Railfan Technology > Yeasu FT-60R or FT-270R

I need to replace my scanner I've been using for years, it was a Radio Shack unit I bought 11 or 12 years ago. I have a Technician class HAM license now and am not currently active but I want to get into it again. I need to get a handheld now and it seems like lots of you really like the FT-270R. I've been looking at prices and see that for only $10.00 more you can buy the FT-60R which seems like the way to go getting a dual band for the small difference in price. I've seen it mentioned in some older posts that I'll lose some sensitivity though going to the dual band which makes sense but my question is how much will I really lose and how much difference will I notice between the two radios when monitoring the same railroad frequency? A couple of the public service frequencies in our town are in the 400 mhz range and I'd like to be able to listen them occasionally and also some aviation frequencies but if the loss with going to the dual band is too much I'll get the FT-270R for the railroad frequencies and eventually get another scanner or dual band for the other stuff. For those of you that have used both radios is there really enough difference in the railroad monitoring capabilities of the FT-60R and the FT-270R to give up the other features I'd gain with the dual band? Whichever one I buy I'll get a new antenna that's better suited for 160/161 mhz or maybe try the Diamond SRH77CA.
Thanks,
John

not to be a d-bag or anything, but there has been lots of discussion about yaesu HT's:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/search.php?0,search=yaesu+ft270,author=,page=1,match_type=ALL,match_dates=0,match_forum=ALL,match_threads=0

im_trainman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> not to be a d-bag or anything, but there has been
> lots of discussion about yaesu HT's:
>
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/search.php?0
> ,search=yaesu+ft270,author=,page=1,match_type=ALL,
> match_dates=0,match_forum=ALL,match_threads=0


As I mentioned in my initial post I've read though some old posts and see that lots of people really like the FT-270R. I'm just trying to find a comparison between the two radios in my subject and I haven't seen much info on the FT-60r on the site, that's why I posted my question.

OM,

I'd go with the FT-270 if your primary interest is in RR frequency monitoring.


The FT-60R has some technical issues which may affect the ability to hear RR broadcasts.

PRO: You can monitor the UHF EOT frequencies and monitor Aviation Band frequencies.

CON: The radio is an older design, dating from 2004 according to the Yaesu website. I suspect the attractive price is
to close out the remaining stock. The owner's manual is available as a PDF publication from the Yaesu.com site.

This radio does not have the VV-UU feature which is the ability to hear 2 frequencies at the same time. More modern
dual band handheld radios have this abillity.

The sensitivity is about the same as the VX-270 as the FT-60R is either on UHF or VHF, not both at the same time.

I see the primary drawback as being the wide band receiver "front end" needed to hear such a large frequency span. It has been my experience that this design is more likely to be plagued by unwanted off-frequency signals that may block out desired signals.

Be Well,

Tim Colbert K3HX



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/12 07:03 by K3HX.

I have a FT-60R and just love it.

Lots of my ham friends also use it because of the V/U capabilities. Some of them are use to using Motorola UHF handheld radios and I hear of very few complaints. Some of them have 2 or 3 of the FT-60's. I am considering getting a second one as it's a great radio.

The down side is I have not found a way for the radio to operate in the narrowband mode. I doubt that the radio has the feature of automatically adjusting the volume of the radio when in narrowband mode.

As everyone knows, all licensees that operate VHF and UHF radio systems must narrowband by January 1, 2013.

I don't know if the FT-270R has the narrowband feature. If it does, then that's the way to go.

I am looking at purchasing a Kenwood NXDN handheld that does both narrowband and digital. Trying to get ready for the big switch.

Good luck on your decision.

Pat
WA5VRO
Austin, TX

What are the Yeasu mobile equivalents of these hand helds?

Any of them equipped with narrowband?

Also I understand the narrowband signal still gets through on an older
wide band radio at a reduced volume, does narrowband affect the older receivers
range?

Thanks.

sphogger

You are correct that the narrowband signal will be at approximately 50% lower volume level if the radio does not have the audio compensation circuit.

