More on the Yaesu FTDX10

 

I’ve used the FTDX10 daily for just over a month now. There is much to love about this little rig.

It took a bit of head-scratching before I eventually got the single-cable control and audio I/O working. There are USB drivers and CODECs on the Yaesu web site that need to be installed. At first, there was no love from the 10; I could not get Ham Radio Deluxe to recognize the Yaesu no matter what settings I tried.  Eventually I gave up on the USB cable and tried RS232C. That didn’t work either. Finally, after much resetting and disconnecting and reconnecting cables and restarting and cursing, I was first able to get audio through the USB port and into GarageBand. A few more tweaks and the rig control started working. I’m still not sure what I did, but it was clearly an issue of getting the right devices assigned to the right virtual COM ports in Parallels. Now I have the audio CODEC feeding the Mac natively, and rig control operating via HRD running in Windows inside a Parallels virtual machine. 

An unexpected surprise: after years of searching for good external stereo speakers, I’ve finally found them—and I didn’t have to look very far: my iMac. The audio coming out of my iMac’s built-in speakers is full, undistorted, RFI-free (as far as I’ve found to date), and beautifully tailored in GarageBand. I’m starting to capture audio snippets again just like I did back when I was a kid with my brother’s Akai 1/4-in. reel-to-reel recorder hooked up to my DX-160! (Where are those tapes today?!?!?)

🔈🎶  Radio Mali 9635 kHz 17-Feb-2021 0830 UTC

With all that accomplished, my next trick will be to get the K3’s audio into the Mac. This is where I will undoubtedly regret not upgrading to the KIO3B board to deliver digital audio straight from the radio. It might also be a good excuse to buy a used K3S. 

Or another FTDX10...

Radio Omdurman Sudan - Yaesu FTDX10

 Some shortwave broadcast DX from Sudan. 7205.0 kHz - 0445 UTC 14-Jan-2021

Not a particularly good time to be hearing Sudan on 7 MHz...

FTDX10

 So, I did a thing...

First, keep in mind my K3 is #216, it hasn’t had any of the hardware revisions done to the original model, much less the K3S synth upgrade. But it’s still the best receiver I’ve ever used under tough conditions, so much so that I’ve spent most of the last 13 years completely free of rig envy. I did not and still do not need a better radio and am not looking for one; I just wanted a new second 100w rig, and I bought it fully aware of all the important (to me) K3 features the 10 is missing. 

I knew it would be a solid performer from reading some of Rob Sherwood’s comments, but I am stunned. I’ve been playing with this thing in the NAQP CW contest, purposely looking for weak signals next to strong ones to test against the K3, and I cannot find any case in which the K3 could hear better than the FTDX10. Mostly the same, but occasionally a few where the 10 really outdid the 3. 

North American QSO Party in full swing.

Best example: Both radios set as close to identical as possible: bandwidth 300 Hz, APF on, 6dB ATT, preamps off. Weak signal on frequency x, strong signal on x+100Hz. The strong signal was still clearly audible inside the passband of the K3, while there was barely a trace of it on the 10–maybe some light key clicks on signal peaks, but no cw at all, Even when using the 500Hz roofing filter instead of the 300Hz.. No matter what amount of tweaking I did to the K3, I could not remove it from the passband (short of using a notch filter). I think the difference can be attributed to its APF—the 10’s APF is adjustable with three settings (NARR, MED, WIDE; mine is set to NARR), while the K3’s APF only has one which appears to be not quite as sharp as the 10’s. The K3 did not, however, exhibit any noticeable AGC pumping or other degradation to signal quality. This was an extreme case that I deliberately went looking for. Most of the time I couldn’t tell much difference between the two receivers. Bear in mind that I’m just using an end-fed wire, my “real” antenna has been down since my last move in 2016. So there’s not a lot of microvolts present at the antenna connector.

On transmit, T/R relays clickety-clicking isn’t too bad. If I were to use it in a contest, though, I’d probably turn off the full break-in and go semi-. The fan comes on during RX and isn’t exactly whisper quiet. I’m pretty tolerant, I’ve got all sorts of ambient noise in my shack that’s worse, so it’s just another hum.

Noise reduction works nicely on CW. On phone, I typically run the DNR lightly on the K3; on the FTDX10 it introduces a reverb to the signal that I don’t like, but that is pretty much default settings. I haven’t tweaked any of the settings yet. And there are a LOT of settings to set! 😳 I’ve only got a few hours seat time with this thing and have barely cracked the manual. 

The panadapter works. First thing I did was turn off the 3D waterfall. I’ll let the fanboys argue about whether the 7300 or 10 has the better fishfinder; to me it’s like Ford and Chevy guys arguing about who has the better radiator. It works as well as or better than my Flex 1500, and that works well enough for me. All but three analog controls are crammed to the right of the screen. There are a lot of them (24) and some of the buttons are in a tight place between protruding knobs. Familiarity will come over time—I spend a lot of time with my finger ready to press or turn something, but not sure where to poke it. Lol! I’m happy to say that they’ve at least got the right analog controls. Nothing that important hidden deep in menus, I don’t think. And the menus are a whole lot easier to navigate through than the K3 by a long shot. 

I posted a video of my first 5 or so minutes using the FTDX10 for the first time fresh out of the box...before I even read The Book of Words!: 

More to come as I dig into this rig.