Yaesu
| Yaesu | |
|---|---|
| Company | Yaesu Musen Co., Ltd. |
| Founded | 1959 (founder's first business started in 1956) |
| Founder | Sako Hasegawa, JA1MP |
| Headquarters | Tokyo, Japan |
| Amateur radio | |
| Known for | HF transceivers, VHF/UHF radios, System Fusion, antenna rotators |
| Well-known models | FT-101, FT-817, FT-891, FT-991A, FTdx101 series |
| Former name | Vertex Standard (2000–2011) |
| US arm | Yaesu USA, Cypress, California |
| Today | |
| Status | Active |
| Website | yaesu.com |
Yaesu is a Japanese manufacturer of amateur radio equipment, along with marine and aviation radios. With Icom and Kenwood, it is often called one of the "big three" Japanese ham radio makers. Its products range from compact handhelds to large base-station HF transceivers, and it is also known for its antenna rotators and for System Fusion, its digital voice system for VHF and UHF. The company, Yaesu Musen Co., Ltd., is based in Tokyo; in the United States it operates as Yaesu USA.
History
Yaesu was founded by Sako Hasegawa, JA1MP, a young radio amateur who became interested in single sideband in the 1950s and began building SSB equipment for himself and his friends. In 1956 he started a television repair business in Tokyo's Ota ward, and from 1957 he built SSB gear under that company's name. In 1959 he founded Yaesu Musen ("Yaesu Radio") to make equipment for hams. The name comes from the Yaesu district beside Tokyo Station, where the company began. Its first product was a crystal-controlled transmitter for the 40-meter band.
Exports began in the early 1960s. In Europe, the Swiss firm Sommerkamp sold Yaesu radios under its own brand, and from 1965 Spectronics, a company in Signal Hill, California, imported Yaesu equipment to the US. The FT-101 series of the early 1970s, a hybrid transceiver that combined solid-state circuits with a vacuum-tube final amplifier and had a built-in power supply for both household AC and 12 volts, established the brand in the American market. It stayed in production, in several versions, into the 1980s.
In 1998 Yaesu acquired the Standard radio brand from Marantz Japan, and in 2000 the company was renamed Vertex Standard. Motorola bought 80 percent of Vertex Standard in a deal completed in January 2008. That arrangement ended in a reorganization effective January 1, 2012: Motorola kept the land mobile radio business, while the amateur, marine and air-band products moved to a company once again named Yaesu Musen. The "MP" in the name of the FT-1000MP, a high-end HF radio of the 1990s, was a tribute to the founder's call sign, and later models such as the FTdx101MP carry the same suffix.
Amateur radio products
- HF transceivers. Yaesu's recent HF radios include the FTdx101 series, named after the FT-101; the FTdx10 and FT-710 for the home station; and the FT-891, a compact 100-watt radio for mobile and portable use. The FT-991A covered HF, 6 meters, 2 meters and 70 centimeters in one box; Yaesu ended its production in May 2026 because parts were no longer available.
- Portable all-mode radios. The FT-817, introduced in 2001, was a small, battery-powered QRP radio covering HF through 70 centimeters in all modes. It and its successor, the FT-818, were in production for about two decades in all; Yaesu announced the end of the FT-818 in late 2022. In 2025 the company announced the FTX-1 series, also covering HF through 70 centimeters, in a 10-watt Field version and a 100-watt Optima version.
- VHF/UHF radios. Yaesu makes FM and digital handhelds, mobiles and repeaters. System Fusion, launched in 2013, uses a digital format called C4FM, and Yaesu's WIRES-X system links Fusion repeaters and home nodes over the internet.
- Rotators. Yaesu's G-series rotators cover light VHF beams through large HF arrays, and its azimuth-elevation models are used to track satellites. Many rotator controllers and computer programs use a command set based on Yaesu's.
In the hobby today
Yaesu equipment is sold through amateur radio dealers worldwide, and older models, especially FT-101 variants and the FT-817 and FT-818, remain common on the used market. Fusion repeaters are found in many areas of the US, often run by clubs, and they also serve ordinary FM users.