Red Light District

Why don't more Amateur radio manufacturers put back-lit buttons on their rigs designed for outdoor or mobile use?  Most QRP radios I'm familiar with (IC-705, FT-818, KX2 & 3) and the IC-7200 and 7300, which I've adopted for field use, don't have back-lit buttons. Yaesu, which used to be very good at putting out rigs with back-lit buttons (FT-450D, FT-991A, FT-891, etc.) flubbed it with their recent FT-710, and I can't get any clear answers on the FTX-1, so I suspect the answer is no.

Why are back-lit buttons important? I like to operate under low-light conditions, particularly when camping. At night, with no other illumination, the buttons on the IC-705 are tough to see. And while you can control a lot of rig functions from the touch screen interface, you can't control everything from there. For some functions you still need to poke a physical button. The problem is even more acute with radios like the KX2 or KX3, and the 7200. The 7200 is the worst - in low light conditions the front panel is nothing more than a featureless black sheet. 

A method to illuminate the control buttons and switches of field radios used to be a common feature. In the old days it was usually something like miniature 'grain-of -wheat' bulbs placed around the control panel back-plane and threw light at semi-transparent buttons. In even older systems it was small screw-in flashlight bulbs in hooded sockets directly on the front panel. Not elegant by today's standards, but it worked quite well. Today, low output LEDs can be integrated directly into the control buttons, and the brightness controlled via the radio's firmware - an elegant low power solution that no HF rig manufacturers seem interested in implementing in modern radios.

The awkward solution is the simple flashlight, but for night operations, a flashlight will just blind you. There are some head lamps that offer red light options, and those work well but I dislike wearing a headlamp for any length of time.

One neat solution I've found are small goose-neck LED lamps designed for use as book lights, or on music stands. If you go to an orchestral concert, you'll usually see these clipped to the music stands, so the musicians can see the sheet music. In the old days, musicians used candles clipped to their stands, which is why concert halls burned down a lot. Today it's small LED lights. I guess these days the fires are mostly insurance related 😄.

Here's a picture of a red LED goose-neck lamp clipped to the side of my IC-705. Simple, effective and cheap (about $13 on Amazon, as I write this).

Why red light? Haven't you watched any WWII submarine movies lately? Everyone wore red tinted goggles before they went topside at night to watch for Japanese ships. A red light source (or filter) has far less impact on night vision than white light. Red light won't cause your pupils to constrict as much as white light, so red light will help preserve your night vision. The US military has known this for a long time, which is why all military flashlights come with a red light option. 

The classic old (and now obsolete) Army angle head
flashlights always came with a red lens stored in the base. 
Use of the red lens was mandatory in tactical situations

LED technology has made red light almost a design afterthought. Most headlamps and LED lanterns I've seen have a red light option. These work well, but I much prefer the goose-neck lamp option, because it allows me to put the light right were I need it on the front panel of the radio, and keep it there. 

Most LED head lamps and lanterns have a red light option. I'll use a lantern
for general illumination purposes on my field operating table. However, for lighting
up the radio panel I'll use a directed light source like the goose neck LED lamp

The lamps I buy on Amazon are sold as book lights, and they work great. They are rechargeable, and the base has a strong clip that really fixes the lamp in place. Or, the base can serve as a stand. Very effective and, as I mentioned above, very inexpensive.

Hooga red book light

Until Icom & Yaesu get their heads out of their 4th points of contact (an old paratrooper saying - look it up) on this back-light issue, we're stuck with having to front-light our radio panels when operating in low light conditions. I'd love to toss the Icom and Yaesu design engineers into a dark room with one of their recent offerings, and tell them to operate it effectively with no extra light. Maybe then they'll understand the problem. Until then, keep buying those red lights!

 W8BYH out