Honestly, I've looked at the yaesu 8900, a friend showed me his,  I
wouldn't want it as my only radio, leaves way too much to be desired in the
accessibility area though I guess it is manageable if you had to.  The 706
is a good radio but you really would want to have the voice board in it
mainly so you know what frequency you're on though once in a while mode
helps. I can tell what mode I'm on by the sound as I'm sure a lot of people
who get on the air a lot can, also on the 706, it might help to have the
voice board so you can tell what band you are on,  some times it's tough to
tell, sounds like you don't really have anything for HF maybe not
privileges there I don't know I'm just guessing so until you get the
experience enough to tell what band you are on by sound, band noise and
all, I would definitely get the voice board for that radio if you did get
it. Actually, any radio it's available for, I would anyway. it comes in
very handy.

At 10:17 AM 5/12/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>    I'm thinking about my next ham purchase and wanted to pose a few
>questions to this list regarding rig accessability.  I'm still in search
>of "the rig that does it all" for me, and a good factor for consideration
>is the accessability of that rig.
>
>    Initially I was looking at the Yaesu 8900r (available by the way, for
>$389 in most places).  Does anyone have experience with this radio?  It
>appears to be tunable by only a dial (no keypad), although you appear to
>be able to reach a preprogrammed frequency with the "hoem frequency" key.
>I'd also be curious to hear (generally speaking) how accessable people
>feel Yaesu mobile rigs are.  I'm pondering a mobile rig just because I can
>use it as a base with a power supply, but take it in the car when desired
>(i.e. camping trips).
>
>    I'm also looking into an all mode, all band rig like the Icom 706 - I
>might be able to get hooked on HF if I have the opertunity to listen to
>some, and I'd probably spend the 700-800 dollars anyhow by the time I buy
>2-3 more separate radios and eventially get into HF.  From what I have
>read in list archives (I've unsubscribed from this list for a while) the
>706 seems to be pretty accessable, is this true even without the voice
>chip?
>
>Thanks as always for the practical experiences and feedback (you guys know
>who you are),
>Ivan Fetch.