Yaesu FTA750L Handheld VHF Transceiver / GPS

I bought the Yaesu as a backup, a way to listen to weather and to talk to the departure folks before firing up the aircraft. So far, it's definitely lived up to my expectations. First, I like the overall construction quality - it's very good overall and the radio is a bit heftier (and larger) than I expected. The transceiver is well-sealed and seems to have good protection against the elements. It charges fairly quickly, although the charging stand is probably the lowest quality part in the entire package. The display certainly isn't going to match the Retina display on your iPhone, but it's legible and has enough contrast that you can read it in bright sunlight. Otherwise, the controls operate easily and solidly, although many of the buttons are on the small side. It's easy to attach an external headset or microphone, although once you open the ports where these devices plug in, I'm sure it's not water resistant anymore. I will say that mine came looking like the box had been sitting in someone's display case for a long time - it was downright dusty and faded. Still, all the parts were there and it seemed like it had never been used, so I was okay with it. Of course, this is more a reflection on the seller than the device. The basic functions - tune to a particular frequency and communicate - couldn't be easier to use...you just punch in the frequency you want on the keypad, or rotate the dial at top till you get where you need to be. In a real pinch, you could operate this part blindfolded. Some of the more advanced functions are clumsier (managing the memorized frequencies or entering GPS waypoints, for instance) - here's where the PC software comes in. If you're like me and have a Mac, keep in mind the PC software from the Yaesu site is unfortunately Windows-only. Overall, contrary to some of the other reviewers, I find comm functions to be strong and clear. At the airport, there's never an issue (as you'd expect), and from my home several miles from my local airport, I have no trouble listening to the AWOS or CTAF frequencies. The squelch function works quickly and well, and it's easy to adjust if you need to bring in a weak or distant signal. It's harder to judge the transmission quality, but I have no trouble with the various departure control folks I've spoken with. Once or twice I've used it in the aircraft with both my Bose A20 headset and an older David Clark headset I have. Both seemed okay, but I seemed to get some sort of interference from the Bose that disappeared on my old David Clark's. I believe one other reviewer suggested an external antenna...haven't tried this. Also occurred to me that some of the issues different reviewers have could be a function of the type of aircraft involved. I've used the Yaesu in three different small aircraft: a C172, an M20R and an SR22. There are definitely differences in performance between these - the C172 seems to give me the best reception, the M20R is okay (but not as good as the C172) and the SR22 is much worse than the others. Again, might just require a well-placed external antenna. On the Nav side, inside the aircraft at altitude, I've had no issues picking up VORs. The heading information is always within a degree or two of what the VOR in the aircraft says, although I do notice that it tends to lag behind the aircraft VOR by a few seconds when changing course. Same is generally true for GPS. Haven't had a chance to test the ILS/GS features yet other than to confirm that they indeed come active when in proximity of an ILS approach. I was a little torn between the 750L versus a lower-cost comm-only solution. I mean, between the equipment in the aircraft, ForeFlight on my iPad, the GPS apps on my phone and tablet, I have a lot of ways to know where I am...do I really need another? In the end, I guess I decided that the price difference wasn't great enough not to have another redundant navigation solution. I suppose I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Definitely a great product...

