Radios (again)

[dave-mclaughlin]

Well, I bit the bullet and went for a Yaesu VX-3. First thing I noticed is it's small, very small - slightly smaller than a credit card!
It seems well built though, nice & solid, with everything srewed onto an aluminium casting.

Biggest problem with it was finding out how to open up the transmit & receive frequencies. It looks like you cannot open up the tx/rx frequencies by using a secret squirrel combination of key-presses and quasi-religious incantations, you have to get physical, and remove a resistor, before resetting the processor.

You have to remove the resistor circled in the pic
http://www.kb2ljj.com/data/yaesu/VX-3R.htm

You will need a bright light, magnifying glass, and a very fine-tipped soldering iron to do this properly. Alternatively, if you have balls of steel, you can take a fine jewellers screwdriver, and scrape the resistor off the board

As I had had a whisky or two last night, I took the balls of steel approach, and much to my relief, the radio is quite happy to transmit on the club frequency

It's an easy mod to do - but quite scarey to poke around in the back of a new toy costing over £100!!

[John Wallis]

Are you sure Dave?? We all bought ours from the Sick and the Wrong and thy worked straight out of the box. There must be a way using the keys to open up surely?

Regards

JW

[milleboy]

Hi

We pay a bit more at trade to get the radios widebanded from the suppler so most of the ones we supply come opened up for free flying use. But it is a bit naughtly so lots of other suppliers ship them narrrow, hence the need to muck about inside them!

[dave-mclaughlin]

Did loads of googling last night, and couldn't find anything except the resistor removing technique. There do seem to be different models of the radio for different parts of the world, e.g. there's the VX-3R, which most of the hits I found were for. Mine is a VX-3E, which looks like it's the same model, but aimed for the European market.

If you peel away the little black sticker in the battery compartment and have a look, your radio may have already been modified.

The mod enables compatibility with something called Mars/Cap, which seems to be some sort of collaboration between the US military and amateur radio buffs which takes place outside the normal ham frequencies of 144 - 146MHz which the Yaesu defaulted to out of the box.

[RonDon]

Yes, Tip Top Radios I have mine on save and I get about 16 hour out of the battery, it was up to the job as soon as I switch it on. I got mine from the Sick & The Wrong.

RonDon

[Eddie Davis]

Got mine from S&W I havent needed to prod it with a screwdriver to get it to work.

[Kay]

We got ours from Stevie @ S & W too. Ours were'nt initially widebanded but Steve sent them away...and hey Presto. So Dave maybe if you cross Steve's hand with a bit of Silver he'll sort yours for you to.

Good Luck...(They are very good)

[dave-mclaughlin]

Did it myself - only took a minute or so.
Plus, of course, the several hours googling to try and find another way to do it!