Oh my gosh, I had one of these back in the day (early 2000's). I used it as a VHF/UHF base station. I had so many contacts on that little thing. I sold all my ham radio equipment when I had a big move, but this is the one radio I wish I had held on to... it had everything... it was tiny and yet it performed extremely well. Enjoy it!
The Mitsubishi M57788MR module is rated for 45 watts with a 0.4 watt input. The entire Mitsubishi family offer a great opportunity for hams to experiment with amplification at a minimum expenditure. Just add a band-pass filter if necessary and the internal components of the module will provide significant RF power. Nice find, Steve.
The voltage drop is possibly due to corrosion on the fuse holder. Also the stock DC cable was only 4 feet in length so if you were using anything longer it may have been that... If you happen to find a source for OEM YSK-90 separation kit I'd like to know, but I think that I've left my run 20 years too late for one of those!
I've owned one since the release. Always loved the little radio. Still installed and working in my old F150. The mic cable degradation was a common problem with that mic. The sheathing fell apart easily. I replaced it years ago and it's been great.
You got a steal. I see these selling on Ebay for 3 times that price. This is from Universal Radio: The FT-90 receives air band and has CTCSS/DCS encode/decode. Output is 50/20/10/5 watts on 2 meters and 35/20/10/5 watts on 440 MHz. The FT-90 comes with the MH-36A6J DTMF hand mic. This hand mic supports scanning and memory channel selection. The hand mic keypad can also be used for direct frequency input, memory recall or DTMF entry. The head is removable with the optional YSK-90 separation cable kit.
ive got one of those in my shack right now and its in mint condition also got the original seperation kit to mount the front away from the body with all leads and bracket. looking forward to this video you wont be disappointed
if you poke around, you will find that the correct microphones for these are machined from pure billet unobtanium, and sell for more than the radios themselves. The Separation Kits were optional, and are also very scarce, although there was a gent out of Germany IIRC who was making the plastic bits and selling them on eBay a number of years ago. As you know, it's a great little rig.
That a nice old radio. Start at the power cord looking for voltage drop . I had a old radio that did something like that and turned out was a loose fuse holder. I cut it off and put new Bussmann ATC fuse holder and fixed. Could be that T connector. Just start probating back from from the power source and work your way to radio. Check every crimp and connection. Key radio each time into dummy load. I even cleaned a fuse with scotch brite and fixed connection problem. Just some TLC and you have a great radio ! 73
You might clean the fuse and the pins on the power cable. Maybe even hook up a DMM to confirm levels. Make sure where the power cable connects to the pc board the wires are not frayed.
Those were my thoughts. Maybe measure the voltage at the radio end of the power cable while transmitting to see if it actually it dropping along the power cord.
I don't know about that radio, but Yaesu likes to use Ethernet or phone cables for faceplace separation. Old Yaesu mic cables also like to do what that one's doing. Nothing a little heat shrink can't handle.
The voltmeter on the ICOM 7300 actually show the voltage on the finals. This means that the voltage on the finals in different that the input to the unit. You might look at how the unit derives the voltage reading for the display. Also you could use a voltmeter at points inside the unit to see how the voltage is affected by the increased power draw during xmit. As someone suggested below check the power and ground connections and make sure they are good and not causing excessive power crop under the higher current load during xmit. You can also look and see if a high volume output, ie real audio coming out of the speaker, also causes a low voltage condition. just some thoughts. Thanks for the video Steve! 73
The FT-90 sounds really good. Nice find. I don't get any notifications from any channel (and the bell is fully checked) but TOADS lets me know when you drop videos.
Hey Don, are you running the youtube app on your phone all logged in and such? I think that's the only place notifications go. From there I tap "watch later" and can see them on whatever device I want to watch them on.
@@temporarilyoffline I do not use YT on my phone. If I am not in front of PC then I usually to busy to pay any attention to it. So I am strictly PC based. I used to get notifications over e-mail but if they stopped doing that then the "bell" does me no good. I do not allow notifications on any device to act like pop up ads.
