Yaesu VX-2

[KJ6ZNE]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I currently own a Yaesu VX-2.  I purchased it primarily because of it's wide receiver capabilities.  The reason for this is because I work on aircraft. Specifically T-38s at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California.  I'm an avionics technician on them.  My plan was to use the little VX-2 to listen to the tower frequencies on UHF so I could hear our planes coming back from their training sorties.  It would also function as a way for me to test the transmit capabilities of the UHF radios in the plane without bothering the tower or ground controllers for a radio check!

Sorry about the long background information, but I thought it pertinent to the question. What I'm trying to figure out is, for some reason, my VX-2 is totally deaf on the UHF frequencies I'm trying to listen to!  Beale tower is on 276.150 Mhz.  I have listened for multiple days while at work and have not heard a peep on the VX-2, but if I go out to the plane and turn the radio on, it's alive with traffic! 

Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Ted (KJ6ZNE)

[ONAIR]

It could have something to do with the structure of the building that you are working in.  Does the radio work as soon as you step outside?

[KCJ9091]

If you have it set for automatic mode selection I'm pretty sure the default for all of action band 1 is FM.  Check to see if it did stay in FM mode and manually change to AM then check to see what you get.

[KJ6ZNE]

As far as working in a building, I work outside most of the day.  I keep the radio outside because no one likes to put up with me messing with it anyways!  As far as the mode, I have tried all different modes with no success at all.

[WB8VLC]

Or the bandpass filter in the 225 to 384MHz band is rolling off attenuating the signal in this portion of the radios coverage.

Have you checked sensitivity at say 225, 250, 400 and 450 MHz in any mode?

[K5LXP]

What I'm trying to figure out is, for some reason, my VX-2 is totally deaf on the UHF frequencies I'm trying to listen to! 

Interesting, the specification in the manual omits this part of the coverage:

1uV TYP for 12 dB SINAD (174-222 MHz, WFM)
.5 uV for 12 dB SINAD (300-350 MHz, NFM)

I hooked my VX-2 to a signal generator and to open the squelch at 276.150MHz required -39dBm, or 2.51 millivolts.  So no huge surprise you're not hearing anything.


Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM