Speaker 1: The Yazu ft X one Fueld model, which I have
Speaker 1: the optimum model as well. Then a lot of talk,
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations, a lot of speculation, a lot
Speaker 1: of comments, a lot of complaints, a lot of positive
Speaker 1: reactions and negative reactions to this radio over the course
Speaker 1: of the last month since it came out. And today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about five things that are wrong
Speaker 1: with this radio, or maybe five things that I don't
Speaker 1: like about this radio, and I want to know what
Speaker 1: your comments are below. Let's go. I saw a video
Speaker 1: online last week and it said something along the lines
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what channel it was. Right now,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of videos out here about this radio,
Speaker 1: and it said something along the lines of ham tubers
Speaker 1: are all praising this radio, but they're getting paid to
Speaker 1: do it, and none of these reviews are honest, and
Speaker 1: this this, this and this and this and blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and something about how you know nobody's given
Speaker 1: this radio a bad review because Jesu's paying I'm old
Speaker 1: to do it, Okay, I've said a thousand times in
Speaker 1: this channel that Jesu's never paid me, ICM's never paid me,
Speaker 1: Kenwood's never paid me. Gigabarts has never paid me to
Speaker 1: do a review of a radio, and I I don't
Speaker 1: know how to say I don't know how to say
Speaker 1: it any other way. So that's just simply not true. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dwell on that. I'm moving on.
Speaker 1: But today, no radio's perfect. No radio is perfect. So
Speaker 1: today I'm going to tell you about the five things
Speaker 1: that I think were a swing and a miss for
Speaker 1: this radio, for the field model specifically. Okay, and this
Speaker 1: could really kind of apply to the optimum model as well,
Speaker 1: But today we're going to be talking about the field radio.
Speaker 1: The first thing, Okay, the first thing, and this and
Speaker 1: everyone when I got this, this exact model at daytonhamvention,
Speaker 1: the first thing everyone said was that it was heavy.
Speaker 1: If you take the battery off the back of it,
Speaker 1: it's still have I got a signal stick on it
Speaker 1: right now. So we're going to talk about the the
Speaker 1: B and C ports here in a second. Okay, it's heavy.
Speaker 1: It's about the same side as the icon Icy seven
Speaker 1: O five, but it's much heavier, much heavier than the
Speaker 1: seven O five. I don't know about much heavier. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about much heavier. My icy seven O five
Speaker 1: is currently locked into a armolock cage with an extron battery,
Speaker 1: and I don't feel like taking it apart right now.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'll grab a seven oh five from a
Speaker 1: friend or something and see how it compares to this.
Speaker 1: I'm wanna weigh them both and see what they weigh.
Speaker 1: But you can tell when you pick up this radio,
Speaker 1: you can tell that it is heavier than its icon counterpart. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, is it heavy? Is it too heavy? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but it's gonna be. But if you're if
Speaker 1: you're wanting to backpack this radio, then it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a heavy piece of kit. So as a side note,
Speaker 1: I will say this because I've been watching a few
Speaker 1: other videos about this as well. There's a difference between
Speaker 1: field this is called a field radio and gastone tech prepper.
Speaker 1: He made a video saying that he doesn't he's gonna
Speaker 1: sell his he doesn't like it. He's like, this is
Speaker 1: not a field radio. They used field as a buzzword.
Speaker 1: It's not a field radio. And I'm like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: see where he's coming from. And I'm not necessarily saying
Speaker 1: he's wrong, but I think it's important to realize there's
Speaker 1: a difference between field and backpackable. I've been saying for
Speaker 1: years that the Icy seven five is Icy seven oh
Speaker 1: five is not a backpackable radio because you would either
Speaker 1: take a chance on puncturing your screen if you were
Speaker 1: to stuff it into a backpack and hike up a
Speaker 1: mountain with it, or you'd have to put a cage
Speaker 1: around it, making it even more bulky, because this one
Speaker 1: and the seven five both have large screens on them,
Speaker 1: so you'd have to put a cage around it or
Speaker 1: a topper or put an extra bag in it, and
Speaker 1: it makes it more bulky, more heavy, and less portable
Speaker 1: in my opinion. So just because this is called field
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it should be Field shouldn't always be related
Speaker 1: to backpackable. And that's just that's kind of one of
Speaker 1: the things that I wanted to talk about today. But
Speaker 1: that's a side note. Okay, Number two is the ben Sports.
Speaker 1: Now let's go over here and check out these b
Speaker 1: and Sports. Here's what the radio looks like. I want
Speaker 1: to set it, let me turn. I'm gonna power this
Speaker 1: thing off real quick because I want to show you
Speaker 1: guys the back of the radio. Okay, so here is
Speaker 1: this is I mean, I'm this falls under the line
Speaker 1: of what the heck were you thinking? So this is
Speaker 1: the orientation of the radio. It sits like this, okay,
Speaker 1: and sits and I like the way that when the
Speaker 1: batteries on it, it kind of sits at an angle,
Speaker 1: so it's easy to read and easy to use with
Speaker 1: the buttons. Okay, But this is the This right here
Speaker 1: is the HF B and C port, and this is
Speaker 1: the VHF UHF B and cport. Now, what do you
Speaker 1: think is going to happen if I put a B
Speaker 1: and C and to vertical intenna on that right there
Speaker 1: while I'm operating? If will I be able to operate
Speaker 1: HF with the B and C port right there, because
Speaker 1: that's where my HF intenna connects to. Why didn't they
Speaker 1: put the VHF on the top of the HF on
Speaker 1: the bottom. That doesn't make any sense to me. Why
Speaker 1: put the VHF down here? Now I will say this also, okay,
Speaker 1: and this is also true of the IC seven oh five.
Speaker 1: When you power this thing on and you've got the
Speaker 1: B and C connected. Now it's in a horizontal fashion
Speaker 1: right now. But we're gonna we're gonna this up and
Speaker 1: watch the SWR meter KC five HBB testing. So I'm
Speaker 1: hitting the repeater high SWR. I'm gonna go over here
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go to the two meter band and
Speaker 1: just doesn't matter where I'm at here. Okay, KC five
Speaker 1: h TOVB testing. You might hear that in the not
Speaker 1: as high as SWR, but it's still high SWR, and
Speaker 1: it's still high. If I were to turn the radio
Speaker 1: up vertically, it's still high. The SWR came up when
Speaker 1: I turned the radio up vertically. Now that is a
Speaker 1: common issue that people complain about with the IC seven
Speaker 1: oh five as well. Okay, so you need a pigtail
Speaker 1: on it. Basically, you need a pigtail on the you
Speaker 1: need a counterpoise on it to get the SWR down.
Speaker 1: So that's that's weird. But it happens on the seven
Speaker 1: oh five. So maybe it's something about this design. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but i'd and I don't really consider that
Speaker 1: an issue much because it's kind of what we're used to,
Speaker 1: those of us who own a seven oh five. But
Speaker 1: why are the d and ports backwards like that? The
Speaker 1: HF should be on the bottom and the VHF should
Speaker 1: be on the top, so that if you wanted to
Speaker 1: connect a vertical VHF antenna to your radio while you're
Speaker 1: operating PODA and you're in the field, and you've got
Speaker 1: an antenna connected via B and C to the HF port,
Speaker 1: which should be on the bottom, you could put a
Speaker 1: vertical INTENTA on the top. You could monitor one forty
Speaker 1: six to five to two at the same time that
Speaker 1: you're operating HF. I said, we were going to mostly
Speaker 1: talk about the field today, and that's true. But the
Speaker 1: optima is I have the optima. I have the amplifier.
Speaker 1: It's around here somewhere. It's actually inside the house right now.
