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write your own review of the yaesu VR-5000.
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JANK
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Rating: 0/5
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Nov 27, 2004 08:18
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A poor Scanner masquerading as a Communications Receiver
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I lusted after this radio ever since it was launched, saved my hard earned pennies, and when I finally bought one, I discovered within the first five minutes what an awful mistake I had made. Being near useless on the HF bands, this is no more than a repackaged VHF/UHF Scanner (and a poor one at that) masquerading as a 'Communications' Receiver. This is a perfect example of how big-company advertising 'hype' can sucker folks into buying what otherwise should be consigned into land-fill. Yaesu of course were not interested, and neither was the dealer. They've got my money and they're more concerned with the next sucker/customer. The overall experience (from product, company and dealer) was so bad that I cleared all Yaesu out of my life in total - permanently! Think long and hard before you consider one of these, and if you do buy one after reading my comments, just remember "I told you so". Buyer Beware.
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ORION883
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Rating: 4/5
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Jun 17, 2003 12:57
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Not so bad as noted by others
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I have one of these much maligned radios and the first thing I see is that folks who are accustomed to the workings of a RS or Uniden scanner are going to have a very hard time with this radio. Mine has the latest version 1.7. I am finding hardly any of the problems that have been detailed here. Yes the manual is poor, but the performance of my radio is very good. I listen to mostly VHF & UHF aero and have found the sensitivity to be very good. There was a problem with some FM broadcast overload in the VHF portion, but a $3.00 FM trap totally solved that issue. Actually, I have found this radio to be very good and relatively easy to use (I own 2 AR-5000's that have multi function keys also). I do not have the DSP option yet but even found HF reception on a 100' wire to be good. I think the problems most often mentioned here are probably found in earlier CPU versions. My radio (purchased used) was sent back to Yeasu for the CPU up-grade and an alignment by the original owner and all the problems seen in earlier versions seem to be fixed.
With all that said, I think you should not spend more than $500 on this radio, the asking price now that the special offer has expired is too high and there is a lot of other equipment out there to choose from, but I am having a great time with this radio.
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VE7MM
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Rating: 3/5
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May 23, 2003 01:07
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Its just a scanner!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Manual is terrible
First Yaesu product ever bought....been an ICOM customer since 1972...this will probably be the last Yaesu product! Got suckered by the 'special price' at HRO and got what I paid for.
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JOHN9999
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Rating: 3/5
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May 12, 2003 14:22
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Good beginners radio for a child
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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CAVEAT EMPTOR ( Buyer Beware )
The VR-5000 has many features to keep any radio enthusiast busy and is a lot of fun to play with, BUT the radio has MANY shortcomings and unfixable problems.
Mine was purchased new version 1.3, after countless freeze-ups I shipped to Yaesu in California and they replaced CPU and a few other components, new CPU now version 1.7
The lockups are gone and the SSB reception is cleaner.
High Frequency( shortwave, HAM and utilities ):
The DSP option works very well on HF frequencies, in fact it works better than the DSP that's built into my Kenwood TS-570DG.
Sensitivity on HF is good, selectivity on HF is good, image rejection on HF is a joke when radio is connected to outdoor antenna.
Images show up throughout the shortwave spectrum!
(A filter can reduce many of the mediumwave(AM broadcast band) images)
VHF,UHF
Sensitivity good 144-170 MHz
Sensitivity is average 430-450 MHz
Sensitivity is below average for VHF aircraft band
Front end overloads when scanning/searching aircraft band when using an outdoor antenna.
(A filter might help here)
Scanning memory banks is s l o w memory channels per second.
Searching frequency ranges(PMS) is also slow.
Good Audio when using outboard speaker, MUCH better audio than Radio Shack and Uniden scanners which have hissy audio.(I own 4 Bearcats,BC9000, BC200, 210, BC785D)
PC CONTROL
Yaesu advertising is misleading claiming VR-5000 as having PC control, it has only 3 commands available to use if you want to write software, 1.frequency set, 2.mode set, 3.squelch status.
a much needed command: memory write/read is not available.
