For a long time I’ve been looking at this radio and dreaming one day of owning one. Last Saturday I sat and watched the latest video released by ML&S all about the amazing Yaesu FTdx101MP and they centred the video on a used radio they had in the store.

After watching the video I did some very serious thinking, made a few calls to ML&S with a few questions and eventually I made the call and placed a deposit on it.

Yesterday at 04:45am I jumped in the car and drove the 150 miles to pay the balance and collect it. It was on display waiting for me to check over and play with while they checked over the FT-710 radio I was trading in. Of course I completely fell in love with the new radio.

While in the store I also took the unplanned opportunity to upgrade my desk mic from the respectable Yaesu M70 to the amazing Yaesu M1 mic (it should be amazing at £600 a pop!!). I think the M1 mic has more buttons, dials and displays than the FT-710 radio I traded in!

Anyway, everything got loaded into the boot of my car (just fitted) and brought it back home. First impressions are “it’s VERY big” so I’ve had to completely re-organise my desk to fit it all on and have room to work but now that’s done it looks incredible. There are a lot of buttons, knobs and dials to work out what they all do but that’s a major part of the fun of getting a new radio.