Talk:Yaesu VX series

Some random trivia... (does any of this belong in the article?)

• The VX-6 was released after the VX-7 by at least a year. The VX-7 is dual receive, where the VX-6 can only receive one frequency at a time; however, the VX-6 has upgraded firmware and memories vs. the 7.
• The VX-6 and VX-7 use the same batteries and external power supplies.
• The VX-7 has a feature to display the time on the screen when the radio is off. However, this drains the battery in two or three days. The supplied fast charging cradle stops charging the battery when it is full, so if you drop it in the cradle to charge without disabling the time feature, the battery will be dead in 3 days anyway.
• The VX-8 also uses the same power supply as the VX-6 and 7, but uses a different form factor battery. Early reviews of the VX-8 got bad reviews, as the GPS drains the battery, and APRS does not work well in receive power saving mode, so disabling that drains the battery even faster. A higher capacity battery is available that is double the thickness and gets decent life even with all these options in use.
• There are multiple versions of the VX-8, with external or internal GPS and a slightly different arrangement of knobs. Rumor is the external gps gets better reception. As the different versions of the VX-8 were released at different times, they have different firmwares, with bugs fixed and a few minor new features, upgraded memories (some listed in the article already), etc.
• The VX-7 and VX-8 (and maybe VX-6) have a (optional?) barometer and temperature sensor. Unfortunately, it is inside the (water tight) battery compartment (which is also heated by the battery and by your body heat and the radio if transmitting), so its usefulness is questionable unless you want to know the temperature and pressure of your battery (which I suppose might actually be useful, but not for weather purposes).
• The VX-7 and 8 are dual receive; the first receiver is wide band, working at about 500khz - 999mhz, with some holes. The second receiver only works on specific bands (mostly ham bands); enabling both receivers reduces sensitivity of the radio and increases the chance of getting heterodyne images. The VX-8 has a separate AM/FM broadcast band receiver chip, and when that is enabled, can actually receive three frequencies at once, and will display all three receiver frequencies on the display when all are in use.
• The article mentions bad reviews of the antenna with one of these radios. This is barely worth mentioning, as it is well known that nearly all multiband handheld radios have poor stock antennas, as the stock antenna is very much a compromise design to make it transmit adequately on all supported bands (i.e., low swr without a tuner), and does not work well for transmit or receive on any of them. I have had single band radios with short stock antennas that were extremely effective and were very close in performance to much larger antennas. As the radios in this article are 2, 3, or 4 band radios, the stock antenna is proportionally crippled.

--ssd (talk) 13:03, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I have edited the article to consolidate all of the common features of these radios and removed the references to those from the specific radios, except for the antenna issue mentioned above. I am considering deleting all of that review paragraph if nobody objects. --ssd (talk) 15:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

No comments on this in a month. Removing some more common features as well as the stock antenna whine, and similarly the belt clip issue. Belt clip on this radio is no worse (or better) than my similar Icom belt clip. --ssd (talk) 21:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Correction: Vx 5 as well as the 6, and 7 use the same battery, external power adapters, and desk charger. 66.114.93.6 (talk) 10:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Yaesu's website informs that VX8GR is no longer being made. Does anyone knows why? Should it be noted on the article? BornGabe (talk) 17:00, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

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The newest in this series is the Yaesu FT-1D. This replaces the Yaesu VX-8G. While the series numbering has been changed from VX (Vertex?) to FT, it is very similar to the VX-8 with the addition of Yaesu proprietary digital mode, System Fusion. The VX-8D is still being manufactured since the FT-1D doesn't cover the same bands and isn't as water resistant as the VX-8. The series lettering may have changed to FT (Fox Tango) from VX due to corporate restructuring of Yaesu, see Yaesu (brand) -- Rterzi (talk) 20:43, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

VX-8 external links correction.

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Correction to the external links section:

• KC8UNJ's Commander software does not support the VX-8.
  • it does support the VX-7 (as well as 2,5,6)
• CHIRP The free, open source CHIRP software supports the VX-8, as well as the 2,3,5,6, and 7.
  • There is commercial software from G4HFQ, FTBVX8, as well as RT Systems that support the VX-8.

-- Rterzi (talk) 20:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

VX-7R - faults and problems

It is commonly passed around the internet that the ceramic filters fail because there are no dc blocking caps installed in the radio - This is the "easy" solution. The real cause of the failures is because some of the cases of the filters had defective seals. During the soldering process of the radio pcb's, water based flux floods the pcb's and some ends up in the filters. The failure is corrosion and yes - having dc blocking caps prevents the corrosion but the water is still in there which only masks the problem for some time. Even through the manufacturer of the filters states it "recommends" (key word here) blocking caps, it is not explicit. The filters are just fine with a dc bias on them as long as they are dry/not defect. There are many more of these radios in use without problem than ones that went bad. It's not just the vx series radios - the same ceramic filters are used in many other radios. Some had equally bad seals from the same batches and water based flux getting in. The absence of dc blocking caps is/was more common than installing them as it is not explicit and would only mask defective ones for a while at least. 66.114.93.6 (talk) 09:43, 16 October 2017 (UTC)