Hello,
my home station rig is a FT-450D as well. It is a good fixed or mobile rig. For portable (SOTA) I find it is not good due to a too high current drain on RX. For a DXped it should be ok.
All my chase since I started in SOTA (2011) has been done with it when I am at my home QTH.
I also believe is a nice rig,very complete with its built in options and features.
I’m ok with your comments but let me add one point based on my experience.
I bought it focusing on CW, because the rig includes 300 & 500 Hz FIlters from factory built.
My reception improved when working CW, but my personal feeling after years is the audio quality is not completely good.
I’m always wearing headset in my shack, and running CW, either with 500 or 300 Hz filters on, there is an audible hi-pitch noise out of the passband that makes it unpleasant when used for long time (i.e.Contests…).
I had the chance to check with other FT-450D and it is the same,not a trouble with my model but standard.
See in the next picture an Audio spectrum I did that compares the sound of my FT-450D with the sound obtained using an external audio filter (Nescaf kit).
The nasty noise is shown in the red line and marked with a yellow arrow, out of the passband at a high pitch:
The rest of options performs very well, but for this audio issue. Due to the fact I devote most of my operation in CW I have decided to move to a new model, probably Elecraft…
I will sell my 450D second hand and I expect it will make the new owner quite happy, especially for a SSB operator or even for an ocasional CW op.
73 de Ignacio
Yes, the FT450D is a much bigger radio than FT817. I started SOTA with an FT7 and 7 AH SLAB so looking back the FT450D and 8.4 Ah LiFePo4 is a shade lighter.
Overall however the weight difference on my legs is about 5%. The heaviest part of the SOTA load is body weight.
My 8.4 Ah LiFePo4, fully charged, runs the FT450D for around 90 minutes SSB at 100W.
LiFePo4 have a better discharge curve than SLAB but do need to be carefully charged and never discharged below 3.0 V per cell. http://vk3zpf.com/2013/11/portable-battery-choices.html
Hi Peter!! Nice rig! I have a 450d and It’s fabulous in every aspect. I’ve often thought out in portable, but the current consumption is high, what batteries you used in your activation?
Wow! You run it at 100 watts on SSB. That could draw up to 20 amps on peaks from the battery. I would feel a little uncomfortable about pulling such a high current from an 8.4 Ah LiFePo4 - although I recognize that it has a very low internal resistance. Do you find there is any noticeable heating of the battery during sustained operation at this power level?
Considering these batteries are normally used to deliver power to RC planes and helicopters etc it is perfectly OK do to use them for 100W PA’s, providing the CC rating is sufficient. Panic not, most of the 857 users use this configuration.
Interesting finding Ignatio. I have not noticed any problems of that sort with my radio but as yet I have not really used it in a contest on CW. I will bring it in to our lab one day for a more detailed analysis.
Your findings don’t really surprise me though. The Nescaf plot is not that impressive either. I have done measurements on another radio with built in DSP (FT-897D) and the performance was not that great. Far better results can be achieved with properly designed outboard DSP units.
Nescaf filter is just a cheap Audio filter Kit, although working great. I just used it to see if audio was improved and it did, by reducing the noise I explained.
In the graph you see,Nescat has been set to maximum narrow and it is acting as a Peak filter there, although it can be broaded for normal use.
The trouble I describe in the 450D is not big, and only when you are using it intensively can cause a real fatigue, as I said.
I will be glad to see your measurements if you can reproduce the spectrum.
I will try to do new measurements to compare it versus an Elecraft audio when I can, probably in some months as now I am absent from my home town.