WHAT THIS RADIO IS NOT
The VR-5000 is Not a high performance scanner nor a serious dedicated shortwave radio.
WHAT THIS RADIO IS GOOD FOR ( the 1.7 version )
The VR-5000 is an excellent christmas/birthday gift for a 12 year old in need of a new hobby.
(seriously, not sarcasm)
My Yaesu VR-5000 connected to a discone at 30 feet sits in my computer room scanning memory channels mostly, it is not a radio worthy of a spot in my HAM shack or monitoring room.
I paid $599.00 for this radio new, I believe it should sell for $450.00 new.
DO NOT PAY THE CURRENT PRICE OF $899.00, THIS RADIO IS NOT WORTH THE PRICE.
Look at(research) the AOR 8600 MK II B radio if you want to spend $900.00
As for Yaesu customer relations: could be and should be better.
I have owned the VR-5000 for about one year and despite owner's complaints about the
incomplete Operator's manual, Yaesu refuses to update the manual or post any information on
their web site about the MANY undocumented features found in the radio's menus.
Rating 3/5
My other Yaesu radios:
I also own a Yaesu FT-817 QRP transceiver which performs superbly for its class.
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NOLICENSE
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Rating: 4/5
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May 5, 2003 10:42
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Patience Required
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Time owned: months
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I have just spent the weekend with my Yaesu VR5000. Bought it used for an excellent price. Is it worth the $899 price, Yes if you are willing to take 8-10 hours to really learn how to use the thing. If you have moderate experience with various firmwares then you CAN figure this radio out. Yes the manual is terrible. It seems as though Yaesu/Standard built this radio and then decided it was to much work to write a manual for. This is NOT a radio for new users. The thing has way to many complex features on it for the average user. That said it's a great radio for the more experienced user. The selectivity and sensitivity of mine is good.
Likes; the DSP and notch are outstanding. The display is also very good. The adjustable noise blanker is nice. Audio quality is good with a decent external speaker attached. Uhf/Vhf reception is excellent. Lot and lots of useful features for the price. The clock is always displayed on the screen. The bandscope beats anything Icom offers and is very useful for sw listening. The bandscope offers a host of width selections and unlike my R-10 actually works.
Dislikes; Rear antenna switch, dumb really dumb.
The buttons are very small and require good lighting in order to read the labels. Complex operating procedures, with minimum owners manual support. All things considered I am very impressed with this radio. It's size alone is amazing. If you want a full featured radio which will do just about anything you need this might be the one for you. Be willing to spend time learning to use the thing and get the DSP option.
You will be very satisfied with it. This is NOT a radio for the faint of heart.
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BWHITE01852
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Rating: 0/5
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Apr 27, 2003 22:21
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What a POS!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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There is nothing good I can say regarding this receiver, or my experiences with Yaesu tech support, or Yaesu in general. I'm sure Yaesu would like this unit to just "go away", but lots of us are stuck with a rather large, ugly paperweight. Yaesu claims this unit can be "computer controlled", which is totally misleading. Buy any receiver or scanner with "computer control", and that's what you get, except the VR-5000. The manual sucks, as does the user interface, sensitivity, and image rejection. Add "Hope and Pray" to the manual's instructions for powering up the VR-5000. Hope and pray that you don't get a low voltage error, after which it locks up, requiring DC power be removed until it finally resets itself. Hope and pray that when it does finally reset and you apply power, that it hasn't dumped the channel information that you so carefully input by hand. Get used to writing, as there's no "official" way to backup programmed channel information, once it's gone, it's gone. I swear, I'll never spend another cent on a Yaesu product. I hate the unit and I hate Yaesu tech support. I hate Yaesu, enough that I just registered ***www.yaesusucks.com***, for all to voice their opinion of this POS receiver, of this POS company. It will take a day or so to resolve globally, but stop by and add your VR-5000 or Yaesu horror story. www.yaesusucks.com
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W1BKZ
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Rating: 5/5
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Apr 6, 2003 19:03
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I really like it!
