[Codejockey]

Hello, I'm new to HAM radio in general, and I have a Yaesu VX-8R that I purchased the other day. I'm beginning to learn the ins / outs of the radio; however, I have one problem with it. I cannot hear the speaker in my Jeep unless it is right on my ear if I'm moving at all. I purchased the radio, the speaker / mic attachment, the GPS attachment, and the GPS adapter. Everything works well, but I had assumed the earphone jack on the right side of the radio would function to power either ear buds or an external speaker in my Jeep. So far I cannot make this work at all.

1. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated on how to resolve this. I thought at first it might only work with commercial am/fm broadcasts; however, in reading the manual, it says if you're in dual band mode you can have the right headphone be channel a, and the left one be channel b, so that tells me it is capable of powering a headphone. I've emailed Yaesu but haven't heard back from them yet.

2. If it only does work for am/ fm commercial broadcasts, I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to fabricate a connector to go in the top where the remote mic / speaker unit plugs in. You could then on that adapter create a plug identical to the one it's plugged into for the mic, which would have all but the speaker wires in it, and then next to it a standard headphone jack for separate headphones. Does this sound reasonable, or do you know of any product like it already in existence?