The Icom ID-52 seems to be a very nice HT, with an insanely impenetrable user experience. I made the mistake of reading the manual and now I somehow understand even less.
@dcreemer It's getting worse and worse it seems. Back in the 90's I used Standard handhelds, dual band with cross band repeat. Lots of features. Never had trouble programming it without a manual.
My FT-60, I can mostly do without a manual but I have to fumble a lot and occasionally have to look it up.
And Baofengs? Nightmare.
The FT-450D is not easy to use. I realize that Yaesu is cramming a lot of function onto a small panel with not enough buttons and which has to simultaneously address voice and CW operation. Maybe this is an unsolvable problem.
When operating CW you need certain functions easily accessible. When operating phone you need a different set. When contesting a different set. A DXpeditioner needs a different set. Trying to address all of those with one small fixed panel and a few buttons results in a nightmare.
And of course I disagree with their choices. How often do you need to adjust the antenna attenuator and RF amp chain? For me it's never, but it gets a whole button to itself.
How often do I change the AGC? Never. But it gets a button.
Among the small number of buttons on the panel, there are a half dozen that I have never touched since I bought the radio, on CW, phone, or digital. That seems wrong.
Do I need a thousand memories? Actually, I don't need any. A good part of the manual is devoted to the fancy memories, banks of memories, special memories, how to use them, etc. I have zero use for memories.
Redesign the panel and add a numpad for entering frequencies. That's something I'd use a lot. It doesn't have one.
@shuttersparks I have hope for one radio - the Xiegu X6100 - but only because the firmware (OS) is completely replaceable (perhaps by accident) with a more sanely designed radio UX
@dcreemer I've been looking at Xiegu radios as possibly my next radio. Although when I get sufficiently annoyed with the FT-450D I may revert to my Kenwood TS-570D for a while and then decide.
And yes, I realize that the FT-450D is really intended to be a mobile HF radio. It's not really meant to be used as a primary radio. Sigh.
@dcreemer The FT-450D? It's small. Not as small as the TS-50 and Icom-706 I used to have, but it's small compared to to a serious HF rig. So the few buttons it has have to be multi-purposed. A radio with a larger front panel has room for a lot more controls. Also, knobs are better than buttons.
Also, I like radios with a RIT knob. Even my tiny QRP radio has that. But the 450 doesn't.
I've never been clear on what the intended audience is for the 450. Who is this radio designed for? I don't get it.
@shuttersparks hmmm seems base-station sized to me, but I’m a newbie to HF