Yaesu FT-991 review

I currently own a Yaesu FTDX-3000 and was looking for a field day/portable rig with the smallest footprint, the FT-991 was it! It was a toss up between the FT-991. Icom 7100 or wait for the new unreleased Icom 7300. I own a Yaesu Quadra amplifier so I preferred the FT-991 to keep the connections simple, the radio also has VHF/UHF and a decent frequency receive range that comes close to most scanners!

The FT-991 is not that small but it is small enough for portable use, it may not be the best choice for backpacking but I can see it being a great fit for field day, lighthouse events and dxpeditions. I installed mine in a Gator GR-4S 15in deep case using the optional mobile mounting bracket. There was plenty of room available for a switching P/S, speaker and power connectors. The whole case weight about 25lbs and could also be brought on board flights as a carry on piece of luggage.

How does the radio work? Well, on SSB the DSP is great, it blows away the FT-857 and FT-897, I also found the DSP was actually too strong even on the lowest level, the latest DSP firmware update seems to have resolved this by weakening it a little. It is still not as nice as the DSP on the FTDX-3000 but it is pretty close, for example on the FTDX-3000 my DSP on level 6 is comparable to the FT-991 DSP level 2 or 3. Most of the time I have the level set to #2 as anything higher starts to create a fishbowl effect.

SSB use it pretty straight forward the microphone EQ is the same as the FTDX-3000 and the processor is just about the same as well, the transmit audio sounds fantastic and is highly customizable to whatever microphone you are using. The internal antenna turner is not a miracle worker but it does tune most antennas up to a 3:1 SWR pretty effectively.

This radio shines with digital modes, the built in USB sound-card means that you no longer require any type of Signalink or Rigblaster devices, you simply connect the radio to your computer with the USB cable. The USB cable provides two com ports, one is for CAT data and the other for PTT functionality. The USB connection also creates a microphone and speaker for digital mode software to operate. I have successfully configured the FT-991 to work with Omnirig, Log4OM, Fldigi, N1MM and JT65-HF-HB9HQX-Edition. If anyone needs assistance in setting up any of these applications please let me know via QRZ email.

VHF/UHF and C4FM use is excellent, RX audio is crystal clear even with the built in speaker. TX audio reports are all excellent. I have only tested Wires-X a couple of times and this seems to work as it should, I presume many more Wires-X repeaters will start to come online shortly.

Interfacing the radio to an amplifier is pretty straightforward, I have mine connected to my Yaesu Quadra using the same interface cables that I was using on my FT-857.

So what are the radio's downfalls? Well there are a few and I will do my best to detail them:

- Touchscreen madness: Almost all of the radios features need to be reached through the touchscreen, I understand this is they it has to be to keep the radio size down a minimum and for the most part this would be fine especially on SSB mode. But when it comes to the digital modes and you like to zoom into a particular signal it is a bit tricky and time consuming to use the shift/width features in the menu. Also, when the radio is in transmit mode you can only adjust the feature that is selected, so for example if you have TX power selected you will not able to feather the MIC gain up/down. Once you get use to this it will not be much of a problem however you should expect a bit of a learning curve.

- Antenna jack: There is only one antenna jack for HF, at first this bothered me somewhat but if you want a smaller radio you need to leave some stuff out. An $80 Alpha Delta antenna switch solved the problem here for me, I even mounted it in my portable case.

- Memories: 100 memory channels may not be enough for this radio, I quickly filled this up as I have HF digital modem frequencies, Air band and repeaters. Many people would like to have some other frequencies such as weather, AM/FM radio, police, fire etc. The Icom 7100 has 500 memory channels, this would have been a perfect amount for this radio as well.

I highly recommend purchasing the FT-991 radio programming software by RT-Systems for this this radio, it is a lifesaver in backing up all of your radio menu settings and memories. It also makes programming the radio a breeze.

Final thoughts:
Would I replace my FTDX-3000 with this radio? No! But it is a worthy radio for it's size and probably the best band for the buck radio available at the moment. It is perfect for portable use, field day, dxpeditions and probably on par if not better than many of the current big metal rigs out there.

Just think about it, all you would need for field day with this radio is a power supply, laptop and a USB cable. An antenna would be nice too. :)