OBSERVATIONS FROM SCOTLAND                           24th September 2009                              GM1SXX

Yaesu's FT-60

 Toward the end of 2008 my better half hinted that she's like to know what sort of thing... animal, vegetable or mineral, I'd like for my Christmas, in the way of a pressie.  Some time before, the FT-60 had caught my eye, so suitable hints were made in that direction.

Christmas came and I got the FT-60E.  Keen to try it out, I charged the battery and put out a call on  two metres. Fellow radio club member Eddie 2M0EDY came straight back to me and we had a long chat on 2M to check out the radio. It performed rather well for such a dinky little radio.  Better still, it's a dual bander covering 2m & 70Cms, not so unusual these days, but it certainly was competitively priced at around £130.

It's safe to say that the FT-60 is easily my most used radio. It sees daily use,  living  in my  day-bag, switched on and locked, set to 145.400 (our unofficial club frequency)  and ready  for convenient operation.

Shortly after I got the radio, I decided that a speaker-mic was a useful accessory to have, so I duly ordered one from EBay in China. It arrived quite quickly... in just over a week, and has given me a great deal of service on the air.

I always feel that the weak areas with Yaesu's portable radios are batteries and aerials, both being barely adequate for the job.  The FT-817 (another of my radios) is no different in this respect. The stock FT-60 battery doesn't last too long in normal use and the supplied 'rubber-duck' aerial is rather short and puny. I swapped both of these items and have never looked back. This radio has given me superb service over the nine months I've had it.   In the picture you can see the transceiver with it's speaker-mic, Nagoya NA-771 whip, bought from EBay China for £7,  and two batteries, one original, and the other an' SXX Special' made from a dry cell case fitted with a set of Ni-Mh cells. The cells were lightly epoxied into the holder for extra security. I have two such sets of batteries and they greatly outperform the puny Yaesu ones, begging the simple question.... why can't Yaesu do a lot better?

The whip aerial in the photo is a Nagoya NA-771 which easily outperforms the Yaesu original rubber duck  and although it's a bit longer, it's just as convenient to use. I often carry the radio in my inside jacket pocket with the aerial folded over my shoulder and the speaker-mic cable fed down my sleeve with the mic clipped to the sleeve of my jacket. This is an exceedingly comfortable way to operate.

It can't just be me, because I've ordered quite a few more Nagoya NA-771 aerials for club members who have FT-60's.  

Radios that are in regular service suffer considerable wear and tear. This one has stood up very well to the rigours of daily use It's been dropped quite a few times and has seen many trips into the hills and has been thrown in my bag daily for the cycle trip to and from work. It's had around 40 trips to our radio club and is rarely very far from me. In short, it's a real workhorse that can stand the daily grind.

After nine months of fairly heavy use, it has survived very well indeed with few signs of real wear except for on the keyboard, where the screen-printed legends on the keypad are starting to show signs of wear.  They have become a bit faded from the daily use that they see.

The radio has the usual bells and whistles that come as standard, but hardly anyone uses.  I have the memories programmed with all my favourite frequencies, both amateur and airband.   Of course the radio will only TX on amateur frequencies (whew!).

One of our club members who has had an FT60 for longer than I have has managed to wear most of the lettering off his keys through frequent use.  If I have any real criticism of this radio, that's it. A huge shame really because the polycarbonate case of the radio is very tough and seems to be far more suited to the job required than does the keyboard which is just not up to the standard of the rest of the hardware.

In In the photo above, you can see the result of nine month's wear.

The lettering on the V/M and FW keys shows serious wear. The orange lettering screen-printed onto the polycarbonate case looks almost perfect. Unfortunately this photo doesn't show up the orange too well.

Perhaps the manufacturers should look at the minor failings of what for me at least is a great radio, and try to make it even better. There's really no excuse for poor batteries and aerials. Since the time my radio was purchased, the price has crept up by about £20  I love this little radio and what it can do for me.

I like to operate from the hills around my home when I'm out exercising the dog. In such a situation, I've had contacts with some of the 'SOTA mob' using low power over paths exceeding 50 miles. That was using my Nagoya whip and sometimes modest SOTA beams at the far end of the path. 

When running the radio on high power for longer than a few minutes, the case heats up as you might expect. This could be welcome in winter, a radio that can double as a hand-warmer :-)  The radio appears to be pretty sensitive on RX and when out in the hills, I usually run low power (500mw) to conserve the battery. It's not unusual for me to talk for an hour or more while out with the dog.  The dog has real issues with amateur radio. I think it's 'disembodied voice syndrome'.  It obviously causes her a lot of confusion!  You can see the confusion in her eyes when a device made of plastic 'talks'.

The radio is a nice size, small enough to easily slip into a jacket pocket or be clipped to a trouser-belt with the well-designed belt-clip. Belt-clips are a weak area with many radios, but not this one. It's strong and reliable.

I find the buttons on the keyboard a bit on the small side, but with care, they are perfectly useable. They only protrude a millimetre or so above the surface of the plastic bezel. As I've already mentioned, the keycaps are suffering from some wear and fading while the lettering on the case is close to perfect.  With use, the keyboard becomes very familiar, but the wear is a nuisance visually.   The radio has a nice clear backlit LCD display behind a clear polycarbonate window.  It's crisp, clear and easy to read. The top panel of the radio carries the SMA connector for the aerial along with the volume control while the tuning and squelch us a dual-concentric rotary control. Even with my clumsy big fingers, it's easy to use.  The battery pack is retained by a strong plastic clip, something I expected to break or wear badly, but this hasn't happened. It's a lot tougher than I believed.  The audio from the speaker on the radio is good for such a small speaker and the built-in microphone does a good job of work.  I do however prefer to use a speaker-mic for the operating convenience it brings. 

So, after nine months of using this radio... do I still like it?  Err... yes!  If it got lost or was stolen, I'd go straight out and buy another one.  I can't say fairer than that.

73 AL.
GM1SXX