Speaker 1: But I think an obvious miss was that it doesn't
Speaker 1: have a separation cable. I think a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of the comments I've
Speaker 1: got is that this should be separatable. It should have
Speaker 1: a separation cable. There should be a way to mount
Speaker 1: the amplifier in your vehicle under the seat, behind the seat,
Speaker 1: behind the back seat, which would be the case in
Speaker 1: my truck, and run the face of the radio up
Speaker 1: top and run like a six foot or a twelve
Speaker 1: foot extension cable between the amplifier and the radio so
Speaker 1: that you can operate one hundred watts from the vehicle
Speaker 1: and then take the face out if you wanted to
Speaker 1: take the take the field unit out and take it
Speaker 1: out to the park and do some QRP, PODA or
Speaker 1: soda with it if you wanted to. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: disagree with that. There's been a lot of comments saying
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna buy this radio, or I cancel my
Speaker 1: reservation because the separation doesn't work or it's not made
Speaker 1: to be separated. I think a couple of people have
Speaker 1: successfully separated it and used it remotely with some RCA cables.
Speaker 1: At this point in time, I have not tried that,
Speaker 1: and I've heard from Yazoo that if you fudge up
Speaker 1: the radio by doing that, it's gonna avoid your warranty.
Speaker 1: So just be aware. I'm not telling you to do
Speaker 1: it or not to do it. I'm just saying be aware.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the non separatable feature of the radio, the
Speaker 1: non remote feature of the radio where you can't run
Speaker 1: a longer cable between the amplifier and the head, I
Speaker 1: think that was kind of a miss as well. Would
Speaker 1: have been a lot more versatile of a radio if
Speaker 1: they would have built it in such a way where
Speaker 1: it would be able to allow that, you know, straight
Speaker 1: from the factory. Okay, the next thing, and this is
Speaker 1: something that legit is a problem. I'll show you why.
Speaker 1: If you guys haven't seen Jason's video yet, Okay, he
Speaker 1: did this video about and it's called the Yazu YESUFTX
Speaker 1: has a flaw and we're gonna listen to a short
Speaker 1: clip here real quick.
Speaker 2: You can always define four or five six different kind
Speaker 2: of canned messages, and we can do that right here,
Speaker 2: but there's no way to insert these into a reply
Speaker 2: because I can't figure out how to reply on this radio.
Speaker 2: I literally think they forgot to put a reply option
Speaker 2: in the APRS messages, and.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what they did. That's exactly what they did
Speaker 1: because Jason made this video and then Yazu responds right
Speaker 1: here and they admit that that is a missing feature.
Speaker 1: So props them for the drastic increase.
Speaker 3: A shout out to those that tried to help me
Speaker 3: in the comments of the previous video figure out how
Speaker 3: to reply to an APRS message it turns out it
Speaker 3: absolutely is not there. And also a big shout out
Speaker 3: to those who suggested updating the firmware. I had actually
Speaker 3: filmed that video a few days before that firmware update
Speaker 3: came out. I did go ahead and do that, and
Speaker 3: I did see a little bit of improvement on the
Speaker 3: receive of the APRS, but not a drastic increase. So
Speaker 3: I'm going to continue testing with you.
Speaker 1: So there's no way to reply to an APRS message
Speaker 1: currently with the current firmware. I just updated the firmware
Speaker 1: on this on my own radio, and I've recorded a
Speaker 1: video about how to do it. You guys will see that.
Speaker 1: You guys probably have already seen that at the time.
