I bought my first fixed HF radio transceiver Yaesu FT-710 on December 2022. This is my work-in-progress review of FT-710.
Last update: 14-APR-2024
Accessible, at least for me.
You need to set Operation Setting - General - -> RF/SQL VR
to SQL (FM only) to enable SQL only for FM modes.
No additional ringing observed for CW APF.
The FUNC knob is useful for RF POWER and various other controls.
Convenient. Sufficient for Search and Pounce operation on CW contests.
Intuitive and easy to find out the actual signals especially for CW and data modes.
The tuner has much wider range of matching than I first thought. The tuner worked very well with my Diamond Antenna 2.2m-length whip antennas with five 5m-length counterpoise wires for 40m to 6m bands.
An external antenna tuner is strongly recommended, though, especially for low bands. The internal tuner refused working on a 40m frequency far from the resonant point.
The noise blanker works perfectly for the power line noise in the dry air.
See Receiver Test Data of Sherwood Engineering Inc. for the further details.
High sensitivity and quiet RX, very good at digging into weak signals of FT8.
The spectrum scope works well also for TX signals.
Bright and crisp.
Cool and stable.
A single cable is sufficient to connect FT-710 to a Ubuntu PC.
ZIN is useful when you need to instantly zeroing in to another station on CW.
(I don't really need the SPOT function, though.)
(Thanks to Michael, G7VJR, for the suggestion of trying the ZIN key.)
APF should be at a higher priority than CONTOUR menu, at least for CW.
I don't understand how this Automatic Mic Gain Control (AMC) works on Data modes. I just set the AMC LEVEL to 100% and leave it as is, but this is confusing.
Observable white noise hiss sound exists above 3kHz. An external passive audio LPF is needed to reduce the hiss. (Note: this is not only for FT-710 but quite common among almost all the transceivers being sold since the 2000s or much older.)
I set the KEYER TYPE to ACS. I guess more smooth keying can be achievable.
The dial locking does not completely lock the transceiver anyway. You can do most of the things by touching the TFT display.
Menu backup data is NOT compatible between FT-710 100W JP model and FT-710M (50W) JP model, presumably due to the difference of maximum output power.
On the other hand, Memory List backup data IS compatible.
No actual harm, but I don't want to fill in the SD card for my accidental operation.
MONI LEVEL should be able to set relative to the main AF GAIN. The current implementation of setting an independent level is not intuitive. When the AF GAIN is set to zero and suddenly a loud CW side tone is coming out from the speaker, that surprises me and my family. I have to plug in something to the EXT SPKR output jack to prevent this.
TX Monitor output does not come out from USB or REAR audio. This should be selective. I need to add another USB audio interface to pick out this sound from the EXT SPKR output.
The VFO Mode Indicator should also show the tranmission status, as the BUSY/TX Indicator does.
I don't use the following functions and options so far. These functions and options should not be sold or implemented as the mandatory parts of the transceiver.
This is utterly useless for me. I'm always using the Waterfall display.
This is unusable when you mainly listen to the signal by headphones or earphones. I completely disabled this by setting AESS volume to 0%.
I actually tested AESS later with SP-40. It did sound good, but it was nothing more than using two speakers simultaneously. If you have a luxury space of putting SP-40 besides FT-710, using AESS might be a good option.
These AF tone functions are utterly unusable, so long as the AF output audio amplifier generates hiss sound. A better headphone amplifier should have been implemented.
Unnecessary for me. Duly disabled.
Unnecessary for me. Duly turned off.
I don't need the external speaker. I want a smaller box. While this speaker gives a fairly good sound, I don't think this speaker is worth a mandatory option. (See AESS section of this article too.)
YAESU released the Field models of FT-710 later. They made a good move.
I think this function does not belong to the Mode window. It's unnecessary and confusing. This function should have been given another window, and should be able to disable completely.
I don't need this key and function. This key should be assignable to another function.
Occupying the USB Type B connector for just another propritary interface should not be justified. YAESU should open up the CAT and other protocol details between SCU-LAN10 and FT-710.