Yaesu FT-60R Review: The Analog HT That Won't Retire

There is a squelch knob on top of the FT-60R. A real one, concentric with nothing, that you turn with your thumb when a weak station is dropping in and out. Most handhelds made since have buried squelch in a menu. That knob tells you most of what this radio is about: it was designed for people who operate, not for a spec sheet.

It is a plain 2 m / 70 cm FM handheld at 5 W, launched in 2004. No digital voice, no GPS, no APRS, no dual receive. What it has is a case that takes abuse, a keypad you can program without a computer, a receiver that stays quiet in busy RF, and a habit of still working a decade later.

Street price is around $150 to $170. That is several Baofengs. I still think it is the better buy for a first serious handheld, with a few caveats about batteries and the accessory jack.

Living with it on the belt

The FT-60R feels dense in the hand. Much of that weight is the Ni-MH pack, but the case itself is stiff and the belt clip is about the strongest I have used on a ham HT. It survives drops onto pavement and concrete, rain, and being bounced around in a truck. It picks up scars. It keeps working.

The controls are the old-school kind: volume and power on one knob, squelch on another, a tuning knob, and a full keypad. The knobs are small and the volume knob sits in an odd spot between the dial and the antenna, which makes it fiddly with gloves or big fingers. The display is clear but small, and the icons are tiny. If your near vision is going, try one before you buy.

One habit to break early: the 0 key doubles as the WIRES key, and a stray press turns WIRES on. If the radio suddenly stops behaving on a repeater, look at the upper corner of the display before you start resetting things.

Programming without a computer

This is the FT-60R's best trick. I can sit down with it out of the box and have the local repeaters stored, named and working in a few minutes from the keypad. The menu makes sense once you have been through it twice, and repeater offset is applied for you on the standard splits.

There are 1000 memories with 6-character tags, organized into 10 banks. Banks are the feature I miss most on newer Yaesu gear. I keep one for home repeaters, one for simplex and events, one for airband and weather, and so on.

For a big channel list, use software. RT Systems is the polished option, CHIRP works, and free third-party programmers exist too. Software also lets you keep a matching memory map across radios. One small trap: when you program 446 MHz simplex channels, check the offset. The radio applies repeater shift there too, so turn it off.

Receive: quiet where others fall apart

Where the FT-60R earns its keep is front-end rejection. In a downtown full of paging, telemetry and public-safety transmitters, or on a mountain near broadcast sites, it stays usable when lighter handhelds are buzzing and burping with intermod. That is not universal. In a truly brutal RF spot any HT will squawk sometimes. But this one squawks less than most.

Wide receive is a bonus I use a lot. It covers 108 to 520 MHz in AM and FM plus 700 to 999.990 MHz FM (US version), so airband, 220 MHz, weather and a lot of public-service traffic are a knob turn away.

AM on 130 MHz is a handy tool for walking a neighborhood to find a noisy power pole. On weak airband signals the AGC makes audio quiet, and there are no 8.33 kHz or 6.25 kHz steps, so it is a casual monitor rather than a scanner replacement.

Audio and transmit

Receive audio is loud and clear for a radio this size. Transmit reports come back clean, and they are usually better on the built-in mic than through a speaker mic. If you get a muffled report, try the radio's own mic before you buy a new accessory.

Power is 5 W, with lower steps for the local machine. With a decent antenna it reaches repeaters 40 km away from home, and it sits comfortably on a 13.8 V supply for desk or mobile use.

Batteries: the part that ages

On a fresh pack, battery life is long. With battery saver on and normal listening, it runs a full day of event duty and more. I have not had it die on me at a public service event.

The stock pack is the weak point over the years. It is a 7.2 V 1400 mAh Ni-MH (FNB-83), and Ni-MH packs lose capacity, faster still if you leave them sitting on the overnight charger for days. Don't do that.

Two fixes are worth knowing about:

• The FBA-25 AA case. Six AA cells, alkaline or Eneloop-type NiMH, and the radio still puts out its full 5 W. For hiking and emergency kits this is the reason to own an FT-60R. Alkalines are sold everywhere.
• Li-ion from the commercial side. The Vertex Standard FNB-V67LIA pack fits, with its own CD-16 charger. It makes the radio lighter and runtime longer.

The drop-in charging cradle takes patience. The radio has to sit just so before it makes contact. A rapid desk charger is a nice upgrade if you rotate several packs.

The accessory jack problem

The FT-60R uses a single combined speaker/mic jack with a rubber seal around it, and the seal pushes the plug back out. A plug that is not fully seated can key the transmitter. That is the most common complaint about this radio, and it is a real one if you use a speaker mic at events.

The fixes are low-tech. Run the speaker mic cable through the belt clip or loop a rubber band around the plug and radio as strain relief so it cannot work loose. You can also trim the rubber seal so the plug seats fully. Whatever you do, test it before an event: plug in, wiggle, and watch for the TX indicator.

What lasts, and what I changed

Long-term is where the FT-60R built its reputation. It is built to run for five, ten, even fifteen years of daily use, and it is the sort of radio people buy twice. The parts that wear are the Ni-MH pack and, after a long time, the key labels. The radio itself just goes on.

The stock antenna is a mixed bag. I fitted a longer whip, and for marginal repeaters that made the bigger difference. Plenty of operators reach distant machines with the stock duck and see no reason to change, so this is one to judge on your own repeaters. If you do upgrade, note the jack is SMA. Most aftermarket HT antennas use BNC or SMA, and if you go BNC, buy a proper adapter like the Diamond BNCJ-SMAP rather than a cheap one that levers on the radio's jack.

How it compares

Setting one up the way I do

1. Program the local repeaters from the keypad first, so you learn the menu. Move to RT Systems or CHIRP when the list gets long.
2. Put channels into banks by purpose: home, events, simplex, monitor.
3. Turn repeater offset off on 446 MHz simplex channels.
4. Watch the 0 key and the WIRES indicator.
5. Add strain relief to any speaker mic plug, and test that it cannot key the radio.
6. Buy the FBA-25 AA case for the go-bag. Consider a Li-ion pack for daily carry.
7. Never leave the Ni-MH pack on the charger for days.
8. If you change antennas, use a proper SMA adapter.

Who should buy it

• New hams who want one durable dual-band HT that will last for years.
• ARES, Skywarn and public service volunteers who need a radio that just works.
• Hikers and preppers who want 5 W from AA cells.
• Operators who prefer a squelch knob and keypad programming over menus.

Skip it if you want digital voice, APRS, GPS or dual receive. Look at the FT-70DR or something higher. Skip it too if you live on a speaker mic and don't want to rig up strain relief, or if you need a big, easy-to-read display.

Bottom line

The FT-60R is a basic analog handheld done properly: tough, easy to program from the keypad, quiet in busy RF and good for many years of service. Plan for a better battery solution and secure the speaker mic plug, and it will outlast radios with far longer feature lists.