Cool video! Maybe look at ground connection, bad ground can do weird things. I wanted to let you know I got the VR-N76 yesterday and am looking forward to investigating aprs. Thank you very much! 73
Probably the power cable and connectors, they look small in diameter on the video. Check the volt drop at either end whilst transmitting with an accurate meter. There should be no to little difference. For reference, a commercial radio rated at 50 watts out will have appropriate rated power cable and connectors and not T connectors or Anderson powerpole.
Resistive power cord, fuse holder, or internal termination. 8 to 10 amps dropping 2 volts would imply 0.2 ohms somewhere. Mot getting full power when the supply seen by the internals is 11V is not surprising.
Hey Steve, last Wednesday Gale & I hooked up my Kenwood TS-2000 to his service monitor and saw the same thing, a drop of about one volt + from the bench supply (13.8) to the back of the rig (12.4). We concluded it was a voltage drop across the two fuses. Try measuring at the T plug.
Maybe place a decent portable volt/ohm meter across both ends of your Yaesu power cord, to verify the voltage drop. The slowing fan is an indication of excessive current pull. Maybe try one of your fancy clamp meters, too.
These radios have a reputation for frying finals. Leave the fan in the default settings. I run mine at "mid" and haven't had any problem. Mike cord replacement is easy. 73
I pulled my old FT-1500M 2M mobile, it is still working. I also bought a digirig for it, and an Itty bitty puter from Newegg, gonna try to make it a digipeater...
I believe the finals are fine. The MFJ power meter is not terribly accurate, and I think you are within the margin of error. There is most likely either a trimmer (hardware or software) to adjust the output levels, but IMO this is not worth changing. The finals will generally last longer if you don't push them to the design limit. The output level is also controlled by the SWR that the radio sees, and this circuit is also sometimes adjustable. This was a good video Steve where we got to see the innards of the rig and just how tiny many of the components are today. We had it easy 30 years ago! 73 OM
Hey Hollywood, I tend to agree. almost 40 is apparently close to what the finals are rated for in the first place, so I don't know know where they got 50. I have another one to put on the bench, and if its similar... I'll be happy with it.
I have one of these, the mic cable disinterred after about 10 years service in my car. I'm about to put mine back into service as an allstar node radio
I have the FTM-10, it's the most frustrating radio I own - I need to keep the manual handy whenever I use it! :-) It's a good radio though for the size, with 50W out.
I didn't see an easy way to change/program frequencies into this radio, Imma have to go to the manual. Makes it great if you are stationary in one town, but with my travel this will be a data radio.
@@temporarilyoffline Yes, programming the FTM-10 is a bit of a pain, but armed with the manual you can be fairly quick at repeating the process for a few frequencies. However it doesn't do (as far as I know) computer programming. It would be better if it did! I'm guessing it's similar with the FT-90.
It's always buyer beware...picked one up last year, and although 2m is good at all power levels, the 440 side is dead. Anyone ever had this joyous experience before? At the least, I can use it for small carry SOTA/POTA for 2m. Cheers, y'all!
For your power drop , check your connectors and make sure your fuse connectors are clean and snug. My IC-7000 gets really cranky if my fuse blades get a tiny bit of oxidation on them. I'm concerned as to why your fan is working so hard ( maybe the video just makes it seem that way) I have an FT-8800R and for it to step it's fan up that much it has to be running high power or anything heavy duty cycle ( like crossband repeater function) 73 de N3TGY
Oh my gosh, I had one of these back in the day (early 2000's). I used it as a VHF/UHF base station. I had so many contacts on that little thing. I sold all my ham radio equipment when I had a big move, but this is the one radio I wish I had held on to... it had everything... it was tiny and yet it performed extremely well. Enjoy it!
