Yaesu FT-221R

I fell in love with this baby immediately – it has every mode a ham can ask for, and if you lift the top cover you can reach every adjustment you want to make. She is a classic, manufactured during the late 1970’s when everything was tidy and used a computer back-plane with plug-in modules. It even has the original quirky 4-pin square power connector that is impossible to find nowadays. Runs off a built-in 220v power supply or you can use the 12v input. Unfortunately I already have two other VHF radios and the XYL is beginning to complain about the invasion of radio equipment, so she has to go.

The Yaesu FT-221R is a 2 meter multi-mode transceiver that operates in SSB, CW, FM and AM modes. Power output is: SSB 12 watts PEP, CW 14 watts, FM 14 watts and AM 2.5 watts. Frequency coverage is 144 to 148 MHz in eight 500 kHz ranges. It has a built-in 100 kHz crystal calibrator, noise blanker, speaker and three way analog meter (S Meter/Power Out/FM Discriminator) according to Universal Radio. There is no 88.5Hz tone board fitted so you can’t access CTCSS repeaters, but it already has the plug fitted for tone output on the back and you can easily fit one of the boards supplied by Magalies Club – I wrote about that earlier. You can also read the eHam reviews here and of course RigPix also has a picture here.

She comes complete with power cord, microphone and two printed manuals. I don’t have proper test equipment to check her out completely, but I switched her on and I was able to record a few seconds from the Sandton repeater (145.700 FM) which you can listen to on my Downloads page. You can also download the user guide from there if you can’t find one on the internet.