump the VFO when reaching for other controls. Turning resistance of the VFO is said to be adjustable, and I may need to tighten it up.
It’s a tiny thing, but I would prefer the key jack be on the back of the unit. It just makes for one less cable sticking out the front of the rig.
I also miss the meter port on the FT-897, as I still like to look at an analog meter and really liked my LDG meter in concert with the FT-897.
I know that’s not a very thorough evaluation, but my exposure to the new rig has been limited. There are some negative reviews of this radio on line, and I hope those were just the result of “teething problems” with early production. If you are in the market for a new rig with modern features, give the FT-991 a look.
Cheers... Jim