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| Reviews Summary for Yaesu VR-5000 |
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Reviews: 18
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Average rating: 3.2/5
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MSRP: $995
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Description: Yaesu VR-5000 all mode, wideband (general coverage) receiver. 0.1 to 2599.99 MHz
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More info: http://
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write your own review of the Yaesu VR-5000.
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CLEBOT
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 13, 2004 09:01
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I love it!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I must be one of the lucky ones…I picked up my VR-5000 about 3 years ago and have loved using it every minute I have owned it.
I really have no complaints, other than the occasional microprocessor lock up (only happened twice). Sent it back to Yaesu for a firmware upgrade and have had no problems with it since then. The customer service was outstanding! Very polite, thorough and helpful. Their technicians actually called me back to make sure they understood why I had sent it to be repaired!
Of course it doesn’t scan as fast as a dedicated scanner or receive shortwave/HF as well as a dedicated SW radio, but it does both well enough to suit my needs.
I am actually amazed by what I pick up on it. I am only using a small Radio Shack VHF Hi/UHF discone antenna and have received signals as far down as 1.5 MHz, and well into the 900 MHz range and above. I would like to use a more appropriate antenna(s), but am limited to the tiny discone due to available space and restrictions.
So, while I expected to get pretty good reception within my antenna’s advertised range (which I do), anything outside of that range is gravy! And there’s a lot!
That being said, I will supplement my VR-5000 with a dedicated scanner and SW receiver. The bandscope is a huge part of the radio. I love it and find it indispensable. It works fabulously. I have read many complaints about overload, particularly on the SW bands. I fixed this problem right up with an MFJ passive preselector. Problem solved.
I would love to see what this baby could do with a ‘real’ HF antenna!
As for the manual…yeah, it isn’t the greatest, but if you have any prior knowledge of radios and the different functions inherent to them, then it is possible to figure it out.
The biggest help has been getting the FTBVR5K and FTBasic software programs. WOW! It makes programming and controlling the radio easy and quick. The computer control of the radio was a big selling point for me and I have not been disappointed. Just wish I had gotten the software earlier on.
Bottom line (based on my experience with this radio): I would buy another one hands down. I have had nothing but good experiences with it, and with Yaesu.
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K9XK
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Rating: 3/5
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Sep 22, 2004 15:41
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K9XK
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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A couple other things to ponder -
The display does not get anywhere dim enogh to use this as a "bedside" receiver. It would make a good reading light, though.
Also, it is very easily overloaded by strong signals, especially at lower freqs. If you live in a metropolitan area, you may hear one or two of the same strong stations in the area on about 20 different freqs from 540 to 1620.
I also will submit that Yeasu's FRG-100B was a much better receiver for HF and below, although frankly, the Icom R-75 beat that one by a mile.
The VR-5000 is still "cute", though! And it does okay up in the VHF/UHF range, an area not visited by those others.
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K9XK
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Rating: 3/5
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Sep 20, 2004 10:19
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Good quality, poor execution
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The only thing I can say about the manual that hasn't already been said is that it indicates, at best, laziness and indifference to the needs of the customer on the part of Yaesu. At worst, it means both utter laziness and contempt for their customers.
There is a certain weirdness to this thing everywhere you look. The big mode and step indicator at the bottom of the screen applies to the sub VFO (which only works on AM and FM-Narrow). If you want to know the mode and step selection for the main VFO, it's those little indicators on the top.
They are missing features that they should have easily been able to implement:
There are no AGC settings.
You can't put the main freq in the sub VFO as a "scratchpad". You can only go the other way around.
You cannot scan a user selected group of banks - it is one or everything.
They have a Bank button, and you'd think you could push it and then select the bank with a keypad. Nope, it is a menu item.
They have a lot of buttons, but all the stuff you normally do is "F" and then another button, while lesser used features have dedicated buttons for them ie. almost every button below the display.
Everything you do with this radio requires one or two extra button pushes that are unnecessary in other receivers.
