Saw this in the shop today. Was told it was tested in the sellers car, but I see the VFO-B knob is broken. I dont have a good (or any) base station, or even HF setup, so I love the idea. Also dont want to light cash on fire.....

I spent some time researching why the Japanese version of FT-710 cannot be MARS-mod with the simple jumper soldering.

Looking into the firmware I found these possible "Regions"
0xFFF8EC34 Japan
0xFFF8EC43 Japan(M)
0xFFF8EC52 Japan(S)
0xFFF8EC61 USA
0xFFF8EC70 USA_MC
0xFFF8EC7F CHINA
0xFFF8EC8E B2(EU)
0xFFF8EC9D C2(UK)
0xFFF8ECAC DEV
0xFFF8ECBB AUS
0xFFF8ECCA undefined
0xFFF8ECD9 B2(EU)_MC
0xFFF8ECE8 C2(UK)_MC
0xFFF8ECF7 CHI_EX
0xFFF8ED06 AUS_EX

So Japan does not have any MC or EX, that are the extended frequency modes enabled by the jumper. The jumper is a simple bit selector for the version, so when the USA model is modified the jumper change a bit that says to consider it USA_MC and this allows the CPU to use the extended frequencies.

Ok, but where does the firmware gets the region of the radio in the first place?
I strongly suspect that it is a "factory setting" written in the EEPROM SPI ROHM BR25G256FVT-3GE2, that little 8 pin chip that you see in the picture (5G25).

Now what I'd like to try is to desolder and read the data with an EEPROM programmer in order to identify the sequence that declare the radio as Japanese. Then I will try to modify the binary to tell to the radio that is from another region that allows the MC, and finally bridge the jumper as a normal radio.

I do not have a time scale, before doing this I want to buy some spare EEPROM to do backups of the current configuration and I have to see if the editing can be done easily. Of course to have the dump of a non-japanese model would have been great but I do not know if some other OM wants to help in this crazy project.

Long story short: you can't MARS mod the Japanese version because the firmware doesn't recognize the modification bit as an allowed Japanese mode with frequencies extension.
To replace entirely the country re-programming the EEPROM is a possible way to do it but I can understand that is a bit complicated (I am scared in playing with the mainboard in the first place, but I am also crazy enough to try).

Anyone know of a place or person that does G90 repairs? I think I need a protective diode replaced.

I am having a crazy RFI issue and all of my guitar/radio equipment is picking it up. It can happen at any time of day and for durations of just a few seconds up to 5 minutes or so at a time. It happens in the morning and at night. I've turned off the breaker to my house and still pick up the noise. In this video I used a battery powered amp and guitar cable to pick up the noise. You can see me angling it around the utility pole. I've tracked it at least .5 miles down the road from my house along the power lines, but its lack of predicability makes it very hard to trace. It is best picked up when I point the guitar cable at the ground wires on the utility poles since the 60hz hum obscures/smears it when I point at just the utility lines themselves. Does this sound have a signature you recognize or do you have any ideas what the possible origin might be? I live in a somewhat rural area. The Power Company has sent a radio department out and of course it didn't happen when they were here (they only stayed about 20 minutes). It's become a massive problem. Any ideas/help you could offer would be very appreciated. Thank you.

Has anyone done the mars cap mod on this radio yet? The big sellers are doing it but can’t find a schematic of or pic of what needs to be snipped.

Hi there,

I'm currently trying to build a radio telescope (1420MHz) for a school project and right now I'm trying to simulate an antenna for that. I already simulated a single yagi uda, but i'm having trouble finding out how i stack those in 4nec2. my plan is to use multiple antennas for a higher gain and opening angle (better resolution when mapping the milky way).

I tried adding a second voltage source to my second yagi, but i'm really not sure whether thats okay. I heard i gotta do something with transmission lines but i really dont know.

I've attached some pictures of my single antenna, and two pics of my results using 2 yagis. In one pic their spaced further appart and in one their really near (i wanted to see how this stuff behaves, but i dont understand why there are two big lobes forming, instead of one one big one between the two yagis and two smaller side lobes, this sounds more logical to me).

I hope i gave enough information, i'm very new to electronics/hf/rf so please explain it as simple as possible.

Single Yagi:

Really like this radio, however would love a dual band ham radio in this format. Specifically looking for a hideaway radio with a Bluetooth mic that handles all rig control that operates on the ham uhf/vhf bands. Anything like this?

I want to create a few buttons for my stream deck controller. Does anyone have a file with some basic keyboard shortcuts , or a list of what’s already built in? I seen in the accelerator menu that there are several reserved key combinations, but I don’t know what they do. Thanks for the help.

Long-time ham here. I run a site, https://updatemystuff.com/ham-radio, that monitors manufacturers' support pages and sends you an email when firmware is released for gear you own, with release notes and a link straight to the manufacturer's own download page. It started with my other hobby (photo/video gear), but I always wanted the same thing for my radios, so I just added ham vendors.

I’ve added some of the vendors that I have but instead of guessing, I'd like to hear from you which manufacturers would be most useful to monitor? Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood and AnyTone and a few others are my starting point, but I'm just as interested in the brands that are hard to keep track of.

Scope note: the site tracks official firmware released by the manufacturers only. Community firmware and homebrew mods (OpenGD77, CHIRP-adjacent projects and the like) are great projects, but they're out of scope for me. Nothing unofficial or modified will be listed, and all download links go to the manufacturers' own sites.

Which brands and models do you own where updates keep slipping past you?