I now visit the Yorkshire Dales Shack usually at least once per week. I’m the only regular CW op so the rigs aren’t set up for CW. I sometimes take my FT817 with 300Hz CW filter, but for higher power, I use the shack FT857. I was thinking it might be a good idea to buy a filter for the FT857 and then it’s more suited for CW use.
After all these years, I can see that I definitely made the right choice, buying the 300Hz filter for the FT817, I find the filter very pleasant to use.
I found this thread again searching for options for the FT857. It looks as though the price of mechanical filters now is going to be prohibitive.
They are no longer in production Colin. The price is a result of supply and demand and the fact that what you see is essentially the stock left in the system. Yes they are pricy new and they will not be getting cheaper. Buy one now or look out for one secondhand but either way they are an obsolete technology and they’re extremely unlikely to made again. So the price is only going to go one way.
I have narrow filters in all my HF multimode radios, 300&500Hz filters in the 817s, 270Hz in the TS570d and 500Hz in the 706MkII. I’m not good enough to do CW without a narrow filter.
I have a 500Hz in my 817, and it certainly makes it more pleasant to use on CW.
An audio digital filter might provide much of the same “sound”, though it wouldn’t keep strong signals out of the IF banwidth if that is the main concern.
I’ve recently been playing with HDSDR, and having sharp sided filters which can be easily tweaked for bandwidth and position relative to the carrier is such a joy. I can see why mech filters etc are on the way out.
Doesn’t help if you are pondering what to do with an otherwise perfectly serviceable radio, though!
Yes, I knew that the filters were now obsolete, but at the same time, knowing that ‘black box hams’ like to trade up to the latest and greatest, I would have thought that the older rigs would be sat gathering dust. I guess given a bit of spare cash, I could take the ‘Andy Approach’, buy a loaded second-hand rig,strip the filter(s) and then move the rig on again! LOL.
I have a NESCAF filter all boxed and ready to play, maybe I ought to try that on the FT857. I’ve been known to swap my filter between rigs, but it gets tedious!
I’ve only just discovered this thread so I’m 7 years too late to answer the original question.
I’ve used a 300Hz filter in my ancient FT817 for donkey’s years. I think the 500Hz one would be too wide for crowded conditions.
I don’t have the FT817D but the DSP CW filter on my FT857D is very nice. I use it mainly on 240Hz but the very narrow settings are occasionally useful.
Someone mentioned the wide front-ends in these transceivers which is probably why I find, although the narrow filter cuts out a very strong adjacent-frequency CW signal, that signal makes the AGC bounce up and down making the desired signal harder to copy.
I don’t have that problem with my Elecraft KX2 – I wonder if that’s cos it’s SDR technology?
We had a thread about this that there will be significant numbers of radios sat gathering dust. Unlikely other electronic items which get cheaper and cheaper with age, amateur radios keep being advertised for silly money. In some cases they sell. Why would you buy a run-of-the-mill 25year old HF radio for £350 full of ageing electrolytics and obsolete semiconductors when a new budget set will knock spots off it in performance is only a £600 and is warranted for 2 years etc. So people put them for sale for a stupid price and if they don’t sell so they put them back on the shelf in the shack.
Yes. The adjustable and non-ringing filters sound nice in the KX2. I keep forgetting I have a K2 that I should take out and use now it’s working. Doesn’t have the SSB board. But again has nice adjustable filters. It’s bulky though.
I’ve found this thread far too late to answer the original question, but I can say 4 of my rigs (TS-940S, FT-817ND, IC-706MKI, IC-706MKIIG) have a 500Hz CW filter fitted and I find it just perfect for me. Sometimes I’ve tried 300Hz filters and I found them too narrow. When activating SOTA, we always get some chasers calling slightly out of our frequency and that’s something very welcome for the activator to easier pick up the chaser callsign out of the pileup with that distinctive slightly off-frequency morse tone. A too narrow filter such as 300Hz will make the use of this technique more difficult or impossible not letting the activator copy those slightly off-frequency signals.
My position is clear: 500Hz.
Guru, it came to light that the Yaesu branded filters were wider than their rating, the Yaesu 300Hz filter is more like a 500Hz. I picked up the 300Hz Yaesu filter second-hand via eBay. The filter is perfect for me, I find that the sound is pleasant and it doesn’t seem too narrow.
I’ve found that some narrow filters sound awful and can’t be listened to for a long time - probably great for a short DX chase though.
