I did the mod, and was annoyed that every time I changed frequency, I
had to roll back to the "rpt rev ton" menu to turn the shift back on.
Turning ars off for the band disables that behaviour, so that if you
have shift turned on, it stays on until you go to "rpt" and turn it
back off. It doesn't automatically switch from + to - for the subband
you're recieving, but it's still a lot better than the previous
condition. The reason for this is that with the mod, the unit becomes
"regionless", with no guidance for repeater shift. When ars is on, it
queries its database for the shift, which comes back "0".
Fortunately, the magnitude of the shift remains intact (I don't know
of any regional variations in that anyway, aside from nonstandard
systems, and they're the ones that are more likely to have nonstandard
magnitude of shift, as well).
Turn OFF ars after the mod. Sure, you'll have to tell the rig that
146.52 is simplex, 147.270 is +, and 146.70 is down, but you won't
have to go through the menus for EVERY QSY.
Of course, what would be best would be for Yaesu to give us a firmware
upgrade. Maybe even sell it, as the rig doesn't look very
software-upgradeable. Then again, I don't think they want to be
responsible for keeping us within the bandwidth of those channels.
Did I mention "Turn ars OFF after the mod"? It's broken anyway, at
that point.
