I made the Yeasu FT 817ND work at 5 watts

Error in the Yeasu manual

After my previous outing with the 817, I decided to try to find out why I was only operating at 2 watts.  To my suprise, or not it turns out if you are running on an external power supply or car battery then the power indicator goes out to indicate its on 5 watts, when on internal power it flashes.  Problem solved.

So today I had a play and managed to talk to;

M6WYD John 7.129mhz station in West Yorkshire at 5 watts QRP distance 200 miles

G4BIZ 7.136mhz station in the New Forrest at 2 watts QRP, the QRM was terrible and we had to cut the chat short distance 60 miles

QRP Setup Buddipole and Yeasu FT-817ND

A quick look at my QRP setup.

Consists of a Yeasu FT-817ND with additional filters, a LDG Z817 auto tuner for when I'm lazy not tuning the SWR on the buddipole and a AV-20 SWR meter.

My QRP setup....

My QRP antenna is a Buddipole on a 5 meter painters stick from Amazon.  I manually tune the SWR before use to make the most of the limited power.  I can normally get an SWR of approx 1:1.2.  However this moves up quickly when off a set frequency and sometimes I plug in the ATU to resolve any SWR issues.  This of course make the setup less efficient.

Buddipole, chairs not included

Te whole QRP setup fits in a small bag with the antenna and pole easily fitting in my Audi, or even our Smart car.

This is a small setup ;-)

1st ever QRP on 40 Meters

List of my 1st QRP contacts on 40 meters using a Yeasu 817ND and Buddipole

GB100MWT pm 7,122mhz 2w QRP station was in Chelsford Essex approx 50 miles

GB6YD Barry, 7,129mhz 2w QRP station in Yorkshire distance approx 200 miles


GB4SLB Pete, 7,163mhx 2w QRP station in Selsey West Sussex probably 30 miles