Yaesu is a Japanese brand of amateur radio equipment, founded as Yaesu Musen Co., Ltd. (八重洲無線株式会社) in 1959 by a Japanese radio amateur Sako Hasegawa (call sign JA1MP[1]) in Yaesu, Japan, a district of Tokyo.
History
Yaesu had initially been formed with the intention to develop and manufacture commercial and amateur radio transceivers for the Japanese market, but only five years after its formation the company had signed foreign sales agreements for export to Australia and Germany.
In Europe, the equipment was sold under the Yaesu brand and the Sommerkamp brand. In 1963 the Swiss firm Sommerkamp imported Yaesu equipment and sold it using their own brand.
Yaesu's line of equipment was first imported into the US by Spectronics, Inc. located in Signal Hill, California, in 1965. Yaesu became an important presence in the U.S. amateur radio market with the introduction and improvement of its very popular FT-101 line of equipment in the 1970s. In addition, transceiver manufacture was outsourced to Henry Radio in Los Angeles.
Sako Hasegawa died in 1993.