Have you ever been at a HamFest trying to figure out just when that rare FT 101e or somesuch was built? You see lots of alphanumerics but not a clue about the date of manufacture. Well, Kevin – K7ZS – of the Willamette Valley DX Club http://wvdxc.org/ , lets his Yaesu geek flag fly as he shares the tricks to decoding Yaesu’s production dates….
The secret to Yaesu’s serial numbers gives you the key to determining a radio’s age
The serial number is usually 2 letters, followed by 6 numbers: 0J123987
The first digit of the serial number is the last digit of the year of manufacture, the second digit of the serial number will be a letter, the letters spot in the alphabet – 2 equals month Then
C – January
D – February
E – March
F – April
G – May
H – June
I – July
J – August
K – September
L – October
M – November
N – December
Next 3 numbers are a ‘batch id’, and the last 3 numbers are the actual unit within the batch.
So, in my example:
0 – in this case probably year 2000, (they don’t provide for producing an exact model over 10 years!)
J – August
123 – batch #123
987 – radio # 987 in batch 123
Impress your fellow Yaesu nerds with this bit of magic!
