Yaesu FT-818 radio discontinued – Dec 2022
In a statement on the 28th of December 2022, Yaesu USA announced that their FT-818 radio is going to be discontinued. The reason given is the ‘worldwide parts shortage’.
This radio is essentially a ‘shack in a box’ as it covers nearly all of the amateur radio bands including all of the HF bands (160-10m), 6m, 2m and 70cms. The power output is 6-watts.
The FT-818 model was released in March of 2018 and was the replacement for the venerable F-817 which was released way back in 2001. The FT-817 was a hugely popular radio especially with QRP and portable enthusiasts in its day. The FT-818 was supposed to be its more modern iteration but it was widely seen the FT-817 with a few improvements and it left a lot of people disappointed.
A quick check of the prices show the FT-818 selling for about $650. That’s about half the price of the hugely popular ICOM IC-705 which sells for $1350. As a radio, it would have been under pressure from Chinese radios like Xiegu which sell for the same or less or from the IC-705 which created a huge buzz when it was released.
Maybe it was discontinued because of the ‘parts shortage’ but I suspect a lot of people will think it was because of poor sales. Whatever the reason, it’s sad to see this popular FT-817/818 line come to an end.
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Yaesu also announced that they would be also discontinuing their FTM-400XDR radio. This is a dual band 2m/70cms radio with FM and C4FM. It was released in 2015 as far as I can tell.
Yaesu USA ANNOUNCEMENT – Dec.28th, 2022… “Please be informed that the production of the FT-818ND and FTM-400XDR will be discontinued. We are forced to make this unfortunate decision due to difficulty we are having with the availability of some components. We appreciate your long-term patronage of the FT-818ND and FTM-400XDR.”
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