In truth the FT818 just got rid of difficult to source parts and offered customers little new. Had they added a few extras they would have sold thousands. It would appear ICOM's IC-705 will do this instead. In my view, Yaesu has lost its focus and could leave the amateur market. ICOM seems more likely to survive.
See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/ft817
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There's significant competition for Yaesu now, with several nice HF QRP rigs available. The CommRadio CTX-10 and Aerial-51 ALT-512 come to mind. Plus, various Chinese rigs are being sold on AliExpress for <$500. The lab599 TX-500 ($700) will also be another option soon.
While QRP ops seem to be a niche market (within a niche), so is the market for $4k HF base stations -- which seems to be the route Yaesu is currently taking. And anything VHF/UHF has moved into their System Fusion design, requiring specialised repeaters.
I had hoped Yaesu would have come out with a 2M/70cm *only* SSB rig suitable for satcom. Instead, ICOM did that... for $1500! And it's a base station, not a portable rig. So I'm also looking forward to the IC-705, though for different reasons.
Still, I'd expect the IC-705 to cost well over $1k.
- KD0TLS
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