YAESU FT 891 A Great Radio For Its Intended Purpose

This is not a comprehensive review, but after a month of use I felt it would be useful to let the community know just how this radio is working.

Lets get the obvious out of the way right up front - it has no UHF/VHF side. It's HF only. I know there's been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth on the internet over this 'shortcoming', but also keep in mind that this radio is retailing about $150 less than the beloved FT-857.

I don't own an 857 so I can't make a comparison between the two on HF performance. What I can say is the 891's digital signal processing and filtering is excellent.

Contrary to some reports the menu system is actually very easy to figure out and navigate. I passed on buying RT Systems programming software because the rig is easy to figure out and configure right from the front panel.

The band scope feature works very well, and I find myself doing regular band sweeps to find active frequencies. The display resolution is somewhat crude (it's a dot martix interface) and Yaesu could have gone with a better resolution display, but even with the low resolution display the band sweep function works great.

I paired my radio with the Yaesu FC-50 tuner and its a great combination. I've set one of the three programmable display buttons to trigger the tuner. The tuner does not require a separate power source - it's powered by the radio via the CAT cable, making for a neat setup. So far the tuner has handled everything I've hooked it up to - mostly verticals and end fed long wires - and it's tuned it all without a problem.

Are there gripes? Sure. The display resolution I've already discussed is one. Next, Yeasu seems to have envisioned this radio to be used either vehicle mobile or in a permanent shack setup. What they seemed to have ignored is people like me who like to use it 'park bench mobile' or dismounted mobile with the head separated from the radio body. What Yaesu or a third party needs to come up with is a decent tabletop stand for the remote head. Yaesu sells what looks like a flimsy metal stand along with their outrageously priced separation kit, but the remote head really cries out for something more robust. And last, Yaesu placed the microphone connection on the radio body, not on the remote head. This means the users may have some complicated decisions to make when remote installing the radio body in a vehicle.

So is the 891 a very good radio that's worth your consideration? Yes. Does it match the reputation of the much loved 857? I can't say - I'll leave that to you to decide.