[Yaesu] VX5R question

[W4ABW@aol.com]

I have one. Takes only a couple hours to charge with the charger supplied. I found that trying to monitor the traffic on a freq of 169.55 (Great Smoky Mountains NP)does not work near as well as I can monitor that freq on other, much older, 2m handheld radios. That freq is real busy so know I'm just not listening at a low volume time of day. Maybe a better ant than the one supplied would help ? I've never heard a sig on 6m. The broadcast band seems to work fairly well. Local 2 m ham contacts are satisfactory as far as gettin good audio reports but the repeaters have to really be LOCAL. I use mine mainly for listening and thats probably the best application for these mini handhelds. They get hot on tx too but thats not surprising with little to sink the heat generated
Al , W4ABW
Bryson City, NC