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."