As far as some of the older equipment, both mobiles and handheld, I don't think that you will be able to program the narrowband offset channel into the radio. I have to try this with my FT-60R and FT-8800R to confirm this. I will give this a try whenever I get a chance. I will give a report of my test results.

When I was with the Texas Department of Transportation Radio Operations, we got some new narrowband capable radios from Motorola that could not be programmed with some of the narrowband offset channels. Once we showed Motorola that it was indeed an actual radio channel from the FCC Rules and Regulations, they had to develop a flash update for the radios and some new programming software also.

If someone owned an actual narrowband capable radio, then this won't be an issue.

Pat
WA5VRO

Last night I did a Google search for FT-60R narrowband and this post came up on another forum about it. If you go about 1/4 of the way down the page you will see where someone has posted part of the FT-60R manual (page 62) about changing the TX deviation level to narrowband. Have you ever tried this on your radio? I wonder if it works on receive also. Have you ever tried this on your FT-60? Here's a link to it http://www.ak47.net/archive/topic.html?b=10&f=22&t=634277

John

sptno Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You are correct that the narrowband signal will be
> at approximately 50% lower volume level if the
> radio does not have the audio compensation
> circuit.
>
> As far as some of the older equipment, both
> mobiles and handheld, I don't think that you will
> be able to program the narrowband offset channel
> into the radio. I have to try this with my FT-60R
> and FT-8800R to confirm this. I will give this a
> try whenever I get a chance. I will give a report
> of my test results.
>
> When I was with the Texas Department of
> Transportation Radio Operations, we got some new
> narrowband capable radios from Motorola that could
> not be programmed with some of the narrowband
> offset channels. Once we showed Motorola that it
> was indeed an actual radio channel from the FCC
> Rules and Regulations, they had to develop a flash
> update for the radios and some new programming
> software also.
>
> If someone owned an actual narrowband capable
> radio, then this won't be an issue.
>
> Pat
> WA5VRO

I have seen this in the manual while looking for narrowband. I believe this only applies if you have to narrowband a transmit channel. I have all wideband railroad channels programmed into my radio and I have not tried it yet because of it's association with the narrowband mode for the transmitter.

I will try and see what it does, but I need a narrowband channel to see if there is any difference. Since I retired from TxDOT I no longer have access to test equipment.

Pat
WA5VRO

I just checked my programming software and it only applies to the transmit deviation, wide or narrow. I don't know if it impacts the receive.

I will play around and let you know if I can find a narrowband signal that I can receive.

Pat
WA5VRO

I called Yeasu today to ask one of their techs if the wide / narrow selection was for both transmit and receive or transmit only. The person I spoke with didn't know and couldn't come up with a good answer. Doing some reading on radioreference.com some people there say they definetly notice a difference on either the F-60R or FT-270R when they use in narrowband mode. They seemed to think the audio was louder and their signal was a little stronger.
John

So with all of the posts, which radio is the best choice for RR freq.? I wouldn't want to purchase a radio today and in a year or tow it would be obsolete for this purpose.

Russ

Answer, I don't know.

One thing you have to remember is at some point in time within a couple of years, the railroads are going to NXDN digital.

That being said, and you don't want to purchase a radio only to have it obsolete, I would then to look at spending the money on an NXDN handheld radio.

I think that you should be able to purchase one for around $500, maybe slightly less.

I would look at one that have enough channels to have both analog and digital channels.

Pat
WA5VRO

sptno Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One thing you have to remember is at some point in
> time within a couple of years, the railroads are
> going to NXDN digital.
>
> That being said, and you don't want to purchase a
> radio only to have it obsolete, I would then to
> look at spending the money on an NXDN handheld
> radio.

I think the couple years timeframe is wishful thinking at best. There's a growing number of managers trying to stop the implementation of NXDN altogether.

Don't take this the wrong way but I really see no point in rushing off to purchase an NXDN radio. Over time prices will come down and the radios will improve. There's no reason to own an NXDN radio right now for railroad purposes.

