Optima MKIII: Do Not Buy From Ebay, Unless...

wheelman918 said:

thats why i want an mk3 im sick of the hacked 007 radios, i tested that lescomm dx 959 custom 5304 board and sx 350 power cabinet vs my ultra hacked by a master cobra 148f gtl and a 2 pill 2879 black widow hacked and made in 1993 just give that lescomm a good old fashion whooping so convincingly well it gone, so ordered a texas star dx 667 v to compliment the old beast. i actually talked to a guy Christmas day during my 200 mile drive he was in san diego i was in kansas he was on an mk3 im sold on the mk3 all the way that thing sounded amazing and was rock stable loud clear audio, i like everything about that radio, im going to order direct from yeticom survival systems in nz very stable i high requirement for me that lescomm thing drifted so bad it was horrible. That was stupid i should have ordered the yeticom no doubt

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Yeah i sure am excited to try mine out. The only thing thats been done to the used mk3 i ordered is expanded frequency coverage for 11 meters and an alignment by DTBradios. No power mods or anything. If you order from yeticom they will send you either a 10/12 rig, or an 11m rig, they told me its not 10-12m from the factory, they have to be set up that way. But according to folks on this forum that is very simple to do.
I was on a budget thats why i didnt order straight from yeticom, wanted to keep my purchase under 300. Got the radio, kenwood microphone, and an external speaker for 290 shipped. According to the seller a member of this forum, he only turned it on around 12 times, decided the hobby wasnt for him and wanted to sell his equipment.

Let me know when you order yours and how it pairs with your amp. I was considering getting a kl-203p for it, but dont know how well that would work, might be too much drive for one.
Ill probably just save my dollars for a good beam antenna, gotta sweet talk my wife into letting me though, she didnt even want me hanging my dipole.

I went inside my optima's and set the variable power so when I have it turned all the way to low power it puts out 8-10 pep ssb, 1.5w am key swing to about 7-8w, and fm at 1.5w

this has been working great into any of the low drive boxes that I have tried. and I can turn the variable power back up to full power if the box isn't needed

camaro1 said:

I went inside my optima's and set the variable power so when I have it turned all the way to low power it puts out 8-10 pep ssb, 1.5w am key swing to about 7-8w,

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That is exactly how mine is setup too - pushing a KL-503 usually.

I would generally agree with you but I got mine NOS for $170 off ebay and I either got free shipping or it was under $15. I would say that anytime you buy off ebay it is a roll of the dice. I have been on ebay since they started up and have been burnt once for sure and the other 1-2 times their was no deception at all I just did not read description well enough or look closely at all the photo's. I prob. buy 3-10 items a month for the last 10 years off ebay and my wife does as well! In fact when I have had issues with things like shipping damage the people that have been the best to me are Chinese. They ship out replacements right away and never ask for the damaged product back at all! Eastern Europe has been fantastic to work with as well. The only problem people I have issues with often are the British so much so I would not order a pair of socks from the UK.

Ebay and paypal are not as helpful as they once where and things have gotten worse not better on ebay over the last 2-3 years!

wheelman918 said:

from what i understand they have a rougher model only from yeticom survival systems just for expedition rigs. wonder if you can run a 667 with it turned down?

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Just install a bypass for the 667 driver and it will then work like a 500.

Also I was under the impression that if you set it up for CB it defaults at 4 watts of carrier which is perfect for a 667 that is why they put a 2290 to drive 4 2879's.

If you leave it in Export or Amateur mode in continuous tuning then you get the bigger wattage output number's.

Unlike most people I love continuous tuning! If they put a toggle for each digit like the old AR-3500 and made the face such that it could be repaired it would be perfect.

The real problem is not ebay. Your problem is you bought from a slime ball. There are plenty of people selling factory refurbs and such as new online and brick and mortar stores. If they are decent tech's they can get away with this if they do the warranty themselves.

