| The FT-2980R is a beast of a transceiver putting out up to 80W FM on 2m. From spending a little time using it for 2m simplex nets and whatnot it is an excellent radio; it's the best 2m FM receiver I own and (anecdotally) an S-point "better" when compared to my other radios (FT-8800R, FT-857D, FTM-300D etc). S1 stations which were unreadable on my other sets come through clearly on the 2980R as it "seems" more sensitive and selective; impact from local QRM is also much reduced. When running full power the case gets extremely hot very quickly and on a 30W rag-chew the case still becomes maximum-touch-hot - but for long runs below 20W it's very happy. | The FT-2980R is a beast of a transceiver putting out up to 80W FM on 2m. From spending a little time using it for 2m simplex nets and whatnot it is an excellent radio; it's the best 2m FM receiver I own and (anecdotally) an S-point "better" when compared to my other radios (FT-8800R, FT-857D, FTM-300D etc). S1 stations which were unreadable on my other sets come through clearly on the 2980R as it "seems" more sensitive and selective; impact from local QRM is also much reduced. When running full power the case gets extremely hot very quickly and on a 30W rag-chew the case still becomes maximum-touch-hot - but for long runs below 20W it's very happy. |
| The design is, all told, extremely simple and elegant. On the TX chain We have an analogue amplifier and filter for the microphone audio, and mixing in the CTCSS tone is a simple resistor network. This is then fed to a "clever DAC chip" Q1043 (which also generates various analogue control voltages for mic gain, tuning varactors etc, more on that chip later!) which controls the deviation, then out to a VCO. On RX we have a pair of crystal filters after the first IF to strip out unwanted mixer products, and two crystal filters on the second IF for wide (-6dB 12KHz) and narrow (-6dB 9KHz), an RC filter for de-emphasis and all that, through various gain stages, is fed into an audio amplifier to the speaker. There is plenty of other voodoo for DCS, decoding WX broadcasts and such but the bits we're interested in are just a lesson in how to design a nice radio. | The design is, all told, extremely simple and elegant. On the TX chain We have an analogue amplifier and filter for the microphone audio, and mixing in the CTCSS tone is a simple resistor network. This is then fed to a "clever DAC chip" Q1043 (which also generates various analogue control voltages for mic gain, tuning varactors etc, more on that chip later!) which controls the deviation, then out to a VCO. On RX we have a pair of crystal filters after the first IF to strip out unwanted mixer products, and two crystal filters on the second IF for wide (-6dB 12KHz) and narrow (-6dB 9KHz), an RC filter for de-emphasis and all that, through various gain stages, is fed into an audio amplifier to the speaker. There is plenty of other voodoo for DCS, decoding WX broadcasts and such but the bits we're interested in are just a lesson in how to design a nice radio. Far as I can tell anyway, I am not an EE :) |
| The service manual is excellent; alignment and power / deviation adjustments are made through the front panel in service mode; setting the power levels to 6dB increments (e.g. ~1/5/20/80W) or adjusting the power to give 25W ERP is simple. Using an IC-705 as a reference receiver the transmitted signal has no horrendous key-up transients (a la FT-1500M) and the wideband PLL phase noise is extremely low. | The service manual is excellent; alignment and power / deviation adjustments are made through the front panel in service mode; setting the power levels to 6dB increments (e.g. ~1/5/20/80W) or adjusting the power to give 25W ERP is simple. Using an IC-705 as a reference receiver the transmitted signal has no horrendous key-up transients (a la FT-1500M) and the wideband PLL phase noise is extremely low. |