Thanks. It's fun so far
The Mitsubishi M57788MR module is rated for 45 watts with a 0.4 watt input. The entire Mitsubishi family offer a great opportunity for hams to experiment with amplification at a minimum expenditure. Just add a band-pass filter if necessary and the internal components of the module will provide significant RF power. Nice find, Steve.
Thanks Markus!
The voltage drop is possibly due to corrosion on the fuse holder. Also the stock DC cable was only 4 feet in length so if you were using anything longer it may have been that... If you happen to find a source for OEM YSK-90 separation kit I'd like to know, but I think that I've left my run 20 years too late for one of those!
Hey Scott! Will do!
Had one of these in my car for about 7 years, a while ago. Great little rig and fits just about anywhere
Yeah, I can't think of a place this wouldn't work
I've owned one since the release. Always loved the little radio. Still installed and working in my old F150. The mic cable degradation was a common problem with that mic. The sheathing fell apart easily. I replaced it years ago and it's been great.
Its a little workhorse and the mic cable was an easy fix too.
Gotta love those FT 90s owning two I use one in a go box for an event, radio and the other is a travel / camping radio.
Did you find an easy way to program them? I haven't looked yet
You got a steal. I see these selling on Ebay for 3 times that price. This is from Universal Radio: The FT-90 receives air band and has CTCSS/DCS encode/decode. Output is 50/20/10/5 watts on 2 meters and 35/20/10/5 watts on 440 MHz. The FT-90 comes with the MH-36A6J DTMF hand mic. This hand mic supports scanning and memory channel selection. The hand mic keypad can also be used for direct frequency input, memory recall or DTMF entry. The head is removable with the optional YSK-90 separation cable kit.
I sure did
ive got one of those in my shack right now and its in mint condition also got the original seperation kit to mount the front away from the body with all leads and bracket. looking forward to this video you wont be disappointed
Thanks for watching!
if you poke around, you will find that the correct microphones for these are machined from pure billet unobtanium, and sell for more than the radios themselves. The Separation Kits were optional, and are also very scarce, although there was a gent out of Germany IIRC who was making the plastic bits and selling them on eBay a number of years ago. As you know, it's a great little rig.
I'm enjoying it so far! That is for watching.
That a nice old radio. Start at the power cord looking for voltage drop . I had a old radio that did something like that and turned out was a loose fuse holder. I cut it off and put new Bussmann ATC fuse holder and fixed. Could be that T connector. Just start probating back from from the power source and work your way to radio. Check every crimp and connection. Key radio each time into dummy load. I even cleaned a fuse with scotch brite and fixed connection problem. Just some TLC and you have a great radio ! 73
Agreed!
You might clean the fuse and the pins on the power cable. Maybe even hook up a DMM to confirm levels.
Make sure where the power cable connects to the pc board the wires are not frayed.
Good call Lee, thanks!
Hey Steve, check the fuses in the power cable. I've seen similar voltage drops on a fuse with some dirty contacts.
Those were my thoughts. Maybe measure the voltage at the radio end of the power cable while transmitting to see if it actually it dropping along the power cord.
Yeah, it needs an overhaul
I don't know about that radio, but Yaesu likes to use Ethernet or phone cables for faceplace separation.
Old Yaesu mic cables also like to do what that one's doing. Nothing a little heat shrink can't handle.
I'm looking!
Still using my nearly 25 year old FT-1500M. Works like a champ!
This is why old radios hold their value
The voltmeter on the ICOM 7300 actually show the voltage on the finals. This means that the voltage on the finals in different that the input to the unit. You might look at how the unit derives the voltage reading for the display. Also you could use a voltmeter at points inside the unit to see how the voltage is affected by the increased power draw during xmit. As someone suggested below check the power and ground connections and make sure they are good and not causing excessive power crop under the higher current load during xmit. You can also look and see if a high volume output, ie real audio coming out of the speaker, also causes a low voltage condition. just some thoughts. Thanks for the video Steve! 73
Thanks for the tips Jeff!
