YAESU FTX-1 OPTIMA (FT-991B)

Rather than wait until the end to reach my conclusion, I’m going to spit out my feelings about this radio right now!

It’s expensive (really expensive) and it’s somewhat disappointing😮 

Now bear in mind that this is just my opinion. I'm not an Icom fanboy and I'm not a Yaesu hater - I've bought more Yaesu radios than any other make. And finally, I should point out that I only discuss radios that I've purchased with my own personal money.

When bringing something to market, most manufacturers would look very carefully at the competition and seek to beat them at their own game. Consider Icom’s 7610 - a magnificent radio which offered top-notch performance and an incredible feature list which set the standard for a £3k base station. 

A few years later, Yaesu responded with their FT-DX101D and we all believed it would offer even more bang for the buck. It didn’t! Sure, it provided better Lab Figures for the number chasers, and it was a beautiful bit of kit, but in many respects, it failed (IMHO). Instead of introducing new and innovative features, it lacked so many of the everyday useful features that the IC-7610 had provided years earlier, including a built-in Server for remote-control operation, a QSO Recorder and even a real time Clock 😮. And the ergonomics sucked by comparison!! 

Well it seems that Yaesu have made the same mistake with the FTX-1. In 2019 Icom announced the ground-breaking IC-705 and it was peppered with new features which we all now take for granted, not to mention the most intuitive ergonomics ever! No wonder it was so successful! Meanwhile, Yaesu seemed happy to rely on sales of their 20+ year old FT817/818 design. 

Yes, 5 YEARS LATER in 2024, Yaesu announced their new QRP Shack-In-A-Box and it was supposed to be available in the UK in early 2025. January, February, March, April, May, June, July came and went. Nothing! Every month, the release got pushed back again and again. Many people (including me) had pre-ordered the £1600 radio and had to wait patiently for Yaesu to stop moving the delivery goal-posts.  My order eventually arrived early August 😮 

Everyone was hoping for an IC-705 Slayer and nobody got one (except the delusional people who claimed the FTX was a "game changer"😂).

The FTX-1 immediately started life behind the IC-705….

• NO BUILT-IN WIFI FOR REMOTE CONTROL
• NO BUILT-IN BLUETOOTH
• NO BUILT-IN GPS

It beggars belief that Yaesu would do this! It’s not like they didn’t know how high the bar was set. I wanted more from this new radio, not less! 

So on top of having to pay £400 more for an FTX-1 than an IC-705, we also have to pay extra for the things which are already included with the 705. Pffft!

Although I already own an IC-705, I really fancied the idea of the FTX-1, not least because it would give me the option of using C4FM during my outings along with WIRES-X connectivity. Unfortunately, the Wires-X connectivity is not available until later this year😡.

I must admit that I was surprised by the size of the FTX - I guess we’d been hoping for something light and compact, but it is, in fact, larger and heavier than the 705😲. The overall appearance is very pleasing and the screen looks every bit as good as the Icom’s screen, including when operating outdoors in sunlight. The Touch-Sensitivity of the Yaesu is definitely poorer than the Icom.

I find the Yaesu ergonomics inferior to Icom’s but that's personal preference to some degree. That 3D waterfall however, is just ridiculously gimmicky - but as I've said before about 3DSS, it keeps the Under-12's happy! Thankfully, the 2D waterfall is fine  (although the options to adjust the colours of the panadapter are limited - you get just a basic number of chavvy colours to choose from).

A big positive for the FTX-1 is the inclusion of the 4M band (UK) and the two antenna ports - I guess the larger cabinet makes that easy to do and it’s a shame that Icom hadn’t done the same.  It's a great pity that Yaesu chose to locate the HF BNC above the VHF/UHF BNC, because it means that you can't stick a vertical whip on the latter if you also have a HF antenna connected.

Neither the FTX-1 or the IC-705 has a built-in ATU and you really do have to shake your head at this omission, especially when Elecraft have been managing to squeeze a superb 20W ATU (and even batteries) into the tiny KX2 and KX3 transceivers for over a decade even though their cabinets are smaller! The Optima version does include an ATU but it can’t hold a candle to the Elecraft design or capability.

For just £250 😂, you can add an external Yaesu ATU to the Field radio but be aware that it can only handle 10W (so you're potentially always working at its limit) and it needs to be clipped to the back of the radio, adding more bulk. Since it cannot be used with any other radio, I definitely won't be buying one! I would recommend people buy the stunningly capable 20W Elecraft T1 ATU instead, or something like an LDG Z100 PLUS. Either of these will easily match a long wire, whereas the FC-80 will only cope with a 3:1 mismatch. 

One thing I was excited about was Yaesu's claim that this radio was Dual Receive, allowing you to listen to two different frequencies at the same time. Sadly, this is not available on the HF bands - it only works on the VHF/UHF bands and it's not full duplex!

There's one area of the new Yaesu which definitely shines - the audio! It is a great sounding radio thanks to the forward-facing speaker system they introduced on other radios like the FTM500 but it doesn't include the AESS system. The 705 also has a speaker on the front of the panel, but it's not quite as rich sounding as the FTX. Having said that, the 705's audio is a little punchier which may help when listening to very weak signals. Tomatoes, Tomatoes! If you prefer to use headphones, then there's no difference between them.

Sharing the same antenna with a switch, I was able to run both radios side by side to compare the incoming signals. Both radios have good receivers and apart from the different audio tone between one and the other, I was unable to tell any real difference. They both picked up the weakest of signals and the S-Meter readings were very closely matched (no pre-amps on). Switching on the “SuperDX” increases signal strength at the cost of much increased noise.

