Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

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Ninja
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Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by Ninja »

...and I am well impressed with them!

I have used standard (and old!) 0.5watt PMR446's for years now for chatting whilst in car convoys, whilst skiing in the alps and for general outdoor activities.
Following on from my 'What would you buy' thread I went and purchased some VX177's!

I cannot stress how impressed I am with them.

They are a lot more compact than they look in the pictures, fit very comfortably in the grasp of your hand. Quite light but feels completely built like a tank with a metal chassis. I know these models are capable of drops from height and full submersion in water but I didn't feel the urge to test these features!

The audio volume and quality is superb, over 3/4 of a Watt of power to the speaker means that if these radios are sat in the centre console of a vehicle or on the pasenger seat you can hear them as loud and clear as you would a dash mounted CB for example, a problem with all the PMR446 radios I've used is the low level and sometimes distorted audio output that means when someone speaks you have to grab the radio, ask the person to 'say again' and hold I hear your ear to hear clearly over the other ambient vehicle noise. So big plus there.

And YES these do work fine with standard PMR446 radios on the correct channels if you get as close as possible to the right frequency of each channel.
Tested them back to back with some old BT Freeway PMR's and they worked fine over all the pmr channels. Good clear Rx and Tx between them.

I will now be relegating the old pmr's to the cupboard and using these but it's nice to know they can be used to chat to other people's pmr's if needs be.

Battery life seems to be excellent as well, 3 days or so of switching on in the morning and off at night with a fair bit of Tx chatter here and there!

Heaps and heaps of features that I have no clue how to use but from reading the manual, it is clear that the menus are really straight forward.

Everything seems really logical as well, for example a huge bonus is this: when you set the squelch, frequency and other settings to what you want and then hand the radios out to people who know nothing about radio, the last thing you need is for buttons to be accidently pressed! The VX177 has a lock that only allows on/off, volume, and push to talk to be used. Plus, when you turn the radio on and off it retains this 'locked' mode which is ideal.

Needless to say the range of these is totally blowing away my old radios, car to car range must have at least tripled, perhaps even further.

So all in all I am really pleased and can't recommend them enough for someone wanting to replace their plastic and underpowered PMR446 handies for something more 'industrial' and totally pro looking with a vastly increased range in all situations.
overlandadventures
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by overlandadventures »

I'm glad you like them, you've started down the slippery slope, before you know it you'll be ordering car chargers, high gain antennas for the car -or maybe even 35w mobile radios.
You'd better get a skull and crossbones bandana now your a proper pirate ;-)
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Guzzy
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by Guzzy »

And YES these do work fine with standard PMR446 radios on the correct channels if you get as close as possible to the right frequency of each channel.
Tested them back to back with some old BT Freeway PMR's and they worked fine over all the pmr channels. Good clear Rx and Tx between them.
Just bear in mind that the VX-177's are only capable of 5kHz step tuning and not the 6.25kHz step size needed for the correct tuning of PMR446 frequencies. You may not notice when you test the radios up nice and close to one another, but others using standard PMR446 radios will notice that you are slightly off frequency, especially as you get further away or your signal is attenuated due to terrain and obstruction and signals begins to fade. Switching from narrow FM deviation to wide FM deviation may offset this to some extent, but at the cost of adjacent PMR446 channel interference. 5W splattering across two adjacent PMR446 channels at a crowded event could make you very unpopular.

I'm not saying lose sleep over it, but be aware.
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Yeti
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by Yeti »

Just program them for 446.1-446.2 - the DPMR band.

Nobody uses it, and those silly enough to pay megabucks to Icom for it won't hear you anyway.....
Will the next movie in the series be The Fast and The Funeral?
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by bigbloke »

Yeti wrote: Nobody uses it, and those silly enough to pay megabucks to Icom for it won't hear you anyway.....
Well I dont know about Scotland Yeti, but theres a lot of B&Q stores hereabouts licenced in 446.1-446.2
that may disagree with you - In fact, quite a few stores, not just B&Q

Have a look at the wireless telegraphy register (If you have an hour to spare as its butt clenchingly slow)

Theres more there than I thought

regards

BB
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Yeti
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by Yeti »

bigbloke wrote:
Yeti wrote: Nobody uses it, and those silly enough to pay megabucks to Icom for it won't hear you anyway.....
Well I dont know about Scotland Yeti, but theres a lot of B&Q stores hereabouts licenced in 446.1-446.2
that may disagree with you - In fact, quite a few stores, not just B&Q

Have a look at the wireless telegraphy register (If you have an hour to spare as its butt clenchingly slow)

Theres more there than I thought

regards

BB
I meant on the dPMR channels, rather than the channels in between - but I don't think the 177s can do them.
Will the next movie in the series be The Fast and The Funeral?
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by Guzzy »

That's peculiar.

The dPMR channels pretty much occupy the whole space between 446.100MHz - 446.200MHz

There are 16 digital channels spaced out at 6.25kHz, and 8 digital channels spaced out at 12.5kHz (which is just like the old 8 analogue counterparts down between 446.000MHz - 446.100MHz).

As it stands, the two sets of overlapping digital PMR channels (the 16 digital set and the 8 digital set) actually interfere with each other (if you happen to be on overlapping channels).

Icom specifically states that you can't use both in the same operational area at the same time without the likelihood of causing interference between the two sets of digital channels (assuming you happen to be transmitting on one of the overlapping digital channels at the same time as some one else is trying to use the alternative set of digital channels...).

So...

Add in to the mix the B&Q and other shops using 446.100MHz - 446.200MHz and you have a very busy piece of bandwidth.

...or am I reading this wrong, and B&Q (and the other stores) are actually using Icoms digital PMR radios?
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by BK »

Guzzy wrote:That's peculiar.

The dPMR channels pretty much occupy the whole space between 446.100MHz - 446.200MHz
When people say 'in between' they mean using the same frequency block but with standard 12.5kHz channel spacing rather than the 6.25kHz offset. So 'on top of' would really be more appropriate :D

I'm surprised ofcom haven't cleared those frequencies, I wonder if they have in other countries or if the idea is actually to have licenced PMR users on the same frequency block as PMR446.
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Re: Bought some Yaesu VX177's!

Post by Guzzy »

Good question.

I got the impression that Ofcom were required (by our European overlords) to migrate existing users away from these PMR446 frequencies, but I guess that could take years (it's normally the time it takes for the equipment to become obsolete).

Unless Ofcom are in a rush for cash, in which case it takes about a week. :lol:

Still ... 3.125kHz spaced digital channels channels, then 12.5kHz spaced digital channels, then more 12.5kHz spaced analogue channels, all overlapping each other.

Ick :?

On the bright side. Absolutely no one will notice you making surreptitious use of the frequencies. :twisted:
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