Yaesu has posted a notice on its website that they are ending the repeater program that allows radio clubs to purchase DR-2X repeaters at a discount.
This move comes as Yaesu nerfs most of its System Fusion (YSF) mobile radio product line, supposedly due to a “chip shortage”. They are currently only selling two mobile radio models, both priced over $500. The $700 FTM-510DRASP is twice the cost of what a FTM-200DR was.
With the repeater program now ending, is this also the end of the line for the DR-2X repeater model? Is it being hurt by a chip shortage as well? Will the replacement repeater follow suit and double in price? Will it have a *new* digital mode that we’ll all have to switch over to, making all the current repeaters and radios obsolete?
One could speculate, based on the repeater program ending, that we might see a new repeater being announced in the upcoming months or year, along with a newly updated price tag, probably in excess of $2000, if their recent pricing tracks. A far stretch from the $950 price tag for a DR-2X through the repeater program.
While this might seem like a good business move for Yaesu, it looks like it will hurt hams that utilize the YSF repeater systems around the world. It will hurt clubs that have built out YSF and Wires-X repeater systems in their areas.
The “pay-us-to-play” style of business Yaesu has developed with it’s YSF radios, while successful, has built a house of cards for the organizations that have bought into it. Yaesu doesn’t license Fusion to other radio manufacturers. You have to buy a Yaesu radio to use the Fusion digital mode. Offering cheap repeaters allowed for growth of YSF and Yaesu based repeater systems, and in return, many purchased YSF radios to use on those repeater systems. We all drank the Yaesu Kool-Aid and liked how it tasted. Now we’re are having to open our wallets wider to get on the air, to the tune of $500 or more. The Kool-Aid doesn’t taste as sweet anymore to many.
The bubble Yaesu built around its systems with its closed-source C4FM digital mode is getting shaky. Lower priced radios are unavailable, and have been removed from Yaesu’s website. The repeater program is ending. There has been no news from Yaesu on if new, more budget friendly, radios are in the works, or if older, cheaper, models will return. Yaesu wants everyone to think it’s all going well, and things will be fine, but are they?
The explosion of DMR shows that ham radio isn’t meant to exist in a bubble, and that closed-source modes of radio communication will never take over the amateur market as a leader. It’s almost a rule that closed ecospheres in the amateur radio world are all doomed to fail at some point, and are abjectly counterintuitive to the spirit of the hobby. What are all the Yaesu YSF users to do when Yaesu doesn’t see YSF as a viable business to be in anymore? And are we nearing that point of time with the digital mode Yaesu has develop!randed for itself? Will YSF become “dead tech” like Yaesu’s old system “Wires” is, unsupported and no longer viable? It’s looking like that could be a possibility here in the future.
While YSF has been probably the most successful of the brand-locked digital modes, others have not fared as well. No one is rushing out to buy a NXDN radio from Kenwood, or purchasing a radio just because it has D-Star on it, at least not around here. D-Star, while probably the second most popular brand-locked digital mode, is very sparse in the state here, with only a few active repeaters functioning at the time of this article. Meanwhile the same area is seeing growth with DMR and even YSF.
DMR seems to be the strongest competitor to YSF, and continues to grow, organically almost. Fueled by the flood of cheap chinese radios with the mode installed on them and open-source firmware and programming software, DMR is gaining traction while YSF seems to be teetering at the top. As DMR continues to erode away at YSF’s market share here and elsewhere, how long will we see Yaesu hang on to their platform before pulling the plug?
How long can they milk the market, and convince people to purchase their expensive radios and repeaters to use their YSF mode, when DMR can not only be competitive, but do it at a fraction of the cost. A DMR handheld can be had for under $50, but the cheapest handheld radio Yaesu offers is close to $200.
It’s worrying to see the price of all things ‘Yaesu’ skyrocket, and also to see the availability of YSF radios and repeaters dry up. Especially when the users are reliant on the brand, exclusively, to communicate on Fusion. Many of the repeaters have Fusion, in part to the repeater program that Yaesu is now ending, but what’s to come of things when it goes away?
In this golden age of amateur radio, where technology is advancing at a manic pace never before seen, are we witnessing Yaesu and their Fusion digital radio slowly becoming a casualty of progress?