New addition to shack: Yaesu FT-7

I remember being impressed with one of these when I was young and jumped at the chance to pick one up for $180. The FT-7 is totally analog, no digital anything, and they have a good reputation for a nice sounding receiver.

 
This is not a "B" so it's 10W out but that's fine for me. The case has a few "dings" and there are some holes presumably for adjusting things, but inside it's clean.

 
One nice thing about this rig is the low receive current, 400mA, and it's said that about half of that is the dial lights.

 
This one has a few quirks, AF gain doesn't seem to do much and RF gain seems very dramatic in its operation. Something is loose somewhere and the audio level jumped up dramatically when I moved the lid and has stayed that way. The S-meter seems to read rather high most of the time as well.

 
I heard lots of stations on 40 and 80m this morning but haven't had a chance to have a contact and get a signal report. The receive audio is indeed very pleasant although some QRN from distant lightning was more obvious than on more modern sets. The old "Fox Tango Seven" seems to have a few fans around which is great for a set that came out in the 1970s. It even has gears:

 


The excessive audio gain was fixed by re-seating the audio board (the edge connector must be a little dirty). The only remaining issue is that the S meter reads a minimum of S9. I suspect something in the AGC area.