October 20, 2023

Yupiteru MVT-7100

Many moons ago, I had the pleasure of owning a 1990's vintage Yupiteru MVT-7100 scanner.  It was a really great little handheld radio.  It had wide band reception and 1000 memories (10 banks) that could be scanned at 30 channels per second.   The sensitivity was excellent (better than 1 µV on most ranges).  The superheterodyne receiver was capable of continuous tuning from 0.53-1650 MHz (tunes down to 0.1 kHz) and supported AM, FM, W-FM, CW, and SSB modulation.  Amazing!  

Yupiteru MVT-7100 multiband receiver


It covered all the ham bands including: 160m, 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m (WARC), 20m, 17m (WARC), 15m, 12m (WARC), 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, 23cm, 10m, and 4m.  It also covered the 11m (CB) band.

Tuning steps were configurable: 0.05 / 0.1 / 1 / 5 / 6.25 / 9 / 10 / 12.5 / 20 / 25 / 50 / 100 kHz.

As was the case with all the other handheld scanners of this vintage, the radio could only be programmed manually (not via computer).  This could be tedious with 1000 memories.  However, programming was part of the fun and charm of the radio.

The antenna was connected via a robust BNC connector.  On an aside, I still prefer the BNC connector to the modern SMA connector.  The BNC connectors are stronger and more durable.  I have seen several SMA's fail while BNCs continue to work without failure with decades of hard use.  I am not convinced the more fragile and shorter life SMA connectors have been good for handheld radio gear.  What are your thoughts?

The Yupiteru was a versatile and fun radio to play with.  It is considered by many as one of the best general coverage handheld scanners ever made.

Good DX and 73, NJ2X


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