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Reviews For: Yaesu VR500

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Yaesu VR500
Reviews: 34MSRP: 339
Description:
Ultra-Compact Wideband Receiver
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.yaesu.com/amateur/vr500.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00344
ALLANJI1952 Rating: 2002-10-11
Great Things Come In Small Packages Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Have just received The Yaesu VR-500 and I am delighted with the product. Upon unwrapping the unit I was first impressed by the overall quality of construction. It has the feel of something that is very well made. In light of previous reviews, upon powering up the unit, my expectation was that it would in no way match the performance of any base unit, and nor should anyone expect it too. Being a micro receiver, it is a design and engineering marvel! No one could fully appreciate all this unit has to offer after an initial introduction. It takes some hours of studying the owner's manual to accomplish this, only then one is struck by the fact that this unit offers so much in an incredablly small package. Some of us have base units that do not offer as much! The main criticism I hear is that of it's poor reception. Well this is how I addressed that particular problem. I simply and inexpensively replaced the antenna. We all know the basic principle that any tuner's performence is dependant upon the antenna it is connected to. I went to my local Radio Shack store and picked up an all band telescoping antenna that had the proper BNC connector, part no. 20-006A, for a cost of 5.00 (item is now discontinued) and after itstallation, experienced improved reception of between 300-500%! WOW!!! And the unit still retains it's portability after this modification! I would recomend this micro receiver without reservation, it is capable of providing many hours of enjoyment.
VK4JGW Rating: 2002-08-24
VR500 not a bad little radio..too expensive and deaf in mid VHF Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have owned the VR500 for 3 months. Lots of nice features but the standard antenna is poor. The 130 to 170 Mhz area is deaf as is the 450 to 470 Mhz. Bit disapointing for the money.I tried the antenna off my old Bearcat XLT100 and the improvement on vhf was dramatic. Would I buy another one? No.
MIKEH Rating: 2002-08-07
as good as it's antenna Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This radio is as good as it's antenna. The supplied antenna works well down to approx 75 MHz. A decent, small MF & HF antenna may be made by winding 10 - 15 turns of any wire around a ferrite rod from an old radio connected to a BNC. It will be fairly broad band and makes an amazing difference below 10 MHz. I like the radio. It takes a while with the manual to learn all the features.
SIERRAHOTEL Rating: 2002-08-03
A huge dissapointment! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was looking for a *small* (I have a Yupiteru MVT-9000) handheld that got "everything", so I ordered one. I got it a few days later, and it seemed very well put together, but almost instantly, the problems began. One of the first things I noticed was I had bad intermod from a nearby police transmitter over much of the VHF bands It was audible in the Air bands too. Since I used it most of the time in the area around my home, this alone meant it was going to go back, but I decided to give it a shot and loaded it up with my usual 50 or so local PS freqs, and after a day or so, I gave up, packed it up, and sent it back. My Yupi 9000 blew it away in every contest except SSB stability. On HF, it was pretty obvious the filter was way too wide, it sounded very odd too. Once the 9000 warmed up, it was about as stable, and much more pleasant to listen to. I thought maybe I had a bad one, but a friend bought one and it was even worse.
G4SGI Rating: 2002-07-28
Like it Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I also own an Icom IC-10 but prefer the Yaesu for ease of operation & size/weight. I have no problems with lack of sensitivity, but I use a Watson "regular gainer" whip antenna. This radio fits nicely into the pocket and can be used with an earphone without blasting your ears when the squelch opens/closes by turning off the battery save feature.
N4OZI Rating: 2002-05-24
Not worth the money Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Face it, the price of a receiver is an important factor. I got my VR500 at last year's Hamvention for $250 and it's just not worth it. As hams, I know we are asking alot from Yaesu to give us a DC to Light all mode that fits in the palm of your hand. That's a tall order and I think Yaesu tried their best but they just don't have it with the VR500. I look forward to seeing what they come out with next to improve the performance.

So if you see a second hand VR500 for around $100 to $125 I would buy it. They are very handy to have around, however, any thing over that I would think twice.
KA1RI Rating: 2002-05-13
Bad bet ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.

Stone deaf, even with att off. Can't even pick up local WX channel. Forget about HF without some kind of additional antenna. Pretty rig, but overly complex to program. I traded mine for an Icom R-10 and an VERY happy.
KD5QDS Rating: 2001-11-22
It's no panacea Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
While tradeoffs are made in any design, deafness should never be. I agree with others on the deafness but mine seems to have selctive hearing. Both six meters and seventy centimeters are non-existant. Filtering is too wide on twenty meters. Aviation bands are okay. This is convenient for what it was designed for- pocket sized, general reception. I use mine now mostly to monitor while away from from a transceiver. I will add that mine is most often connected to a Diamond discone mounted at thirty feet. The rubber ducky is useless other than to set the c.g. high enough to tumble the receiver from where it is set. Would I buy another? No. Will I dump this one? Probably not.
WB0UGO Rating: 2001-09-28
Nice Radio Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have had the VR500 for 4 months now and use it on a regular basis. It definately needs at least a whip antenna to work well on the HF bands, and a small counterpoise about 30 inches long works good as well. VHF/UHF seems to work quite well.
A built in loop would help a lot on the AM broadcast band. I have to put a 10ft+ wire on the whip antenna and this really helps, along with shortwave. I wonder how much more dificult it would be to provide some basic DSP on this rig at a resonable price? This would really help.
Overall, its a nice rig, as long as you get a small whip antenna. This can be expected due to the physics envolved with the built in antenna.
The audio is very clear for such a small rig. The size is very small and an external antenna unbalances the rig, causing it to fall over, at least in my case. I have dropped this radio or had it knocked over at least 20 times, sometimes from 3-4 feet and it still works great. Its a very rugged built radio. This is a very good radio, and I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from it. Hook a 10ft piece of wire to it and ENJOY! on HF. You don't need it on VHF/UHF as the standard antenna works fine. I pick up all the local freqs there and the scanning and memory banks are nice. Buy one and have some fun. Steve WB0UGO
KB0VVK Rating: 2001-09-27
antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I like it but you must be carefully how long you press a button and I would like a better antenna.