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Reviews For: Yaesu FT-4VR

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Hand-held

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Review Summary For : Yaesu FT-4VR
Reviews: 2MSRP: $59.95
Description:
Handheld VHF Transceiver
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0025
K0VH Rating: 2019-12-27
Nice backup HH, great price Dec 2019 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is a great starter or backup HH/handheld and was at an amazing $30 price ($20 rebate gets it there) sold out Dec 2019 so amazed there are only 2 reviews of this unit.
Sure it's 70% Baofeng but you get better filtering, programming sw and manual from Yaesu. I've received excellent audio reports around town using both the base HH and the speaker mic. The transmitter has 5w vs 4w on the UV-5R and gets into our local repeaters from inside my rural house (yes, it's winter) and inside the car w/o a mobile whip. I bought a larger but water resistance Yaesu VX-170 10 years ago that's held up well so despite owning more Icom HF gear I now own 4 Yaesu VHF HH & mobile rigs.

The only "bad" things one inherits from Baofeng is the inverse SMA antenna connection. I borrowed a family UV5R so already have that gain whip and a double female SMA I can use with my other SMA male mobile whip & adapters. This is also a tiny handheld, buttons are small and the UI is "different" with so few external knobs but IT HAS A VOL/ON/OFF KNOB. Yaesu's software works fine: I got the programming cable and a speaker mic for something different plus my son plans to buy the VHF/UHF version so he can borrow those as needed. I almost bought the FT-70 but the battery problems scared me off along with higher price and lack of C4FM systems in our area.

So is it worth it vs a Baofeng? Time will tell but I've yet to hear receiver intermod driving around town. I do not have the gear to know if the transmitter is really cleaner than the notorius messy UV-5R. Perhaps QST or another online group with proper test equipment will validate this.
At $30 it appears hard to beat this FT-4VR.
W9SA Rating: 2019-12-01
Nice Little HT Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this after seeing it and one of the same sized Chinese compared on a spectrum analyzer. It is the single band version of the FT-4XR. I have seen people claim it's just a repackaged HT because it is made in China. The spectrum analyzer shows that they are not even close when it comes to the signal that they produce as this radio is very clean on transmit. I wanted a small radio to sit beside me when I'm in the family room watching TV. This fits the bill and I can check in to our local 2 meter net from my chair. For the money it's hard to beat. Easy to program and good audio.