Thinking about buying Yaesu FT-991A

I don’t know what the freq range you gave means. I assume that is the receive range for HF. 

the 991 is a very good all around radio. If you want to experiment with different types of activity it is excellent for that. I have one and use it everyday. 

I took a quick look at the Yaesu product web page for the FT-991A and saw some different number, and I could see where some of the wording on the specifications is not really specific in the wording that was chosen.   For most all of the normal commercially sold ham radio transceivers you can purchase it is usually pretty safe to make a couple assumptions about the transmit and receive specifications.

1.  The radio will only transmit in the frequency range's that are allocated to the amateur radio service.  I know that may not be the case with the Baofeng you have.  It will be the case with the Yaesu radio's for sure.  Unless you have it physically modified.

2.  You can usually assume that the radio will receive a much wider portion of radio spectrum than what it will transmit on.  If not specifically called out on the spec sheet a listed "Frequency Range" is most likely the range of frequencies that the VFO can be tuned to for receive, however the radio will usually only go into transmit mode if the tuned frequency is within the range of one of the allocated ham bands.

I copied this from the FT-991A Web page.

Frequency Ranges: RX 30 kHz - 56 MHz, 118 MHz - 164 MHz, 420 MHz - 470 MHz (specified performance, amateur bands only)
TX 1.8 MHz - 54 MHz, 144 MHz - 148 MHz, 430 MHz - 450 MHz (amateur bands only)

In this specification listing they call out specifically the range of radio frequencies that can be tuned to.  You can see here also that they are a little more specific in the differences between transmit and receive ranges.  How ever they don't specifically call out the frequency ranges of all 11 ham bands within the 1.8 - 54 MHz range.  They just make the note in parenthesis "(amateur bands only)"

As a club member, I would highly recommend checking out the club loaner radios.  The FT-991a, and the IC-7300 are both amazing radios for the price.  Other than VHF and UHF  they pretty much have the same basic functionality,  However I think there are big differences also.  I think that most of the differences really come down to personal opinion.  For me when I look at the water fall plot on the Yeasu I just want to cry.  I hate it with a passion.  I know other people that love the Yeasu and have used the ICOM 7300 and really like the Yeasu that much more.

Barrow the club loaners and use them for a while, I bet you will be glade you did.  A lot of people worry about not having the VHF/UHF Capability.  My self included, but to be frank there is just not much activity outside of the FM modes of VHF and UHF.  It's really fun when it does, but it's rare.

Let us know what other questions you have.

John

KC0LUH 

Posted by: @fischerk

A radio that goes from 160 M to 70 CM is quoted as "frequency range of 0.03-29.99MHz".  Can someone explain this? Thanks

Wavelength (in meters) = speed of light / frequency (in Hz). It's basically two ways of looking at the same thing and Hams tend to use both interchangeably. For example, the 160M band runs from 1.8 to 2.0MHz. Here's a conversion calculator to play with:

https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/frequency-to-wavelength

Thank you guys so much for your input. What radios does the club have for loaners? I didn't know about this and feel this would be a great way to get a feel for what I am looking for.

The loaners are:

Yeasu FT-991A

Icom IC-7300

Icom IC-705

Very nice rig!  I was looking at this and the FTDX-10 and based on inputs including from 2 who have both choose the 10.  Why?  Bigger display, easy to attach external monitor, and better HF performance which was my primary goal.

And XYL said I could (beg, grovel, has she said no, then repeat!)

73 de N0RDE

Jon