Re: Newbie to the Yaesu world, any suggestions?

If you are interested in HF I do not recommend the VR-500, or most 
other compact wideband receivers.  Too many tradeoffs are required with 
that type of receiver, and they rarely do justice to that band.  You 
can easily receive strong shortwave broadcasts with a telescopic whip 
or wire antenna.  While I've used the VR-500 for listening to SSB on 
the ham bands and for feeding PSK31 (digitally encoded signal used by 
hams) into my PC for decoding, I learned later that a "real" HF 
receiver makes a big difference in what you can successfully receive.

Regarding the stock antenna...it is only good for VHF/UHF, and is 
mediocre at best.  It has a null in performance around the US weather 
band to boot.  The VR-500's selectivity is not so great, and as a 
result it is sometimes tough to "zero in" on weaker stations.  Putting 
a more suitable HF antenna on it (such as a random wire) will likely 
overload it, although the built-in attenuator sometimes helps with 
that.  A preselector may help, but by the time you get all that, you 
might be better off looking into a better receiver.

Try to do a little more research on HF listening and receivers before 
buying the VR-500.  I wish I would have done that myself.  The VR-500 
is a nice little unit--don't misinterpret my comments as entirely 
negative--but it just can't do HF all that well.

I have been trying to sell mine (a full coverage European import 
version) if you are interested in going ahead with it and want to save 
money on the purchase.  Just let me know off-list.

 - Doug


--- In [email protected], "safetyobc" <safetyobc@y...> wrote:
>
> I have been "scanning" for a couple years now. I have owned a 
BC80XLT, 
> BC250D, BC246T, and BCD396T.  I still have all but the 250.  I 
realize 
> the VR500 is a "reciever" more than a scanner but I am very 
> interseted.  Scan speed is not an issue, just performance.  I am very 
> interested in HF reception since I have never monitored this band.  I 
> realize that the stock duck isn't going to do a great deal for HF 
> reception but I was wondering will it do anything on HF?  If I decide 
> to purchase this will be my first HF receiver.  I am also looking at 
> the Alinco DJ-X10 and Icom R10, but I am leaning toward the VR500. 
Any 
> suggestions from you guys would be very helpful. Thanks.
>






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