I have one in pristine condition that Matt @ radio garage did for me. I've been contemplating on parting with it.
What?
You act like you've never seen a YAKSU radio before.
All that means is that they have a PayPal account. You can sign up for a PayPal business account for free, so I'm thinking there's not much vetting going on there.I don't know if it means anything at all, but they accept PayPal. Does that indicate a legitimate business that they've been vetted out by PayPal ?
Looks like there's more available now on Amazon. Just like you said, 157 is their price.The one I got from Amazon was $150 and was a pre-order deal. Now they are out of them again. I will post some pictures soon.
It's a keeper, nice big Galaxy audio as it is the same board as the 959. Except without side band, so no worries about the am tune making side band useless. The 198 mic is a good match, but you have to eat the mic even with the mic gain all the way up. If you modify the audio gain so you can hold the mic at a reasonable distance, I am afraid that the sweet spot will be too small. Hold it too close and it's crunchy, to far away is quiet. I have experienced this on a Cobra 29 and I feel that it's just the way the mic is. The Astatic 636 does not have this problem. So the stock Mike on the lip with the modulation up all the way will sound good while not looking perfect on the scope. A louder mic may be a different story, but the modulation limiter does a good job so I left it unmodified for now. Am power pot is the dead key and it will do 10 watts. I turned it down to 3w. It swings to 20w out of the box and will do over 30w with the modulation turned up. There is a wire jumper for the talk back where the socket would be for the control from the front of the radio to plug in on the 959. Remove the jumper and talk back goes away. There is no modulation transformer like in a 29 and I plan on direct injecting the audio from my rack gear. Might try the NPC mod too. I plan on starting a thread about it. It's made in Vietnam and I feel that this radio is a better choice than the Chinese Cobra 29.Looks like there's more available now on Amazon. Just like you said, 157 is their price.
Did you get yours and how is it going with it if you did.