If you got a good working one, then great!
Very good!
The FT-90 sounds really good. Nice find. I don't get any notifications from any channel (and the bell is fully checked) but TOADS lets me know when you drop videos.
Hey Don, are you running the youtube app on your phone all logged in and such? I think that's the only place notifications go. From there I tap "watch later" and can see them on whatever device I want to watch them on.
@@temporarilyoffline I do not use YT on my phone. If I am not in front of PC then I usually to busy to pay any attention to it. So I am strictly PC based. I used to get notifications over e-mail but if they stopped doing that then the "bell" does me no good. I do not allow notifications on any device to act like pop up ads.
Well, this would be good for that packet radio and it is great it does it! 73
Stay tuned!
Have you opened the fuse holder and inspected the fuse?
Not yet, good call
This is a cool little rig!
I'm having fun with it!
That's a dandy of a radio. Especially at that price.
Thanks!
Great video. I'm currently looking for an FT-90. All the eBay models are from Japan. I'm reluctant to buy one of those.
Thanks. Agreed, I would NOT get a Japanese model as the bad plan is different... Unless there is an open transmit mod (mars mod)
Have one of these, but don't remember seeing the voltage dropping on transmit. Will look in the morning, but still a great unit.
Let me know. Thanks
@@temporarilyoffline OK, at high power it drops from 13.8 to 12.0 at 35 watts into a dummy load.
@@michaelchellew1944 I appreciate the update, thanks. Comments are all about checking the power wire and the fuse/socket. Giver a shot
That is such a cool little radio!
I'm having fun with it. You probably should watch the next video in this series though
Ooh a cliff hanger. I wonder if the magic smoke will be let out???
@@hamradiotube worse
It’s not secretly a Baofeng is it?
@@hamradiotube don't worry. I bring it all back in part 3. Redemption!
Cool video! Maybe look at ground connection, bad ground can do weird things. I wanted to let you know I got the VR-N76 yesterday and am looking forward to investigating aprs. Thank you very much! 73
I'll take a look and congrats on the new radio!
Nice radio, good deal, tnx Man!
Thanks for watching!
Great find, especially in that condition. Hope the power issue is an easy fix.
Should be!
Check into Squelch problems and frequency step issues. Yes my mic cord self destructed too.
Thanks!
Hermosa radio, 73 LW2DNF
Sure is. Thanks!
Probably the power cable and connectors, they look small in diameter on the video. Check the volt drop at either end whilst transmitting with an accurate meter. There should be no to little difference. For reference, a commercial radio rated at 50 watts out will have appropriate rated power cable and connectors and not T connectors or Anderson powerpole.
Great idea!
Resistive power cord, fuse holder, or internal termination. 8 to 10 amps dropping 2 volts would imply 0.2 ohms somewhere. Mot getting full power when the supply seen by the internals is 11V is not surprising.
Got it, thanks for the tip
Hey Steve, last Wednesday Gale & I hooked up my Kenwood TS-2000 to his service monitor and saw the same thing, a drop of about one volt + from the bench supply (13.8) to the back of the rig (12.4). We concluded it was a voltage drop across the two fuses. Try measuring at the T plug.
Hey Rod, hope you're healing well!
i have 2 of these. one is on our echolink node. Its great
Sweet - what kind of power out are you seeing?
@@temporarilyoffline 52 watts on one and 47 on the other
@@ae4xo Nice, you got a good set!
I actually sold my head separation kit years ago. For a pretty good ROI if I remember.
Sweet. I have one in another box here.
Mine is in my go bag. The backlight is out on the display.
That stinks about the backlight. Fun radio so far.
my yaesu mic cable did that too. They just disintegrate.
