The Yaesu FT-450D ham radio base station is compact, smart and affordable for most radio amateurs.
The Yaesu FT-450D ham radio transceiver covers all the HF Amateur Radio bands and can transmit a full 100 watts from 160m (1.8 – 1.9 MHz) through to 6m (50-54 MHz). And since the 160m band is technically an MF band andsix meters is VHF, this means it is actually an MF/HF/VHF radio transceiver. The FT-450D even includes a build-in antenna-tuning-unit (ATU), and has built-in IF (intermediate frequency) DSP (digital signal processing) the type that is much better at filtering out unwanted noise than the audio DSP on some competing radios.
The FT-450D has a large backlit digital display that is easy to read.
The earlier FT-450 radios (the non-D model) did not have the built-in ATU, but now they all come with one already installed. Don’t get too excited, however. Like many built-in antenna tuners, this one can only handles a 3:1 mismatch. That means your antenna needs to be well in the ballpark, frequency-wise, before this tuner can help you reduce the swr. It cannot help you match just any length of wire or whip to the frequency you need to transmit on. But if your antenna is resonating just a little bit too high or too low, the built-in automatic antenna tuner will lower the swr so you can transmit at full power. And the clever little ATU will even remember the tuner settings the next time you use that same frequency.
The FT-450D also sports a 10 kHz bandwidth roofing filter right after the 1st mixer, in the radio‘s 67.899 MHz 1st IF. This filter arrangement from Yaesu provides excellent narrow-band selectivity which protects the IF and DSP stages that follow it. In fact, it is a feature that is not seen often in radio transceivers in its price range.
This radio is nice and compact, measuring 9 in wide x 3.3 in high x 8.5 in deep, and it weighs in at 8.8 pounds.This makes it ideal for the home shack desktop, or for portable operation or mobile. Some will find this a fine little set to take on emcoms (emergency radio volunteering) or on DXpeditions to exotic locations. All it needs is a 22 amp 12-volt power source, or a deep cycle or a car battery and a dipole or other resonant antenna for the bands you will be using.
The FT-450D’s power output is 100 watts on all Amateur bands from 160 meters to 6 meters — that is 160m, 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m HF bands, plus the 6m VHF band. Strictly-speaking, the 160m Amateur band (1.8 to 1.9 MHz) is an MF band. It isn’t HF, although it gets lumped in with the other HF or shortwave bands for convenience. This is because the HF bands are all between 3 MHz and 30 Mhz. 160 meters or 1.8 to 1.9 MHz is below that, which puts it in the MF spectrum which runs from 300 to 3000 KHz (that is 0.300 to 3.00 MHz).
The transceiver’s large and easy to read LCD display and backlit key buttons make the FT-450D radio a pleasure to operate, whether you use SSB voice, CW (morse code) or digital modes such as PSK or RTTY.
Watch the video below to see Robert Allison WB1GCM give the Yaesu FT-450D a quick demonstration at the ARRL HQ lab. If you’re thinking about buying this ham radio transceiver, this 8-minute video tour will be time well-spent.
Further reading:
Yaesu’s page on the FT-450D This shows you the manufacturer’s specifications and brochure details.
eHam.net reviews of the FT-450D These show you what the real owners and users think of their FT-450D radios… And you will notice most rate it 5 out of 5 by a large majority.
Yahoo Groups FT-450 users group Join the appropriate Yahoo Group when you want share your triumphs, problems and solutions with other Amateur Radio operators who use and love this radio.
Click here for pricing for the Yaesu FT-450D radio transceiver.
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73 de David, vk2dmh.
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