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Additionally, a great piece of donation-ware is available for programming this radio at http://www.kc8unj.com/. FT-60 Commander along with an $6-10 cable off eBay works great for managing the radio.
I've heard great things about it. I figure I will pick one up soon as my first radio over the VX-7R I was looking at.
Great info guys. I don't plan on using mine a lot.. probably just a couple conventions I do security for at first, so it will certainly do all of that and then some as I get more time to mess with it.
Not for business use...
It won't transmit outside the ham bands without modification (many ham transceivers can be modified to "free band" - but be you are not licensed to transmit outside the ham bands. I believe this radio as 'wide receive' meaning it will receive over a broad range (including frequencies reserved for emergency services, etc.)
Yaesu FT-60R anyone use this radio? Likes, dis-likes, comments?
Thanks
It won't transmit outside the ham bands without modification (many ham transceivers can be modified to "free band" - but be you are not licensed to transmit outside the ham bands. I believe this radio as 'wide receive' meaning it will receive over a broad range (including frequencies reserved for emergency services, etc.)
Correct. The FT-60R can receive frequencies from 108-520 and 700-999.990, but transmit is disabled for all but the 2m and 70cm ham bands. You can modify the radio by removing a friggin tiny resistor on the board, which will enable the radio to transmit on 137-174 and 420-470. For the most part you can't really legally transmit outside of the ham bands with that particular radio, though, so it's not really worth potentially destroying the radio to attempt the mod...and it's a TINY resistor, about the size of a single grain of sand. Long story short, the FT-60R isn't certified by the FCC to operate on any freqs besides those allocated to amateur radio, so it's really better to just go with a business band radio for business use.
You can purchase one online that is already "free band" and use the bands outside if you are licensed to, most are probably shipped from Asia (non US models).
I purchased mine in Asia so it came with "free band", no messing with soldering.
Is this a good entry level radio? What can one do with this kind of radio? I've been thinking about getting into this hobby I'm just trying to find a good place to start. Can someone provide some helpful hints?
I'm a new ham and thinking of getting into ARES or RACES. Would the FT-60R be "as good as any" for that kind of work?
If you're talking about the FT-60R, I'm not sure that's correct. The way the FCC regs are written, hams are allowed to modify equipment or even build equipment from scratch to operate on ham bands. However, radios for other bands (FRS, GMRS, Business, Public Service, etc.) have to be certified by the FCC for those particular bands. So, for example, you can take an old business or public service radio and reprogram it to operate on ham bands. You can't go the other direction, though, and take a radio manufactured for the ham bands and use to operate on a business band or public service band. According to a post I came across on QRZ, Philadelphia Fire Department purchased a bunch of modded amateur radios and used them on their public service freqs since they were cheaper than commercial radios. The FCC caught wind of it and slapped them with a rather large fine and forced them to dump all the modded radios and go with radios certified for commercial use.