Yaesu FT-5200 Dual-band 2m/70cm Transceiver Major Features:

• Dualband transceiver operates on 2m VHF and 70cm UHF ham bands
• Wideband with some modifications
• Dual in-band receive function
• Transmits 50 watts on 2 meters and 30 watts on UHF
• Compact chasis
• Built-in CTCSS encoder
• High sensitivity receiver

My experience:
I bought my Yaesu FT5200 from Ham Radio Outlet for $569.00 including shipping. The transceiver was pretty well loaded for the time when it was purchased. A built-in CTCSS decoder would have been nice. The dual receive is pretty cool. It can receive two frequencies on both bands or even the same band at the same time. Very cool if you are waiting for a call but want to listen around the bands. Unfortunately, it can only transmit from the main band. Also, when using dual-inband receive, the subband operates at reduced sensitivity. Initially I used it in my house for base use. I hooked it up to a homemade VHF antenna since that was my frequency of interest at the time. I could make contacts to all the local repeaters. Contacts said audio was load and clear. Some even said it had the best audio quality they ever heard. (Yaesu is known for making radios with good audio quality). On my end I hooked up an external speaker since the little internal speaker was too small. With the external speaker audio was very loud and clear. Later, I installed a Coment GP-9 collinear dual-band base antenna. Well, the poor little Yaesu picked up every pager, TV and FM station transmitter around. I was pissed to say the least. I couldn't use a bandpass filter since I wanted to use UHF on the same antenna. The solution wasn't too bad - (although the average ham would have sold the radio). I ended up making a notch filter to knock out the interference coming from the commercial transmitters above the 2m VHF ham band. It worked really well. After a few months, I noticed the display had gone dim. I opened up the case and discovered it used tiny incandescant lamps for backlighting. Two bulbs had burned out. I replaced them with some tiny lamps from Radio Shack. I would have used LEDs, but at the time LED technology wasn't that bright. After a while, I wanted to get into amateur satellite so I moved the FT-5200 to the car. It worked just fine there, but I still needed the notch filter and external speaker. After about a year, people started complaining that my audio was all distorted and low. I stuck it on the bench and discovered that an electrolyic capacitor in the audio path on the front board had gone bad. I replaced it and I was back in business. About 6 months after that, I was getting the same reports of distorted audio again. This time the element in the microphone had gone bad. I replaced that with an element from Radio Shack. Since then I have had no additional problems.

Yaesu FT-5200 Pros:

• Dual-band transceiver
• Dual in-band receive
• Sensitive receiver
• Still works fine after 10+ years
• Good transmit audio
• Built-in CTCSS encoder

• Prone to interference from out of band transmitters
• Front display lights burn out
• Needs external speaker to be usable
• Internal repair needed to fix distorted audio
• Microphone element deteriorates in the car heat
• Reduced sensitivity on sub-band when using dual-inband receive
• No Built-in CTCSS decoder

Yaesu FT-5200 Spot Rating:
Overall, it's a good general use dual-band transceiver. At the time nothing else could touch it for the price and feature set. I would have had to spend at least $100 more for a comparable Icom Transceiver. I have to give it 3 spots since it needed repair and has interference issues.