Speaker 1: This video you're watching right now will post this. The
Speaker 1: firmware update video will post first. They did make some
Speaker 1: upgrades to it, They did make some fixes, they did
Speaker 1: change some things, and it is improving. But APRS reply
Speaker 1: is missing. And yes, if you go watch Jason's video,
Speaker 1: you watch the whole video there and I'll link those
Speaker 1: in the description below. But he found a flaw. YAESU
Speaker 1: watched his video. They replied to him and said, Yep,
Speaker 1: you're right, there's no way to reply. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to fix that. So they're gonna add it in later again,
Speaker 1: props to Yazu for responding, reaching out and saying, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's something we're gonna have to address. Okay. They could
Speaker 1: have ignored him, they could have argued with him. They
Speaker 1: didn't do that. They were pretty professional about it, in
Speaker 1: my opinion. So there's that. Okay, the last and fine,
Speaker 1: that's four things. The last and final thing, Thing number five,
Speaker 1: Thing thing number five, And these are just some things
Speaker 1: I came up with on my own. I'd be interested
Speaker 1: to see what you guys have, if you have this radio,
Speaker 1: what your experience is with the operation of the radio,
Speaker 1: and what you think they can improve. So when I
Speaker 1: took this into the field, or when I will take
Speaker 1: it back into the field, I will feed this thing,
Speaker 1: most likely with Mezi and plenty coacs. Mezi emploenty Coaxs
Speaker 1: is the sponsor of today's video. You can always save
Speaker 1: a twenty percent discount with the coupon code of HR
Speaker 1: two cables at the link in the description. Blow That
Speaker 1: discount applies to the cables, the connectors, the tools they
Speaker 1: use to put the coaks together, all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: from Messi employee. Thank you Messi emploenty for supporting this channel.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about point number five. The last thing we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about is the battery, the battery on
Speaker 1: the back of the ftx one. Now, according to the manual,
Speaker 1: the battery requires a certain amount of voltage and wattage
Speaker 1: right here USBPD forty five WOTT and fifteen volt at
Speaker 1: two ams. So it requires a fifteen volt forty five
Speaker 1: WoT charger to charge this battery. And the reason I
Speaker 1: have this gigabarts box in front of the camera right
Speaker 1: now is because this is the latest Gigabarts Explorer box.
Speaker 1: This new PD port right here, which has a sixty
Speaker 1: five WHT USBC charger on it. You a sixty five
Speaker 1: why p USBC port on it right there will absolutely
Speaker 1: one charge this radio, this battery, the battery and the radio. Actually,
Speaker 1: so this gigabarts box does work just fine for charging
Speaker 1: the USBC battery on the ftx one. Field. Now, as
Speaker 1: I said a minute ago, you're not gonna be lugging
Speaker 1: this big battery box or a large fifteen volt PD
Speaker 1: charging supply up a hill or up a mountain. The
Speaker 1: word field once again is it does not mean backpackable,
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't be able to charge this battery via
Speaker 1: a regular charging brick. Now some I've tried two or
Speaker 1: three charging bricks. One of them works and two of
Speaker 1: them do not, so it's kind of a miss in
Speaker 1: my opinion. That it's great that it has USB C
Speaker 1: on both the radio and the battery. The battery has
Speaker 1: a USBC port. You can charge the battery, you can
Speaker 1: charge the radio. You can charge the battery through the
Speaker 1: radio with USB C. I'm gonna demonstrate that here in
Speaker 1: a minute. And you can charge the battery through the
Speaker 1: radio with a twelve power source as well, just by
Speaker 1: plugging in the power poles on it. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show you that right here. But how is that field worthy?
