Re: New member, undecided but tempted!

Garry,
The only time I ever needed service, due to breaking one of the decoder 
knobs when I sat on it by accident, I contacted Yaesu via the "Contact 
Us" link at the website:
http://www.yaesu.com/

They gave me an estimate, stuck to it, and returned my repaired VR-500 
quickly, out to California and back in about two weeks, IIRC. I've never 
needed to order parts, but I imagine that parts service is equally 
efficacious.

Chuck,
I own two VR-500s. I like having a small receiver that I can pack along 
wherever I go. Due to much of my local monitoring going digital, they 
don't see much use anymore, except on vacation.

I have used the VR-500 for shortwave broadcast and utility monitoring. 
Grove Enterprises used to sell an amplified duck antenna that worked 
well. I tended to use it for AM broadcast band of the 
university-affiliated NPR when I was deep inside buildings on campus 
that had too much steel for good reception. I also was able to do mobile 
monitoring of utility band and was even able to receive a pirate SW 
broadcaster -- before he disappeared from the airwaves!

Grove no longer sells the amplified duck antenna. Anyone know of another 
source for such an item?

The stock antenna is somewhat infamous for poor reception on many bands. 
It seems to be cut for best reception on the US weather alert channels. 
I usually use a stubby duck instead and it works great and is a vast 
improvement over the stock antenna. Be sure to give a different antenna 
a try if the stock one doesn't give you what it needs.

One thing you will want to do for utility SW reception is to enable the 
narrow AM mode. This is an undocumented feature, but you can find 
instructions in the Files area of the VR-500 Yahoo group homepage. It a 
matter of a few keypresses to enable it.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL

[email protected] wrote:
> I have a 500 an need a new back case and battery door as mine is cracked. Any idea of where to get one. I tried the company an they certainly don't have good customer service. 
>
> Garry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <[email protected]>
>
> Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 7:39:37 
> To: <[email protected]>
> Cc: Chuck<[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [VR-500] New member, undecided but tempted!
>
>
> I don't care about or necessarily agree with the negatives.  It's a great little radio and if something happened to it I'd buy another one. I listen to the Coast Guard and SSB aero HF frequencies as well as UHF military aircraft and it works well for me.
> P.
> ---- Chuck <[email protected]> wrote: 
>   
>> Just signing onboard, my name is Chuck, hi all.
>>
>> Most of the reviews I've been reading about the VR-500 have had a lot of negatives, but frequently I end up liking radios that many others don't. I'm easy on my radios physically, so if I do get a 500 it'll be carefully handled.
>>
>> I'm hoping for usable HF performance using a Miracle Antenna tuner with about 18" of wire. None of my present wideband handhelds is perfect, so the VR-500 doesn't have to be either. Looking forward to researching the archives...
>>
>> Chuck