Yaesu's popular FT-857(D) and FT-897(D) transceivers are wonders of compact efficiency. These do-anything, go-anywhere transceivers were science fiction just a few years ago, but ham's today are using them in shacks, mobiles and on DXpeditions from the back yard to the top of the world.

About the only problem with these radios is that we hams who are old enough to remember when stuff like this really was science fiction are also old enough to wish that the display were just little bit bigger. Add to that a strong desire to see a real live meter needle bouncing on voice peaks, and you find yourself wishing that Yaesu had thought all this through when they designed the radio.

Well, it turns out they did. A little known feature of these radios, noticed only by compulsive manual readers, is a meter jack on the bottom of the front panel. Well, help is here! The LDG FTL-Meter is a large, easy-to-read, plug-and-play solution to all of your metering needs.

LDG’s new version of its popular FTL-Meter presents a lush, highly readable 4.5 inch meter face with calibrated scales for signal strength and discriminator reading on receive, and power output, SWR, modulation, ALC action and supply voltage on transmit. Each function is selectable from the radio's menu.