Mudfoot said:

My post had zero, nothing to do with eBay. When I said, don't buy it from eBay, I meant, don't buy the Optima from Ebay sellers, if you wanted a warranty from manufacturer. The early distributors were buying the Optima directly from the Chinese factory that were originally contracted to build for Yeticom.

Initially, there were no stateside vendors that had any warranty arrangements for it. Since the factory screwed Yeticom over, they sure as hell wasn't providing warranty coverage. Thus, the jest of my OP. Don't buy the OPTIMA from any eBay sellers.

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Well you specifically tell people not to purchase an Anytone Yeti.com Optima MK3 off ebay! I did not say that in your post you did! Ebay gets blamed for a lot of the sins of man! I understand you are upset and rightly so.

Hey no need to get all upset. I was just responding to what was in your original post. Not like I know you or anything or do not like you or such.

Until you need to use a warranty you never really know if it is worth anything or not. I have never had a radio fail under warranty so I could not tell you if Cobra, Uniden, President, Yeti, Palomar, Realistic,RCI have warranties worth the ink they print them with or not.

I also do not think anyone expects too much from an Ebay seller in terms of warranty if the price is right!

In fact even Copper and Harddrive I believe do not warranty their radio's and now instruct everyone to send it to the OEM if it is not functional right out of the box. Copper will not do returns at all now. I would suspect a lot of places are going to that. At least RCI has warranty repair available in the USA.

The further up the supply chain people buy to maximize profits the less likely you are to get warranty support in the USA. A distributor (designated importer for a territory) normal also provides warranty. That warranty is provided by charging more than their cost on an item to make a profit with a cushion. If you cut out the distributor by buying upstream like directly from the factory in China than you get no warranty in this country and need to send it to China to the OEM to get it repaired. Likewise if you buy factory refurb usually no warranty if again bought directly from OEM.

It is just like when General Motors lets say buys batteries from AC/Delco they are not paying retail for them and are not purchasing a warranty with the battery. So should the battery fail in the car under warranty it is not AC/Delco that has to repair or replace it is the OEM/Dealership. That is why often a waranty battery looks nothing like the factory battery or a retail battery because they are made just for jobber market aka dealerships and mechanics and are not a retail battery in many cases.

Warranties have to be covered some how they are not free everyone in the chain wants to eat and get paid! So when you pay a lot more for something that is what you are paying for partially. Sometimes you are paying for better materials or better quality control but often you are also paying for the warranty.

When looking at price for instance on automotive parts you normally have lifetime and 1 year warranties. For complex parts like an alternator most of that price difference is for the warranty on it and for better quality control. On something like a bearing it is the better materials you are paying for.

I am not making fun of you either I am just explaining to people some factor in the supply chain and pricing of items.

That said when I have bought from China and something has arrived damaged I have never had a problem getting them to ship me another one right away! If I am looking for a discount on electronics I seldom waste time with US venders unless they ave a Stirling reputation because they are less likely to stand behind their sale. If the price is good adn it is coming from a US seller it is more than likely a grey market good with no warranty which is worse than dealing with a Chinese vender directly!

Mudfoot said:

I'm certainly not upset about anything.

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Oh good I did not want to upset you or for you think I was giving you hard time!

Onelasttime said:

Just install a bypass for the 667 driver and it will then work like a 500.

Also I was under the impression that if you set it up for CB it defaults at 4 watts of carrier which is perfect for a 667 that is why they put a 2290 to drive 4 2879's.

If you leave it in Export or Amateur mode in continuous tuning then you get the bigger wattage output number's.

Unlike most people I love continuous tuning! If they put a toggle for each digit like the old AR-3500 and made the face such that it could be repaired it would be perfect.

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Just to refresh.
Optima MK3 power is the same regardless of the jumper setting.
And if my memory serves me well...
You can change the digits by using the step feature and the mhz by pressing button 2.
The TS667 never sounds good on SSB.
Best amp for the optima is the TS500 non variable.
Hard to find any more new Mk3's but there may be a new 100w radio similar to S9 in appearance out there somewhere!
Its only "MAY BE" at this stage.....