Category: UHF/VHF

  • Yaesu FT-857D vs FT-891, G90, FTX-1 Field, FTX-1 Optima, IC-7300 Mark II, and FT-817: Where Each One Actually Wins

    Part of our The Yaesu FT-857D: The Complete Guide. I get asked constantly how the FT-857D stacks up against the rest of the radios in my shack and go-bags, so here’s the honest rundown of where each one wins and where it doesn’t. Quick disclosure up front: I own and regularly use the FT-891, the…

  • Yaesu FT-857D Review: A Great All-Bander Held Back by Its Own Menu

    Part of our The Yaesu FT-857D: The Complete Guide. Still a Legit All-Bander I picked up the FT-857D for a great price and ran it in both the shack and the field kit, though it never rode in the Jeep. The reputation holds up. It’s a full HF/VHF/UHF all-mode radio, SSB, FM, and the data…

  • I Bought a Yaesu FT-857D for a Great Price. Here’s Why I Sold It

    I picked up a used FT-857D for a great price, ran it for a while, and decided it wasn’t for me. Here’s what’s genuinely good about it and why I sold it and went back to the FTX-1.

  • Yaesu FTM-300DR Review: A Compact Dual-Band Mobile Worth Considering

    Part of our Where to Spend Your Money guide. The FTM-300DR sits in an interesting spot in Yaesu’s lineup, compact enough to almost pass for an oversized handheld but built and marketed as a mobile radio with genuine System Fusion capability. Compact Footprint, Real Mobile Power Despite its smaller size compared to traditional mobile radios,…

  • Yaesu FTM-500D Review: A Compact Fusion Mobile

    Part of our Where to Spend Your Money guide. The FTM-500D fills a genuinely useful niche in Yaesu’s mobile lineup: a compact Fusion-capable mobile with a fully detachable head, small enough to work in vehicles where dash space is tight. Detachable Head Design The separated head and body let you mount the display wherever it…

  • How to Read a Repeater Directory Listing (RepeaterBook, TravelPlus)

    A repeater directory entry is dense with abbreviations. Here is what each field actually tells you.

  • What Is a MARS/CAP Mod? How It Works and the Legal Reality

    What a MARS/CAP mod actually does, who’s legally allowed to use it, and how to unlock extended transmit range on the Icom IC-2730A, AnyTone AT-D878UV II Plus, and AT-D578UV III Plus.

  • 1946: The 2 Meter Band Opens and VHF Takes Off

    Part of our The Evolution of Amateur Radio timeline series. The HF bands reopened in late 1945, but the bigger long-term shift for amateur radio happened just after, when the FCC reshuffled the VHF spectrum and handed hams the band that would eventually become the backbone of local and regional communication: 2 meters. A new…

  • 1950s-70s: 70cm Opens and Repeaters Change Local Ham Radio

    Part of our The Evolution of Amateur Radio timeline series. Two meters got amateurs into VHF in 1946, but the real transformation of local ham radio took another three decades to arrive, once hams pushed into UHF and figured out what to do with repeaters. This period covers a lot of ground, from new band…

  • When the Repeater Goes Silent: Your Backup Plan for Grid-Down Comms

    Part of our Emergency Communications and Preparedness guide. Repeaters are one of the best parts of this hobby. Stick a repeater on a tower or a mountain and suddenly two handhelds that couldn’t hear each other across town can talk clearly across a whole metro area. Under normal conditions, this is exactly what GMRS and…

  • Setting Up APRS on the AnyTone AT-D578UV III Plus

    The 578 shares its APRS architecture with the 878, which makes sense since AnyTone builds the CPS around the same feature set across the mobile and handheld lines. The setup steps are nearly identical, but a mobile radio adds a couple of wrinkles worth calling out, starting with the GPS antenna itself. Mount the GPS…

  • Ground Plane Verticals for 2m and 70cm: A Simple Build

    A quarter-wave ground plane vertical is the simplest antenna you can build for VHF and UHF, just one radiating element and a set of radials off a connector. Here is how to put one together.

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