First, I'd like to say that I've found some of the complaints in the lackluster reviews for this transceiver to be unfounded. At first, when I was considering this purchase, I almost let them steer me in a different direction, but I ultimately decided on this transceiver because of all the features it had (Large LCD screen, ILS, VOR, Glideslope, Weather, and GPS!!!) and also all of the included accessories. Now that I've bought it and have had some time to play with it, I've been able to make some of my own judgements. I usually don't write a lot of reviews but now I want to try to address some of the criticisms and hopefully provide some helpful tips along the way. A few reviewers have said that the interface is not "intuitive". I'm not sure what this means- If you're expecting it to be intuitive the way an iPhone is, then sure, you might be a little disappointed. Out of the box I found it intuitive enough. You can get to the COMM mode by hitting the Menu key and then hitting the Enter (ENT) button, or just hit the dedicated COMM button on the keypad. Then you can punch in a frequency directly or use the dial around the volume knob to get to the channel you want. I was able to navigate to weather modes, and even figured out the Squelch before ever looking at the manual. Reading through the manual helps a lot to get used to all the features, but now that I've gone through it I don't think I'll need to look at it again to remember how to do what I want. Once you know what it's doing it's pretty straight forward. So if you're thinking this isn't "intuitive" enough then, as others have said: RTFM. If you remember what it was like to program a VCR, and you were able to do that OK, you shouldn't have any problems here. One reviewer said that the scanning feature was "useless". This was a bit concerning to me since as a student pilot I wanted to get this radio for listening to several frequencies to pick up on ATC communication. I suppose if you're talking about using this to scan the entire airband, then yes I might tend to agree that it is a bit useless, just because of the time it takes to go through all the channels- but then again, at 25kHz separation, we're talking about it going through 760 channels here. If you set this unit to the 8.33kHz separation that it is capable of, then we're talking about a possible 2,280 channels- Yikes! Seriously, who wants to scan the entire airband? Not to mention you'd be picking up the ATIS's and other channels you might not care to scan. Usually, you know the handful of channels for your area, and you just want to scan those. It bears mentioning here that Yaesu recently released a new firmware version 2.0 on 12/4/14. This new firmware version allows you to create up to 9 different groups in your Memory Book with customizable names. (If you need to update your firmware, see my tips below about programming the unit with your computer). Once you select a group in the Memory mode, you can activate the Scan function and it will scan the channels just in that group. I have a couple groups set up with the frequencies I want for a given airport, so if I'm near there I can scan just those channels. Works great. Another reviewer said that you can't tell if you are in COMM or Memory modes. I disagree. While they look similar, the memory mode displays "MR" to the left of the channel frequency, and also displays the memory group you are in below that. If you still can't tell, hitting the Menu button highlights the mode you are in. Hitting the "back" key takes you back to where you were. I know, it sounds really tough right? I've also found the "back" key very useful after changing settings in the setup or config to get me back to the mode I was in, whether scanning or whatever. Programming with a PC- This was another one that made me nervous at first, with some people saying they couldn't connect to the unit at all with a PC. First, no there isn't a version of the software for mac, but I have Windows installed with bootcamp on my mac and was able to do it with that. I admit, there were a couple rough spots where I had to look through the instructions again, but maybe I can save others some frustration. First, get the Yaesu programming software from their website, and install that along with the included serial driver. When you connect the unit to the PC with the included USB cable, it comes up with the notification at the bottom right letting you know your computer detected it and what "port" it is on (for me it was COM3). Now, if in the Yaesu software you tell it to read from radio at this point, you'll most likely get an error. You have to go to the options dropdown, and select the port the computer just detected it on- the software doesn't appear to do it automatically. Now, here's the other part you might get snagged on- you have to set the unit to "programming mode". With the unit off, hold down the menu key. Press down the power button, and as soon as you see the backlight turn on, release both the menu and power buttons. In the older firmware v1.4 that I first got with this, the programming mode shows a blank screen with nothing but the battery indicator. In the v2.0 firmware, it also displays the words "CP MODE". With the unit in that mode, you should now be able to get the software to read your current configuration from the radio. I used to program pagers and cell phones in the early 2000's and the software feels a little like that. Again, not dealing with cutting edge here, but it gets the job done- and I just love that it is even available on this model! The other radios out there don't seem to offer it, and I have to say that it makes it a lot faster to program your favorite channels. I did a few on the unit itself, and while the dial works for inputing names for the channels, it's slower. I was able to input a dozen channels fairly quickly. Then, tell the software to write your configuration to the radio. Also, you can save your configuration in a .DAT file, so if you have a friend that has either the 550 or 750, you can give them your file with all of your programmed channels! Those are the things I wanted to address. I haven't had a chance yet to really test out the features that make this unit better than the 550 model (GPS and ILS Glideslope), but I bought this unit because it had them, and I figure if I'm up in the air, better to have the features than to not, even if they don't work the best. It seems to have basic functionality, and again, I'm not expecting a Garmin GPS unit here. Still better than other units by having it available, and if it gets me info I need when I'm in a pinch then I'll consider it well worth it. Well, that's it- let me know if you've found this review helpful. Thanks.

Works good while I have it (2 months), can say no more because it went away with the aircraft i sold. However the old model I'm still have since 2008, keep working, battery keep holding enough power.

