Recently in a binge of late night purchasing I bought an FT-8800r. It's been on my mental want shopping list for awhile and after a few clicks I had bought it. It's got a lot of features I've always wanted and have needed so I bit the bullet.



Here is the Yaesu link with the factory description.
http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd...5&isArchived=0

The bigger differences from the FT-2800r that it's replacing is that it's dual band, it's got a data port and can send packet data, has cross band repeat, receives up to 999 mhz which is great for monitoring, has what they call hyper memory channels, can be remotely mounted and it's a bit smaller. It would be awesome if it were the same size as the 2800 because right now I'm having to fab so dash pieces to fill in some spots.

A box showed up and this is what was inside.



I ordered the separation kit because I figured I'd mount the 'radio' under the driver seat and run the cable to the dash. I already use a hidden auxiliary speaker so that was the easy part. I added a Comet B-10NMO to the order because I no longer have my Larsen 2/70. I sold it on Expo and now I wish I hadn't. It's a higher gain antenna than the B-10 and the price has gone up quite a bit. The B-10 gets great reviews and is said to out perform the Larsen 2/70 but the size and gain just isn't there so we'll see. I've still got the 2m 1/4 wave and the 2m 5/8 wave so I'm kind of set there. Since I have two NMO mounts on the roof I may get a duplexer and a standard 440 antenna with a bit more gain.

Old and new.





It was easiest to remount the 2800 above my work bench than the 8800 in the dash so I did that. I use my 5/8 wave Larsen whip on my old NMO mag mount that I mounted in the corner of the garage near the garage door. I ran all the wires behind the book shelf so it's a clean install and allows me to use more power than a handheld while at home.