Mixing and Matching Controls for Improved Ergonomics FT-2000  The ergonomics of the FT-2000 are wonderful. With two exception - the nested width and shift knobs share the same shaft and the small shaft diameter of the volume control makes precision adjustment a bit difficult.
I tend to use the width control very often and rarely adjust the shift. However, I often tend to drag the shift a bit when turning the width control even with the center-detente position holding the control stationary to some extent. There is a great and fully reversible solution which is to swap the position of the center knobs. 
The SHIFT is moved to the AF CONTROL. And the AF control is moved to the SHIFT position. A similar swap between the sub RX AF control and CONTOUR control gives a uniform appearance. The FT-2000 with this knob swap completed are shown in the photos here. The knobs are removed by pulling them away from the rig face. Be careful when doing this. FT-dx5000 
The FT-dx5000 has several ergonomic problems. Most of which are firmware related (see the APF and Contour pages), but a couple are less than optimal knob size choices. The picture above shows the knob swaps I've made in an attempt to improve the ease of use. VFO-B KNOB 
The VFO-B knob size on the FT-2000 is perfect. The FT-dx5000 knob is about 3 mm smaller in diameter but when the rigs are side-by-side, the knob "feels" and "looks" small. My fix for that - swap the 5K VFO-B with a new VFO-B knob/ring set ordered from Yaesu. The complete knob assembly comes in two parts - a sleeve (the rubber part) and the center knob. In the photo here, the sleeve is top-left. The FT-5K stock VFO-B knob center. And the FT-2K VFO-B knob on the right. The only cosmetic difference between the two knob styles is a slight gray tint on the skirt of the 5K knob. In my knob swap, I left the replacement 2K VFO-B knob black. AF KNOBS 
The control drag on the 5K is somewhat higher than the 2K. And with the smaller control size, the AF controls are hard to turn. Initially I considered a couple of solutions (shown below). On the left is a knurled black anodized knob (shown on the VFO-B AF control) I had in the junk box and had found on eBay. The diameter is roughly the size of the RF gain sleeve. On the right is the center knob from the 2K. The knurled style (left knob) is a closer match to the 5K's other knobs than the 2K knob - and the diameter is larger which makes the control easier to rotate. 
The final solution was to move the original 5K VFO-B knob to the AF control position. The large diameter of the knob and rubber sleeve provides an excellent feel. I ordered a second 5K VFO-B knob and sleeve set for the left AF control resulting in the final configuration shown in this photo. Note this knob swap does deny access to the RF GAIN control which may be important to some ops. The finished swaps are shown below. And are fully reversible prior to resale . 
Part Numbers Yaesu part numbers for the VFO-B knobs and sleeve rings are shown below. 5K left, 2K right.  
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