Yaesu VX-3R dual band amateur hand held transceiver
Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:59 pm
I bought this radio in June, the day after my licence came through. I bought it from Prestige as they had (by far) the best price at the time. It has 1 year warranty.
The unit can transmit on the 2 metre (144-148MHz) and 70 centimetre (430-450MHz) ham bands. It also receives from 1.8 MHz to 999.999 MHz AM/FM/FM-W so it makes a handy scanner as well.
It comes with a charger, a tiny rubber ducky and a 3.7V Li-Ion battery. The battery is a common type used in cameras and other gadgets so you don't have to buy the Yaesu one at twice the price. I got a spare a week later for $30 locally. The antenna is not much chop. It will just get you into local repeaters. The rule of thumb for hand-helds is to buy a proper antenna ASAP, which I did for $25.
The specs are here under the Files tab.
Likes: You can listen to FM broadcast in Wide Stereo. There is a separate socket for stereo which also works for other freqs and can be used as a line output for amplified speakers, recording etc. It is a standard 3.5mm jack used on most earphones. You can also listen to broadcast while scanning.. when a signal comes in, it switches to the freq, and back to FM once the signal has ended. There are plenty of channels. Reception of 6m (50-54 MHz) FM is quite good using an external antenna. It is very easy to conceal and use with earphone or low visibility earpiece/mikes. There are lots of optional extras including a battery cover that allows use of AA cells for emergency power.
Dislikes: The I/O socket is like your normal stereo phone jack except with an extra ring (ie four contacts). It's very crowded around it with the tuning knob and antenna. With the $25 antenna on, the socket can't be accessed at all. This jack is used for external loudspeaker, speaker/mike or programming cable. The front end of the receiver is wide open and is prone to cross-modulation from local transmissions on other frequencies. I can't use it at all when the ham up the road is transmitting on 2 metres. There is no DTMF numeric keypad. Menus and channel programming is difficult with the limited buttons (Some consider Yaesu programming to be difficult at the best of times). The programming/cloning software is not free and from all reports is pretty crappy anyway. Go for a third-party program.
The manual is excellent and there is also an on-line version as a PDF. No Engrish.
The output power when plugged in is 3w 2 metres, 2w 70cm. 1.5w and 1w on batteries. There are also low power settings. The unit is quite small and has a tiny battery so that sort of power is to be expected. There are more upmarket Yaesu models if you need more power.
I bought this because I wanted a basic dual bander and it didn't cost much more than buying 2m and 70cm Chinese models.
The image is linked from Yaesu's home page
The unit can transmit on the 2 metre (144-148MHz) and 70 centimetre (430-450MHz) ham bands. It also receives from 1.8 MHz to 999.999 MHz AM/FM/FM-W so it makes a handy scanner as well.
It comes with a charger, a tiny rubber ducky and a 3.7V Li-Ion battery. The battery is a common type used in cameras and other gadgets so you don't have to buy the Yaesu one at twice the price. I got a spare a week later for $30 locally. The antenna is not much chop. It will just get you into local repeaters. The rule of thumb for hand-helds is to buy a proper antenna ASAP, which I did for $25.
The specs are here under the Files tab.
Likes: You can listen to FM broadcast in Wide Stereo. There is a separate socket for stereo which also works for other freqs and can be used as a line output for amplified speakers, recording etc. It is a standard 3.5mm jack used on most earphones. You can also listen to broadcast while scanning.. when a signal comes in, it switches to the freq, and back to FM once the signal has ended. There are plenty of channels. Reception of 6m (50-54 MHz) FM is quite good using an external antenna. It is very easy to conceal and use with earphone or low visibility earpiece/mikes. There are lots of optional extras including a battery cover that allows use of AA cells for emergency power.
Dislikes: The I/O socket is like your normal stereo phone jack except with an extra ring (ie four contacts). It's very crowded around it with the tuning knob and antenna. With the $25 antenna on, the socket can't be accessed at all. This jack is used for external loudspeaker, speaker/mike or programming cable. The front end of the receiver is wide open and is prone to cross-modulation from local transmissions on other frequencies. I can't use it at all when the ham up the road is transmitting on 2 metres. There is no DTMF numeric keypad. Menus and channel programming is difficult with the limited buttons (Some consider Yaesu programming to be difficult at the best of times). The programming/cloning software is not free and from all reports is pretty crappy anyway. Go for a third-party program.
The manual is excellent and there is also an on-line version as a PDF. No Engrish.
The output power when plugged in is 3w 2 metres, 2w 70cm. 1.5w and 1w on batteries. There are also low power settings. The unit is quite small and has a tiny battery so that sort of power is to be expected. There are more upmarket Yaesu models if you need more power.
I bought this because I wanted a basic dual bander and it didn't cost much more than buying 2m and 70cm Chinese models.
The image is linked from Yaesu's home page