Speaker 1: I mean, what kind of charging source are you gonna
Speaker 1: have to take with you to go up a mountain? Again,
Speaker 1: I don't really think this is mountain back packable radio,
Speaker 1: but some of you are gonna want to try that,
Speaker 1: so or take it into the field for a few
Speaker 1: hours and you're gonna lug around a big battery box
Speaker 1: with you. I usually do that anyway, but I drive
Speaker 1: to Poda so it doesn't bother me. So are you
Speaker 1: gonna do that with it? Now? I will say this
Speaker 1: once the battery is fully charged, it don't last about
Speaker 1: nine or ten hours. So if you're going hiking up
Speaker 1: a mountain overnight, or you're gonna do a drive up
Speaker 1: summit and camp overnight, you'll probably have plenty of battery
Speaker 1: to work with over the next overnight or through the
Speaker 1: evening or morning hours the next morning if you camp
Speaker 1: out overnight or something like that. So the battery does
Speaker 1: last a long time, but the fact that it takes
Speaker 1: such a large power source to charge it is a
Speaker 1: little bit a little bit of a fail. As I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna call it a field radio, that's my thing.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna call it a field radio, that's the problem.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna show you right here. I've got this
Speaker 1: USB C port right here plugged into the battery box
Speaker 1: that I just showed you, and you can plug it
Speaker 1: in to this battery this way, just like that, and
Speaker 1: that's a charging light right there that's charging the battery
Speaker 1: directly from that Gigabarts battery box. Now, the other way
Speaker 1: we can do it is I can take this and
Speaker 1: plug this into the radio right here, and that's plugged
Speaker 1: into the radio and it's charging the battery. So you
Speaker 1: can charge with the same type of PD power source
Speaker 1: PD USBC power source. You can charge the radio through
Speaker 1: the USB C cable. You can charge the battery through
Speaker 1: the USBC cable, and this way you will get well,
Speaker 1: now I'm not sure if you get you know, that's
Speaker 1: a good question. I wonder if you get a full
Speaker 1: ten watts on that or not. It'll tell you right
Speaker 1: here when I go to the menu. Yes it does, okay,
Speaker 1: right there, it says RF power ten watts. If I
Speaker 1: took off this external power source, that number drops to
Speaker 1: six watts right there. So now it's at six watts,
Speaker 1: and now it's at ten watts. So you can absolutely
Speaker 1: run a full ten watts out of this radio by
Speaker 1: using the USBC charger into the radio itself. You can
Speaker 1: also use the twelve volt charger this guy right here
Speaker 1: that I put power pools on and take this off
Speaker 1: right here, turn this back around. We're gonna plug this
Speaker 1: in right there. We're gonna take the power pole connection
Speaker 1: and now I'm running direct twelve volts into the radio
Speaker 1: and it is still charging the battery. So that's three
Speaker 1: ways to charge the battery, but all of them require
Speaker 1: a pretty beef. If he either a full twelve volte
Speaker 1: power supply like a twelve volt battery or twelve vote
Speaker 1: power supply plugged into AC mains or something like that,
Speaker 1: or a minimum of forty five watt power deliver report
Speaker 1: from USBC, which is not very fueld capable in my opinion.
Speaker 1: So those are the five things that I think that
Speaker 1: I noticed first off the bat that I'm like, I
Speaker 1: wish it would do this, or I wish it wouldn't
Speaker 1: do this. And you know, basically four of those things
Speaker 1: are hardware issues would require hardware changes, I'll put it
Speaker 1: that way. And the APRS reply thing that can be
Speaker 1: fixed in firmware and software. I'm not really worried about that.
Speaker 1: And I also noticed that there was a problem with
Speaker 1: the power meter when I was at PODA. The power
Speaker 1: meter would sometimes drop, but the power output on the
Speaker 1: radio was fine, so it was just a problem with
Speaker 1: the meter. I believe that was fixed in the latest firmware.
Speaker 1: I haven't taken the radio back out to a park
Speaker 1: since I updated to the latest firmware. There's a firmware
Speaker 1: from May of twenty twenty five, came out a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, really shortly after hamvention actually, and I
Speaker 1: think that fixed the power meter thing. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to check on that and see and we'll go
Speaker 1: from there. So I'll probably do a follow up video
Speaker 1: to this later on. But I wonder what you guys
Speaker 1: think about these five things, And I wonder if you've
Speaker 1: noticed anything else that's kind of like a show stopper
Speaker 1: for you, if you were if you've seen something, whether
Speaker 1: you if you don't own the radio, what stopped you
Speaker 1: from buying it if you wanted it, or if you
Speaker 1: do own the radio, if you're like, man, this just
Speaker 1: I don't like this feature at all. I wish it
Speaker 1: would would do or would not do this thing. Put
Speaker 1: a comment in the description blow I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Seventy three