From KM6BF - 28 January 2000

Greetings from Arizona.

I have had my FT-920 (s/n 9H240031) for about 3 weeks now, and thought I might pass on some comments. The FT-920 was purchased to replace an FT-890 that was 7 years old. The AT in the 890 had given up the gun. It had been a good rig, but time for a change was apparent.

To me, the FT-920 is a large, and pleasant looking rig. I also got the FM board and MD-100 desk microphone. Reading the owners manual is a must. There are a lot of things that need understanding to the new owner, no matter how long you've been operating. The menu selections and commands are easy to understand and became routine after a couple of days.

I have had good reports on my signal and the receive appears to be quite good, even in the general coverage portions of the bands. Comments about the TX audio have been from good to excellent. The RX audio through an external speaker is quite good. (Even got to work XZ0A on 75m) Split operation is a snap.

The only problem I encountered was "training" the AT to accept my antenna. I use a double-size G5RV. The rig would not tune anything at first. It didn't like my antenna, anywhere except on 40-Meters. The SWR was so high, the AT would not tune and would immediately stop. I then lowered the output on AM to about 7-8 watts and then the AT kicked in fine. After doing this on every band, I was finally able to raise the output to full power. Now 3 weeks later, all is working and the AT retunes almost instantly on band changes. 160-Meters presents the highest SWR, which is only 1.4:1 and is accpetable.

As a minor annyance, the S-Meter readings appear to be low, but I can deal with that. Most signal reports I give are from the ear, anyway. I have a localized noise problem from power lines, but the NB & NR cleans up most of it. The automatic Notch Filter is a no-brainer! The DSP is fantastic on crowded bands like 40 & 20. I haven't had a chance to use the rig on 6-Meters yet, except for testing and that band has been dead, at best. Hopefully some time this year I can give it a good workout on 6 SSB!

I am seriously considering the INRAD filters, but not immediately. I noticed that the bandwidth in the AM mode for SW listening is quite wide and a good filter will improve things there.

I'm not a serious DX'er, but do enjoy HF and the FT-920 is the best rig I've operated. I think it is well worth the money and hope to get many years of satisfactory operation from it. I believe Yeasu has put a lot of thought into the design and did a good job.

These are just my thoughts to share with anyone else who may be considering the FT-920.

John Wilson-KM6BF Chino Valley, AZ DM-34