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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When I finally was given a unit that didn't exhibit the "low supply" fault every other time I turned it on.....(yes, I had it hooked up to a regulated supply) I really got into it. No, it isn't a $5000. commercial short-wave receiver. No, it isn't a trunk-tracking digital scanner. It is a really fun radio, that, after you get used to its eccentricities, is a really nice rig. I recommend the purchase of the DSP board if you want to get serious about SSB or CW listening.
In general, though, as long as I don't have to deal with the support group at Vertex, I am not sorry I bought it
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LC2AAT
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 11, 2003 15:46
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Absolutely fun and enjoying receiver.
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This is absolutely the most fun and enjoying receiver I have own. (And I own quite a few!!!)
In the hands of a person who knows how to use this receiver it will work miracles.
In the hands of a less knowledgeable person, it will yell horrible results.
The selectivity is OK, the sensitivity is good, it's the only broadband receiver in this price range that have good sensitivity above 1 GHz.
For shortwave reception try one of the Wellbrook lopp antennas.
The VR-5000 works best on HF with small antennas as it gets easily overloaded by large antennas.
The manual should definitely be better.
There should be a license or exam to pass to buy this receiver, to avoid stupid people getting disapointed.
BTW: The actual rating is about 4, just gave a 5 to raise the overall rating.
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NWK065
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Rating: 1/5
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Jan 28, 2003 12:34
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dont through your money away
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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After just hours of owning the YAESU VR5000 all front panel controlls locked up even the power button so I could'nt even switch the receiver off.I had to pull the power lead out the back.This happened several times so I decided to contact YAESU direct.When speaking to one of the tech men he told be that his never heared of this fault before and to return it where I purchased it from.Also the SMART SCAN did not work,well it's not that it didn't work, the manual was incorrect on how to program the search! Before I finnished the conversation I asked him again if his experienced these problems before, he said he has !!! Hmmmmm what did he say at the begining of the conversation...
I've since sent the receiver back to the dealer and they've sent it to YAESU for repair !
I do like the looks of the VR5000 but thats about it..we all make mistakes but some keep on producing them don't you YAESU
NEVER AGAIN
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KG8CO
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Rating: 0/5
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Dec 27, 2002 20:01
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VR-5000 Saga
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Time owned: months
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This is a repost of my latest post concerning the
Yaesu VR-5000. After rethinking the restocking fee I decided to see what could be done to hang on
to the VR-5000. I called Yaesu and did speak with
a tech. I told him the problems that I was having, and he kind of chuckled and said, that's how the radio is, and there aren't any bug repairs. The tech said the VR-5000 wasn't even a
Yaesu design ... it was something they got from Standard, though there is still no excuse on such
a poor radio.
Was listening to the radio tonight, hoping there was a way that I keep it and not send it back and
take the restocking hit.
Hooked up the rig to my 80/160 dipole, and the only way I could listen to anything was that I had
to put in the attenuation switch. I was thinking,
OK guess I can live with that giving the radio the
benefit of the doubt. Went to the AM broadcast
band to listen to WJR on 760 AM. 760 was sounding
good on the VR-5000, however the problem is I could hear 760 WJR up and down the the band. WJR
is about 60 miles from my QTH!
Well, that's what finally broke the straw in the
camels back. I am sending it back, and I don't care how much of a restocking fee I am charged.
Still not sure what the radio is truely worth, however my wife picked me up a radio for the shower the other day. Think the radio was about
$20.00. That $20.00 radio out performs the VR-5000! Now that is really sad.
Besides the radio having some poor design features, the front end of the radio has a glass jaw, and if you plan on using the radio with any
type of worth while antenna, you might as well forget it.
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