Lotsa miles, easy fix. I link a replacement in the description
Maybe place a decent portable volt/ohm meter across both ends of your Yaesu power cord, to verify the voltage drop. The slowing fan is an indication of excessive current pull. Maybe try one of your fancy clamp meters, too.
Will do!
These radios have a reputation for frying finals. Leave the fan in the default settings. I run mine at "mid" and haven't had any problem. Mike cord replacement is easy. 73
Older yaesu's seem to have a problem burning up, eh?
I pulled my old FT-1500M 2M mobile, it is still working. I also bought a digirig for it, and an Itty bitty puter from Newegg, gonna try to make it a digipeater...
Good Idea! Should be pretty easy to get working, setup up direwolf and uncomment /edit the line about digipeating and you're golden!
I believe the finals are fine. The MFJ power meter is not terribly accurate, and I think you are within the margin of error. There is most likely either a trimmer (hardware or software) to adjust the output levels, but IMO this is not worth changing. The finals will generally last longer if you don't push them to the design limit. The output level is also controlled by the SWR that the radio sees, and this circuit is also sometimes adjustable. This was a good video Steve where we got to see the innards of the rig and just how tiny many of the components are today. We had it easy 30 years ago! 73 OM
Hey Hollywood, I tend to agree. almost 40 is apparently close to what the finals are rated for in the first place, so I don't know know where they got 50. I have another one to put on the bench, and if its similar... I'll be happy with it.
I have one of these, the mic cable disinterred after about 10 years service in my car. I'm about to put mine back into service as an allstar node radio
This would make a pretty sweet allstar radio. Stay tuned for the next video where I go over the data connections
I have the FTM-10, it's the most frustrating radio I own - I need to keep the manual handy whenever I use it! :-) It's a good radio though for the size, with 50W out.
I didn't see an easy way to change/program frequencies into this radio, Imma have to go to the manual. Makes it great if you are stationary in one town, but with my travel this will be a data radio.
@@temporarilyoffline Yes, programming the FTM-10 is a bit of a pain, but armed with the manual you can be fairly quick at repeating the process for a few frequencies. However it doesn't do (as far as I know) computer programming. It would be better if it did! I'm guessing it's similar with the FT-90.
It's always buyer beware...picked one up last year, and although 2m is good at all power levels, the 440 side is dead. Anyone ever had this joyous experience before? At the least, I can use it for small carry SOTA/POTA for 2m. Cheers, y'all!
Whenever I get something used, I factor that into what I'm willing to pay.
I ran one for years, but it had issues staying cool on long winded qso's
Its 103F here today, nothing is staying cool!
And tried to buy another at Huntsville, lol
It's a sickness...
Look up the common issues with these on the Web. Had 2. Great when they work.
Good tip. Will do
Make a reset and test it again. Sometimes some operator's like to mess whit the menus. Also check if there is any coil messed.
Good point, I'll do that soon!
For your power drop , check your connectors and make sure your fuse connectors are clean and snug. My IC-7000 gets really cranky if my fuse blades get a tiny bit of oxidation on them. I'm concerned as to why your fan is working so hard ( maybe the video just makes it seem that way) I have an FT-8800R and for it to step it's fan up that much it has to be running high power or anything heavy duty cycle ( like crossband repeater function) 73 de N3TGY
I really need to do a factory reset on it as well. From what I'm hearing, I want that fan running high to keep the tiny titan tamed!
But it is so tiny! Yes I’ve seen it live and it is even smaller. Size matters! TINY I tell you!
Tiny is better!
POTA likes its 1999. Nice steal.
Yeah. Gotta make 2m awesome!
Cool radio. It does it's thing. Stay Awesome Steve.
KO4HPC 73
Hey Adam. It Does The Thing indeed.
I’m gonna say the power cable connectors are dropping the power. Bad crimp or something. Cool little radio though. 👍
I'll give it a look-see
Pickle 😊😊😊😊
Hey Derek! Good to see you bro
9:52 Snap
Snap!