Sunday 1 November 2015

MARS mod for FT-450

There is a way of extending the TX frequency range of the FT-450 transceiver. The so called “MARS” (“Military Affiliate Radio System”) modification provides out-of-the band operation of the transceiver. You can operate anywhere within the range 1.8-40 MHz after the transceiver has been modified.

The modification is simple. Just remove jumper JP4002 on the control pcb and make some settings. A description of the mod can be found here:
http://www.santerweb.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/MARS-Mod-for-FT-450.pdf

YouTube shows the instructions as well. For example this one for the FT-450D:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8kqyekwPxc

Example of out-of-band operation:


Jumper to be removed:

It took me some courage to open the transceiver and do the mod, but in fact it turned out to be rather simple.