Yaesu FT-980 Restoration Project – Part 1

The inside was a bit of a disappoint to me really, excluding the signs of age from the cheap polished metal shielding that was everywhere in those days and now showing its age with rust spots appearing all over it, it was the cheapness that was a little of a disappointment to me, I was hoping for a little bit of the quality that you found in the late FT-101ZD Mark III’s or the FT-902DM, There is a kind of solid looking quality with those units but this is far from it, there is very little neat and tidy cable management, in fact I would go so far as to say that I have seen CB Radios that were neater inside than this unit, which is a shock for its time, This was the radio that everyone that wanted an FT-ONE and couldn’t afford it at the time, kind of went for this instead, I think spending nearly £1000 on this radio and then opening it up, even back then, I think I would have been annoyed with what I sore, maybe it’s just me, but I would have expected more.