Where I could tell a difference between the FTX-1 and the 705 was on the bandscopes. On the 705 you could just about see a weak station (either on the scope, but more easily on the waterfall) but on the FTX-1 screen you could see no evidence of activity, even after adjusting the bandscope parameters. You could hear the weak station, but not see it. Hopefully this will be fixed with a firmware update. 

There's no mention of it, but looking at the block diagrams, I'd say that the FTX-1 looks closer to the DX10 architecture, than the 710. Smarter people than me will no doubt correct me. 

Moving around, changing settings on both radios showed me that the Icom was easier to work with than the Yaesu. Yes, I've had the Icom for four years and I'm very familiar with it, but even so, when I carried out an operation on the 705 and tried the same on the FTX, it was always more intuitive on the 705. There's quite a few 'quirks' in the Yaesu system that need sorting out and I don't doubt they'll be addressed quickly. Nevertheless, the Yaesu is a lovely radio and if it's your only one, you'll very quickly get used to it all.

A feature that I do like on the Yaesu is QMB which lets you very quickly store and recall a frequency. I use this when working QRP trying to break into a pileup. If I can't get through to the caller, I work elsewhere for a while until the pileup subsides and then go back to try again. QMB makes it easy to return to that frequency.

PMG is another handy feature common to modern Yaesu radios, It only works on VHF/UHF, but it stores your top five favourite frequencies and then scans them for activity.

The feel and quality of the FTX is good. As long as you keep that God-Awful 3D waterfall out of sight, you'll not feel like you're playing with a toy. All the buttons and rotaries feel good and operate smoothly. Because of the shape of the battery, the FTX-1 sits at a really useful angle, whereas the IC-705 needs a little prop.

The battery is a 6400mAh Li-ion which they reckon will last up to 9 hours on receive, which is pretty awesome. My IC-705 battery by comparison is only 3150mAh, but it has an RX period of 8 hours, so that suggests that the current consumption is almost twice as high on the FTX-1. Personally, I always carry an external LifePO4 13.2V 8400mAh battery when out and about.

YEASU FTX-1 OPTIMA

For those looking for a Portable and Base station, you can opt to spend a tad over £2,000 and invest in the OPTIMA version of the FTX-1. It's basically the same as the Field version but it has a 100W amplifier with a built-in ATU.

You can stick it in your shack at home and when you want to operate outdoors on a POTA/SOTA outing, just clip off the front panel and away you go! Well, I say 'clip off' but in reality there are five connection cables to release.

Some people have baulked at the £2069 asking price, but the fact is, you're getting a tailored 100W AMP/ATU for an extra £470 which will work not only on HF, but will also give you a juicy 50W on VHF/UHF. That's cheap!!!

This is the option I've went for. It makes perfect sense to me. In fact, before the Optima was announced, I was seriously considering cancelling my FTX-1 pre-order because of the poor spec compared to the 705. I just found it hard to accept that this all new, all dancing radio didn't include WiFi for remote-control, Bluetooth or GPS. And even worse than having to pay extra for GPS, I had to have an ugly dongle sticking out of the side of my lovely FTX, begging to be snapped off, possibly causing damage to the radio 😲 And fitting the BlueTooth option involves sticking it to the radio with 3M double-sided tape!😲 God help you if you have to remove it for whatever reason.

Yaesu really annoy me with their penny-pinching antics, such as their well known rip-off SCU Leads, etc, and so it came as no surprise that you even have to pay extra for a little carry handle on the £2069 Optima 😡👿

Anyway, despite my apparent negativity (did I mention that the FTX-1 was launched without Wires-X connectivity and with broken APRS?), I committed to buying the Optima and to pay for it I sold my Elecraft KX3 and my SunSDR2DX. Am I happy I bought it? Yes! It really is a nice radio. I've seen lots of videos demonstrating many faults and glitches, but I'm hoping that all these faults will get sorted out in due course with firmware updates.

The FT-991A used to be one of my favourite radios but I couldn't live with its inability to run Wires-X directly on a PC. To me, the FTX-1 Optima is effectively the FT-991B and I very much welcome all the (long awaited) updates it brings to that particular radio. 

Finally, as a ShortWave Listener radio, the FTX-1 does pretty well. It doesn't have quite the same receive range as a 705, but it includes everything that most SWL's would be interested in, including Ham, Broadcast, Air and Marine bands. The RX range is 30kHz-174MHz and 400MHz-470MHz, all modes!

I think the Optima will spend most of its life in my shack as a Base Station and the IC-705 will continue to spend most of its life in my RuckShack. No doubt I'll take the FTX-1 outdoors occasionally, but it's likely to be on POTA type outings rather than SOTA type.

I'll update this page when I've had the radio longer and after a real significant firmware update.

As far as I'm concerned, Yaesu marketed this as a premium Field Radio but dropped a Beta on us. Outrageous! Yes, all new radios have minor issues and if you paid a couple of hundred bucks for a budget Chinese radio, you'd likely be more tolerant of glitches, bugs and omissions, but when you're paying top dollar to one of the world's leading manufacturers, your expectations are (quite rightly) much higher.

What will annoy me is if all the initial-release faults can't be resolved by software changes and they quickly bring out an updated "Gen-2" model with new hardware. Oh boy, that better not happen!!     

Thanks for visiting the page and (hopefully) leaving a comment below about your own experience/opinion.

73, Tom, M7MCQ.

  

 ISSUES AT LAUNCH:

• Poor APRS Reception
• No APRS REPLY function 
• Non-Functioning WiresX
• CW Sidetone noise on Optima
• CW Memories lost
• Occasional TX Fail - need to reset radio
• Poor Bandscope sensitivity
• Screen Tuning Cursor disappears - need to reset radio
• Dodgy Menu operations
• PTT dropping during transmission
• Other