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Yaesu FT-60: Speaker Mic Complaint
25 June 2011 | by 
Don’t get me wrong. I love my little Yaesu FT-60 dual-bander. Before this radio, I always owned Kenwood HTs and they were great. But I couldn’t pass up this little gem for under $200. Yes, it has a NiMH battery instead of lithium ion like those new Wouxuns. No, it doesn’t have cross-band repeat like some of those other HTs. But it’s reliable. It’s small. And it’s a great value.
Why am I complaining? I hate the speaker mic jack. Specifically, I hate that whenever I use my speaker mic it always starts to fall out of the jack a little bit. Not a big deal, right? Well, unfortunately as the plug starts to come out (and we’re talking just a millimeter or two), it keys the transmitter until you notice it. If you have a big mouth like I do, this can be a problem. Besides potential embarassment, you run the risk of interfering with other QSOs. And if you’re running EMCOMM, for which this radio is very popular, it could interfere with more important traffic than run-of-the-mill ragchewing.
This sort of thing never happened with my Kenwood rigs with their two-plug (3.5mm/2.5mm) connections versus Yaesu’s all-in-one single (3.5mm) stereo phone plug. It’s compact, yes. But it’s not as stable. And trying to jam everything into one plug creates problems like this.
Has anyone else noticed the same problem? If so, have you developed a fix for this wandering plug (short of a tight rubber band around the radio)?
10 Responses to “Yaesu FT-60: Speaker Mic Complaint”
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- Matt W1MST, Managing Editor
Hi Matt,
I’ve got an FT60 also and my “fix” was to tuck the cable under the belt clip if yours has one…
Hope this helped…73’s
That’s a good idea, Denny. I guess I’m just a little frustrated that we have to come up with these little workarounds.
Do what I did for my vx-5…one properly placed rubber band! Stopped the rogue transmit problem! (It’s ashame that a speaker-mic is even required, but their audio is lousy without them!)
Wonderful explanation of facts avlaaible here.
Matt, I am having the same issue. Just watched on YouTube and this guy removed the outer rubber ring where the 3.5mm connection is. What I did, a friend gave me some Velcro, and on one end of the Velcro it had a small hole where I can slip thru the end part where the 3.5mm is. I then used the Velcro to wrap around the antenna, I did not use much Velcro just enough to secure it. Hope this helps.
I stopped by the HRO with the intention of buying a mic for my ft-60. As my luck would have it, the mic could not remain in the plug. I am sure that there is a simple fix and I don’t think that I should have to use a gum band to hold it in place. This should not even be an issue as this radio has been in production for 12 years.
I called Yeasu in California today about the one hole female for the single male plug. They essentially said that they have known about the problem ever since the first one came out but they have not developed ( or tried)to adapt a fix for it. I guess I will continue to use my model airplane rubber bands carefully placed under all my gear so the darn one hole mic will not key the repeater and I do not know it.
I told the tech that the biggest problem is that the microphone plug can just back out a little and then it will
dead key” the repeater and screw everything up.
It is unbelievable that this fine little HT has been produced with a known flaw for so long and nothing has been done about it.
Shame on Yeasu for lacking honor, foresight, the technical knowledge, and the integrity to resolve a very troublesome and common issue!!!
I’ve had my FT-60 for more than 12y and love it EXCEPT for this issue! I purchased a cheaper 3rd party speaker mic and then bought the Yaesu adapter. It consistantly slides out of the jack just a little and sometimes it will short the pins and activate the transmitter. Most of the time it slides out just enough to kill the speaker audio. It’s frustrating, especially when driving, trying to move the plug to get it to connect again. I agree, this is very bad on Yaesu for not fixing a known issue since the radio was first released. If someone from Yaesu is listening, it’s also why I won’t spend $60 (Canada) to buy their own branded speaker mic. According to the previous comments, it’s a common issue so there is no point in buying another speaker mic.
I have the YAESU Spkr/mic (Yes Expensive), and experience the same issue. I think the internal speaker has much better audio and would like to have just a mic to talk! Has anyone wired something up to do this? My suspicion is as soon as a “plug” is inserted the HT speaker is disabled. An thoughts???
Same issue of mic plug backing out of my FT60 radio and inadvertent transmitting. Rubber bands didn’t stay in place so I went with a zip tie. Frustrating issue. Disappointed Yeasu didn’t have a better fix. Headset was the same.