You cannot easily tune fast across a band. You only have two options. Spin the knob faster or change the "step" size and then tune and change it back. That would be a strange thing to do even for a ham. They do have a "fast" mode but it is at LEAST 1Mhz steps. Really a dumb choice because you may as well punch in another freq at that point. What if you just want to swing up or down the band?
There are icons that appear on the display that are not referenced anywhere in the manual. But I guess that means we don't really need to know what they are for.
If you are loading up memories, unless you want to put everything in Bank 0, you will have to go through several button pushes to select the bank each time. This radio cries out for programming software, and it doesn't appear that you can roll your own because their "CAT" commands seem to only deal with getting display information. Although for all we know you can program memories too, but they just didn't put it in the manual.
So why don't I just throw this thing in the river? Hmmmm. Now that you mention....
The radio performs quite well with a reasonable antenna, and it is small. I have an Icom R-8500 and I am not going to lug THAT with me on a trip. This little baby is about as small as a tabletop RX gets and still have a good display and user interface.
And who knows, maybe one of these days I will use the "waveform" monitor of the "RC frequency board" for the UK or the cute little "world clock". Thsee are the things the manual people were working on instead of writing.
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AF4KK
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Rating: 4/5
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Sep 24, 2003 11:37
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Wonderful radio!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Whew! The VR-5000 really -IS- a wonderful radio. It exhibits great sensitivity on all frequencies I've received, it scans rather quickly and is very flexible in its scanning options. And that display is GREAT! The -ONLY- reason I didn't give the radio a score of "5" is that #@&*&% manual! It leaves alot to the imagination. The best way to learn the radio is trial and error!
Scott (AF4KK)
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LC2AAT
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 11, 2003 16:00
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Great little receiver!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This is actually a good receiver, much better than the rumours!!
Dersom du forstår norsk, vil du snart kunne se en mere utførlig test av denne mottakeren på min hjemmeside.
Selectivity OK, sensitivity good, gets overloaded with large antennas on HF. Excellent sensitivity above 1 GHz compared to the AR-8600 (Mk I & Mk II)
http://www.qsl.net/lc2aat
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DONALDQUACK
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Rating: 1/5
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Jan 23, 2003 00:31
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Confused
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Like buying a great looking car with no engine!
Total lack of support and documentation and they have had more than enough time to do something about it! Suckcity and back again.
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AA5CH
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Rating: 1/5
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Apr 5, 2002 14:33
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Returned after 5 days
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The VR5000 is difficult to operate with the multilayered menu controls. It had insufficient image rejection and it locked up on the fifth day, requiring me to hard reset the CPU which erased all memories. I returned it to the dealer and applied the credit to the purchase of an Icom R8500.
There are several reviews of the VR5000 under the "Scanners" heading. I widh I had read these before placing my order...it might have saved me some grief.
73,
Brad
AA5CH
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RUZY
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 26, 2001 21:53
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Best All Band Receiver
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I like this little blue screen all mode radio receiver but be carefull not to look at it continuely especially in a dark room because your eyes will be getting tired (it's too bright even in 0 dimmer). Have complete mode AM(WAM),SSB,FM(WFM) and frequency coverage 100kHz - 2.599 Ghz. The sensitvity on HF is excellent easily to get most stations, VHF - UHF are also very good. I can easily listen all the broadcast stations, aircraft , amateur etc only with a cheap (US $ 1) antenna J Pole design for freq 88-108 Mhz.
The RF tune is act like a tuner because the maximum setting 255 but you can't set it always to maximum to get a best listening. Sometimes you must set it lower number to 10-50 to get a better listening. I like this RF tune because not act like RF Gain which works great if set to almost maximum setting.
VR5000 have nice watch and easily to setup your local time or world time.
The memory setting is quite complicatied because the manual book so simple, make me guess how to set it right ( At last, I can do that). But it's also very nice because you can namely each channel and each band ( 100 Band) with your own design name!.
Dual VFO is not to work good. I Think it's useless at all ( You can manualy set the 2 different volume).
Overall, this is a very nice radio receiver.
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