I will begin by saying I have not flown with this radio yet. I am a VFR pilot. I have been learning how to use it and for ground activities. This is a very capable radio, it is ruggedly built and packs in a lot of features. My main gripe is that the myriad of features are not quickly accessible, Let's face it, you most likely bought this rig for backup comms in flight. OK, hit the comm button and dial in a frequency and you are talking. As far as fiddling with setting up the VOR, I doubt you are going to be messing with this and still flying the plane. So in my opinion, the VOR / ILS part of this thing is not going to be particularly useful unless you are an IFR pilot with a radio failure and maybe you need a navaid to save your life. One feature that does seem to be useful is the GPS mode. If you in fact are over a place you want to save, you can do that and edit it later. It also has a GPS logger to save a course. The setup is quite involved, after creating an account on the Yaesu web site, you can download the YCE01 software. My install went without incident and connected to the radio via USB. The software does make it easy to edit memories and set up functions but you still have to input all the data manually. So get out your A/FD and start typing in frequency, lat/lon, etc. It took me several hours to get about 50 memory channels programmed. Once you do this, you can save the file on the computer for later use. This could be a great feature for people who fly in different areas. You can save different setups on your PC and load them into the radio. As far as construction, this is top notch Yaesu quality. The rig is solid although a bit on the heavy side. All the connectors are gold plated and protected by rubber boots. I highly recommend that you get the "L" model with the lithium battery. It also has WX band and you can use the VOR while talking on a comm channel, setting this up is a little involved and may not be intuitive while you are occupied with an electrical issue in the plane. Forget about setting up a scan unless you are on the ground. To get various memories to be scanned, you have to tag them in sub menu's which is kind of horrible. So my summary so far is that this radio will be great for use on the ground, ATIS, FUEL, CLNC, etc. It will also shine as an emergency comm radio if you have an in flight radio failure,. As far as fiddling around with all the bell and whistle features while flying, you probably wont be doing much of that. After I get some in flight time with it, I will post an update to this review.

Works alright. Typical Yaesu in terms of interface. VOR functionality works fine. GPS works fine. Squelch is better than the average scanner, but it's still an AM squelch. Sound quality can be lacking. Lowest volume is still fairly loud, but most other users will not notice. I did not manage to get the PC software to work.

Excellent radio, economically priced. Has NAV and COM features.... If you are flying along, especially at night and you lose your panel and now you are in the dark.. All you have is a Flash Light... At least with this, you have backup communications... Also very nice if you only have 1 COM and it fails... Easier to talk to the Controller or other planes than it is to use light signals to communicate with the ground. However, I do recommend the 850 over this unit, even though more expensive, better bang for the buck.

I carry this in my flight bag for safety, and to get ATIS before engine start. Even from inside of a C172 it still get a pretty good reception. I really like the power setup with rechargeable battery plus a backup alkaline battery tray. I get convenience and reliability. And that tray of alkaline battery in my flight bag doubles up as the backup for my headset too. One tip for using it in flight, which I had to do once already in a loss comm situation: Just hold it up to your headset's mic. It sounds loud and clear in your ears and everybody else's ears, as if the handheld radio was plugged into the intercom. Yes you can plug standard headsets into this radio directly. But in my opinion that is a lot of unnecessary work messing with this radio's water proof side cover and headset adapters---- after which you still need one of your hands on the handheld for the PTT button. So what's the point...

I've had a few aviation radios and this is by far the best. The battery life first off is excellent. Also, the number of accessories is great. You get the headset adapter as well as the backup alkaline battery holder. The function of the radio is very nice. It's easy to use and easy to program. Using the free software is the best way to program the radio though. I wish there was a way to import a list of airports with frequencies and lat/long but it's not that bad to enter them manually in the software. The software is also great if you want to program more than one radio as it's a simple click to change every setting on the radio as well as the memories. Very handy to make every radio at your flight school identical! The radio is rugged and should last years in your flight bag or around your FBO. The GPS locks quickly, even indoors! Very nice feature if your radio and GPS die in your aircraft. Should be able to get you out of any radio trouble. The display is bright and easy to read in any lighting condition. The radio is larger than the older VX series. I prefer the larger radio actually as it's easier to hold in your hand and honestly doesn't take up much more room. Don't hesitate to get this radio!