David

Another very satisfied FT-60R owner here.

I believe the previous speculations are correct, to my knowledge the Wide/Narrow feature of the FT60R strictly refers to transmit. There is no ability that I have found to go to the new narrowband stepping for receive in the RR freq range. I'm not sure if this is the cause, but I do notice a few frequencies out here in CO are fairly quiet.

That said, if you'll take advantage of the dual band features, then go for it. The FT-60R has been a rugged and reliable radio - it's been dropped to the pavement more times than I can remember and even into a creek in the middle of winter where it sat fully submerged (and scanning) for 10 mins before I realized it was gone, and it still works great.

I checked the specs on the FT-270R and found that the narrow spec is for transmit only.

So it looks like that the 60R and 270R cannot be programmed for the narrowband channels.

I am going to look at the Wouxun KGUV6D, around $175.00. It looks like it is narrowband capable and is FCC certified for commercial radio service.

Pat
WA5VRO

I've been researching this over the last few days and have come to the same conclusion as Pat posted above. The Wouxen KV-UV6D appears to be the only radio sold currently that is capable of narrowband transmit and receive. It will let you program frequencies in steps of 2.5 so you will be able to add the frequencies for the new AAR channels in the narrowband range (channels 104 - 197). Here's a link to the AAR channels and the plan for them starting next year: http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_rrfreqs_newplan.html The radio does quite a bit for the price, I've seen it priced at $150.00. That being said it's not the perfect radio by any means. If you read reviews on radioreference.com people seem to either really like it or really hate it. It appears programming it is pretty difficult if you try to do it without software. The software is available for free from their website and the programming cable is about $10.00 but if you want to add a frequency in the field it's probably going to be slow to do. Also I'm sure the radio isn't near as durable as a Yeasu and while the radio sensitivity is listed to be exactly the same as the FT-270R I wonder if it really is since it's a dualband radio. One thing about the radio is that it is marketed as a a Part 90 radio and can be programmed to transmit on almost every frequency it receives (if you have the proper license to legally to do so). I could have used that when I was volunteering on a museum railroad, quite a few of the volunteers were buying their own radios, HT1000s and stuff like that off of eBay and then getting them programmed but that little Wouxen would have probably worked fine for that. I'm too far from a store that carries them to look at them in person. Have any of you seen any of them in person, if so what do you think? I'd almost decided to just go with a scanner to use until the amateur radios offer true narrowband receiver but I called GRE today and the sensitivity is pretty bad on their models in the 160- 161 mhz range, .75 uv. I'm still trying to decide what way to go now but I might buy one of the Wouxens hoping that in the next year or two Yeasu or Kenwood will come out with a better 2 meter radio that is properly configured to do narrowband receive. Here's a link to a posting I put on radioreference.com asking about narrowband receive if any of you would like to read it. http://forums.radioreference.com/amateur-radio-equipment/233370-ft-60r-ft-270r-narrowband-2.html
John

Last I heard, the plan to use channels 104-197 has been scrapped. Radios I've seen reprogrammed for narrowband don't have channels 104-197 in them, but they do have digital NXDN set up for channels 307-487.

As I said previously, there's no need to rush out and purchase new radios yet.

sptno Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I checked the specs on the FT-270R and found that
> the narrow spec is for transmit only.
>
> So it looks like that the 60R and 270R cannot be
> programmed for the narrowband channels.


FWIW, I notice a subtle difference in audio when toggling between narrowband and wideband on a FT-270R.

David.Curlee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Last I heard, the plan to use channels 104-197 has
> been scrapped. Radios I've seen reprogrammed for
> narrowband don't have channels 104-197 in them,
> but they do have digital NXDN set up for channels
> 307-487.
>
> As I said previously, there's no need to rush out
> and purchase new radios yet.


If that's the case is something like a FT-270R still good enough to use then for the analog frequencies when they go narrowband? Seems like there are still going to be some issues?
John