I am new to HAM. Just installed the radio and studying for license which I aim to get as soon as libraries reopen. I have not been able to wrap my head around programming the radio with the RT software, so the only thing I am doing currently is monitoring a NOAA weather station about 60 miles away. I can have it on and it comes through fairly clear and if I switch fogs on it brings on static that pretty much renders it unlistenable. The radio does have the MARS modification and eventually when I am able to figure out the programming I would like to be able to monitor GMRS also.
On another note if anyone is willing to help with the programming I would appreciate the assist.
Programming with RT is pretty easy. I don't think it's specific to Yaesu but you should be able to program it pretty easily.
When you open it, there should be a bunch of fields with titles like "receive", "transmit", "offset direction", "name", "tone", etc. (yeah, I know there are a lot.
It looks like you are close to Baton Rouge so use somewhere like
Repeaterbook to find local repeaters to program. Let's take the KD5SL repeater and look at what you need:
So 145.4900 is your first field "receive frequency"
The offset is -0.6MHz so you'll want to put 144.8900 as your transmit.
So 600KHz will be your offset
Offset direction will be minus
Operating mode will be FM
Name is KD5SL
Tone mode is "tone"
CTCSS is 107.2
Adjust your power settings for how far away you are (use the lowest power setting you need to reach the repeater). I think everything else you will leave alone. It looks like some of your local repeaters have RX tones (both in and out) so add that to the RX CTCSS on the repeaters that require it. If no tone is listed, you can leave those blank.
Someone else jump in If I've overlooked anything. I don't use RT much but I think I covered the bases. Let me know if you have any other questions on the programming. Good luck!