A few years ago I bought a new FT-3DE; The major advantages of this radio was that it could modulate and demodulate C4FM on both VFO’s and that it contained Bluetooth.
The idea was that when I was at home in the evening, I could monitor my own reflector (XLX870) on VFO-A and listen to other signals on VFO-B via a Bluetooth headset. Now Yaesu is not known for their flawless Bluetooth implementation which is why many Bluetooth headsets do not work with this radio.
Unfortunately, the FT-3DE I purchased was from a series made in China that was missing parts (or at least 1 capacitor), resulting in noise in the TX audio. The radio could be repaired under warranty, but because of this false start I decided to quickly get rid of the radio.
A few years have passed and I have decided to spend some money on a Yaesu radio again. I recently purchased a new FT-5DE with the same underlying purpose as before. The good news is that the speaker has been improved, the bad news that there is still clearly audible background noise on C4FM and the Bluetooth implementation doesn’t seem to have changed. But despite these shortcomings, I think it is a nice handheld transceiver with many options (some of which I will not even use).
To return to the Bluetooth implementation; Yaesu states that the radio is only compatible with their own SSM-BT10. By only looking at a picture of the headset, I don’t get the impression that it is a sturdy construction. Reason enough not to purchase it.
In my car I use a BlueParrot headset. This is fine and works great, but at home it’s too sturdy. So I started looking around and ended up with the Jabra Talk 65. According to a comparison site, which compared the Jabra Talk 65 with the BlueParrot M300-XT, the Jabra was slightly better in terms of audio quality. According to the site, the disadvantage was that the Jabra would not have PTT, but I guess they are referring to a mute button which indeed is missing. But there is a PTT button available on the Jabra Talk 65; how else would you be able to respond to calls?
The Jabra Talk 65 has an 80% noise cancellation which inside would be more than enough. Some users report that the headset is too heavy and uncomfortable, but that doesn’t bother me at all. I just suspect that the FT-5DE together with the Talk 65 are a winning combination for me.