If anybody has a 300Hz filter, that will fit an 857, and they find it too narrow, I can give it a loving home
With the non SDR transceivers if I had the choice, it would be 300 Hz for contests and serious DX work (not with an 817!), and 500 Hz for SOTA and rag chewing. Some ops can call a few hundred hertz off and with the 500 Hz installed you’ll more likely hear them. Been using CW here almost daily for over 38 years. I started learning in 1981.
Hi Colin,
I have 3 different brands of 500Hz filters (Kenwood, Yaesu and Icom) not really feeling the Yaesu one wider than the others. But this is just a personal perception and others might have measured/tested/compared them with lab equipment, while I’m only talking about my personal feel.
The filter I have used less is the one in my Kenwood TS-940S, as I find far more comfortable and effective the use of the CW VBT control instead of the 500Hz CW filter.
I very much miss this CW VBT control on all my other rigs, as it’s the best to get rid of the noise and let you pull extremely weak CW signals out of the noise floor.
Oops! That’s probably me with my KX2 set to 200Hz.
Guru, you probably have ‘CW ears’ so you can tolerate hearing another CW signal in the background. I keep wanting to listen to both. Maybe, I could train myself (at home, not doing SOTA) to listen with the filter set wide and try to focus only on the desired signal.
Hi Andy,
Being able to isolate just one CW signal with the own ear and brain only and copy just that one CW signal out of the pileup is a key skill every CW operator should try to have and train for.
Working CW contests and SOTA pile-ups are very good training fields for that. The famous Morse runner software is also very helpful for that purpose.
On a SOTA activation, I would probably prefer working your KX2 with no filter at all rather than that super narrow 200Hz filter. The story is totally different in a contest like the CQ WW DX CW, where I’d probably work with the 200Hz filter ON.
73,
I’m not really in a position to comment Guru. Although I’ve been a ham for over 20 years, I’ve done very little operating besides SOTA activations. I have limited experience with base station rigs.
I’m happy with my FT817 and 300Hz filter, I don’t perceive any issues with the bandwidth. I’m also very happy with my MTRs, but I really notice if somebody calls off frequency with those rigs. The RIT function works well for off frequency callers. I used to work Roy, G4SSH on 40m and he often deployed the off frequency technique to get through the pile up - unfortunately at times he was almost outside of my filter.
I started my CW activations with a Rockmite, I think I once reckoned it had a selectively of around 10kHz My brain filter is OK I think, I do manage to concentrate on one signal despite other QRM, I guess I’ve just been spoilt over the years, using my MTRs.
Over 500 CW activations and around 16,000 CW QSO’s using the 500 Hz filter…works great. Generally the narrower the filter the more ringing u have, so I prefer the 500 Hz filter. The 500 Hz filter really helps on the FT817 (and I have the old 817…not the ND).
We are all spoiled for choice. A 500hz or 300hz filter? Luxury!
My first receiver was a WW2 era tube receiver with AM bandwidth of about 10 khz. For Cw, you turned on the BFO and either used that bandwidth as it was, or turned on a crystal filter which gave you peaky, ringing 200-300 hz bandwidth of a kind, with a phasing control that if properly used could null out one frequency (while introducing extra ringing!).
What this has done is to give me a preference for listening with the basic 1200 hz bandwidth of my icom 7610 on cw mode, reducing it to 500 or 200 or lower only when there is qrm to be cut out. I find the ringing of most crystal filters unbearable and even the noise artifacts of the DSP filters are annoying. The collins 500hz filter in my 817 is excellent and sufficient for almost all situations in VK. I am “lucky” that VK generally has very little qrm unless it’s in a contest. Conversely, CW contacts can be slow to find at times.
QRM from very close stations is difficult to ignore but by focussing on the frequency of the desired signal, you can learn to tolerate the qrm. Contests and software can be helpful in learning how to do this. But it won’t happen in the first 5 minutes you try it. Be patient and tolerant of the difficulty.
Remember you are trying to build new synapses in your brain. With only one attempt and without repetition, the brain will say, ok that actually isn’t needed so I won’t need that pathway. But repeat the experience, say 10 to 1000 times, the skill will develop and eventually will be there to draw on when you need it. Just like touch typing, or moving your hands between notes on a piano keyboard, recognising and using a second language or riding a surfboard, skateboard or a bike, skills need time and repetition to develop. Morserunner is the best off-air experience of multiple cw signals where you need to focus on one.
