Hey Dan, what you be drinkin back there. I really enjoyed your
legalese stuff, but I hope I never have to read a warranty,
guarantee, or any other type of legal document prepaired by you.
Do you also write those license agreements for Screen Reader
software, or when you sign up for stuff online? I have one of the
VR500 radios but you ain't gonna get it! My only complaint about
the radio is that when you keep double A batteries in the radio
too long it will crack the thin edge of the case surrounding the
battery compartment. I have replaced the case twice and since
the last time, never leave batteries in the radio which is smart
anyway since I don't use it on a daily basis. 73, Jim WA6EKS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan B Dyer Jr,/Danny" <[log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Date sent: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 11:17:47 -0400
Subject: Answers2ACoupleOfYaesuVR500QuestionsAskedRecently
Hi All,
I'm glad to hear of the renewed interest in the Yaesu VR-500
hand-held,/shirt-pocketed,/Belt-clipped, all band, all mode,
"Daylight to
DC, receiver!
Over several years, About ten years ago, I owned several, and as
a blind
operator successfully used and liked them very much!
For, *Although there is _No special "blind accessibility," a
combination of,
gaining familiarity with the unit and its features, practice with
programming and listening, sharing "work arounds," and having
realistic
expectations,/not necessarily in that order, will show this
little box to be
quite a performer!
Better than the AOR 1000, Icom R10, and a couple of other similar
Icom
receivers whose nommenclature escapes me at the moment;
and better than the receivers in the Yaesu VX1, vx2, and Icom
IC-t90 hand
held Tranceivers, all of which Ive owned and used:
*Now then.
to answer the questions posed, not necessarily in order of their
"posure."/---Is there such a word?
**(And remembering that it's been nearly ten years since I've had
a VR-500
in hand, so description of physical descriptions of physical
placements may
be more than a little skewed!
/And finally and possibly most importantly, in this age of
extreme
littigisness, if there have been any newances, upgrades, or other
unforseen,/forheard, or otherwise sensed, changes, to hardware,
software or
anywhere else of, in, around or otherwise persuent to the VR-500,
of which
I've not been apprised, I neither bare, bear, wolf, bobcat,
jackall, skunk,
possum, prairie-dog, or mosquito, any responsibility to fix,
correct, buy,
swap, or otherwise make good, obtain, repair, and or any or
otherwise do
anything but offer these observations!/come to think of it,
should I even do
this, considering all the legal ease, and or legan unease which
may become a
part of these musings? Oh well, I think I'll be brave, and do it
anyway!!!)
1, charging the optional battery pack.
*The units I worked with, had a battery well, which is revealed
when the
plastic back cover which covers the lower half of the radio is
slid off.
*A, Take your vr500, place it on its front, with antenna facing
away from
you. B, Slide the back cover toward you.
and you'll find the battery well,
with terminals at each end for two AA cells, with these, the
spring denotes
Negative, or flat bottom of cell, the less springed looking end,
is
Positive./These Ends Don't Dirrectly Figure Into The Placement Of
The
Rechargeable Pack, which has no terminals on its' ends.
somewhere in the bottom of the battery well, were two either
"squarish," or
"rectangularish,"/(if there are such words, and if there aren't
we just
invented them,) terminals.
These terminals, correspond to two cut-outs in the plastic
battery pack,
revealing metal "wells" on the sides of the cells, which are
wired to either
supply power to the vr500, if they're charged, or allowing
charging of the
pack, when external power is applied, via the ext power jack on
the side of
the radio.
It seems to me that the bat pack would only go in, one way, and
you couldn't
get the wrong polarity of the chargeable pack to the radio's
terminals,
because of their placement.
(The original rechargeable pack was a NICAD, nicol Cadmium, pack,
and the
charge voltage applied was that required for that type of pack,
Which Would
Likely Not, be useful for N I M H/Nicol Metal High Dried, cells.
Additionally, The External power _Is Only Applied To The Special
In Well,
and Not To The Well End's terminals, so there's no danger of
fouling up non
chargeable batterys when using ext power.
(I always found that either standard AA, Longlife AA, or in later
applications rechargeable NIMH cells gave longer life than did
the optional
Yaesu pack, although it was a convenience./Your mileage may vary.
2, External antenna overload problems.
Somewhere on the VR-500's keyboard, is an "ATT,"/Attenuater
button. As I
recall, it is a single function button, and it works pretty well.
How did I find performance?
I found the included duck antenna did surprisingly well across
the freq
spectrum, (Many if not most days, outdoors at my home in north
east GA, USA,
I could get Gander or New York weather stations in USB mode on at
least one,
and often several of their 3.485, 6.604, 10.051, 13.270, and
15.051
frequencies.
I also tried several collapseable whips, and a piece of wire, say
23 or so
feet long, soldered to the center of a BNC connecter, did pretty
nicely for
an easy, cheap, carry along HF bands antenna.
I also tried the VR-500 with my G5-RV antenna, on which, of
course, the ATT
button really helped.
3, and the narrow setting for AM broadcast and HF bands, which is
somewhere
in the menu, is a very good feature.
I once worked with a vr-500 in which the narrow option was
correctly set,
and the difference it made was amazing!!
But unfortunately, I never learned how to engage the narrow
setting.
In short, this little radio, is not a Sony icf-7600, or even a
little
grundig G5,6, or otherwise. It's nowhere near some of those
receivers, but
it _it is ___much better than the Icom R-10/which is one of the
hungriest
battery hogs I've ever worked with!!!
In even shorter, If I could only carry one receiver, with which
to do all my
all band, all mode, radio listening, I'd pick the VR-500, hands
down!!!!
I'd program mems with markers, grab some AA cells, and a wall
wart that'd
put out between six and no more than twelve volts DC max, and
have at
it!!!!!
(By the way, if you've got one of these jewells you no longer
want or need,
_____Please let me know!!
Finally, I found this in one of the Eham.net product reviews of
the vr-500,
and this info may shed some light on the narrowing question. I
offer this
quote which you can try, ignore, whatever!..Sincerely, Danny
Dyer, Wb4idu.
***Quoted material follows.
"Also, there are two hidden functions in the configuration
controlling the
"User Port" and "Narrow AM" functionality. Of the original 32
functions in
the configuration, these are respectively 33 and 34. The "User
Port"
function is stubbed (permanently inactive due to lack of code in
the
firmware) as the VR-500 hardware only permits one port (a serial
port always
available through the earphone jack). The "Narrow AM" function
is very
useful in improving selectivity (adjacent signal rejection), QRM,
and
selects between wide (about 8kHz by my guess) and narrow (about 4
kHz by my
aural guesswork). The VR-500 AF output in either mode is too
narrow to
support goodies like a Digital Radio Mondial decoder (which
requires at
least as 12 kHz AF bandwidth). Wide sounds like about 8-9 kHz
and Narrow
sounds like 4kHz by ear. The means to enable these extra
functions is to
press and hold [3] [5] [9] [0] keys while powering on the radio."
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