01 March 2014

Good news: YAESU has added the DC blocking capacitors at the IF filters of the FT-857D!


Fig. 1. The new FT-857D PCB.
Sometimes I think it's mothing short of a miracle that we can buy new technology products (like our transceivers) at VERY reasonable prices (not exactly so when I got into the hobby, 30 years ago - a handheld transceiver was a very expensive item in my country, it cost more than the monthly wages of a public employee).
In sharp (and delightful) contrast, recently I bought an Agilent E4406A Vector Signal Analyser,  an HP3586A Selective Level Meter and a Hagenuk Digiflex LAN Time Domain Reflectometer from the surplus market, at what must be a tiny fraction of their original cost! Mind you, the E4406A was about 45000 euros less than a decade ago! Long live companies like NOKIA (that's where my wonderful E4406A came from) and the ever-faster changing industry standards!
Fig. 2. The Serial Number.
But I digress... It seems that the nasty filter problem has caught the attention of the manufacturers! Tomi from Romania has sent me a photo of the PCB of the FT-857D he bought recently (Fig. 1 - click on the photos to enlarge), in which we can see that the DC blocking capacitors have been added! Thumbs up for Mama Yaesu! 
Maybe they do that for all their products now. I am sure other manufacturers have also taken steps to cure the nasty filter plague, but I haven't seen any concrete proof yet.
Tomi also sent me the serial number of his rig (Fig.2) - to save those that would like to add the capacitors in their recently-built rigs from the trouble! Thanks, Tomi!