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Nice concept, needs some improvement on the user friendliness of the interface
- By Andy from Overseas on Sunday, April 20, 2014
- Pros: see above
- Cons: see above
- Review:
The Yaesu FTA-750L is a solid radio with a great concept: Integrated Nav, Comm, GPS and ILS with a decent sized, though hard to see, display. The navigation displays are easy to use and logical. Overall, however, the navigation within the radio software is cumbersome, illogical and could use a great deal of improvement. The directions are not well written so don't help much with the overall experience.
What I liked:
Solidly built, water resistant
Good battery
Included extras (headset adaptor, AA case, desk stand, cig lighter cord)
Large display
Navigation displays (HSI!)
What I didn't like:
Not intuitive
Confusing in many areas (for instance, if you are in memory mode, it looks almost the same as comm mode yet you can't change frequencies and you find yourself wondering what's wrong with the radio)
Have to wade through many levels of the menu to get to what should be top functions
Can't change ILS course in ILS mode (directions say you can but they are confusing and I couldn't figure out with much exploration of menus).
GPS dropped signal a lot in cockpit.
Scanning useless
Display hard to see in sunlight due to glare on display cover and poor contrast
Can't program length of time backlight is on
Directions poorly written
Included (downloadable) programming software only for Windows
Comm range tested out to about 10 miles hand held in the cockpit. I tested it with a Lightspeed Zulu2 headset and the included adaptor worked well.
I've been flying for many years and am quite versed in the use of electronics and have studied and practiced pilot-machine interfaces at all levels from basic to very complex. One would think with such an expensive radio that more time would have been spent to polish the interface, especially in the age of iPhones and ease of use. Since this is software, I hope Yaesu does some major updates to fix what I perceive are considerable shortcomings in user friendliness. Would I buy it again? Probably since it's about the only thing out there with this feature set, but if Icom comes out with a similar model that is better executed, I would probably switch. - Was this review helpful to you? Yes No 129 Other people found this review helpful.
Verified Purchase
Looks Good but has some short comings!!!
- By Stan from Chino Hills CA USA on Tuesday, December 19, 2017
- Pros: Good product, good display screen, easy to read.
- Cons: is a little hard to program in new frequencies and locations
- Review: This transceiver is a good product, I would buy products from this dot com again.
- Was this review helpful to you? Yes No 9 Other people found this review helpful.
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