Yaesu VR5000…

[G7RUX]

So, at a rally at the weekend I picked up a Yaesu VR5000 in very good condition for very little money which I intend to use as a monitor receiver at home, probably mainly for VHF and UHF stuff like amateur and airband radio. I’m well aware of the issues with these units regarding their HF performance and I’m not intending using it for that, on the most part. At the price I paid I’m quite happy with the deal!

Since the predominant problem with this receiver is around intermodulation I am hoping that band-specific filters will help, at least in part, as will notch filters for the local problematic VHF pager transmitters.

Has anyone put together such filters at reasonable cost, perhaps as a set of switchable filters or tunable filters for use with specific frequencies?

 

[majoco]

Hope yours hasn't got - or getting - the display "missing lines" problem - mine just sits in the bottom draw, a useless brick. "Use a computer remote" everyone says - but you need to see something on the display to make selections from the computer - impossible! If I knew anything about Arduino it may be possible to emulate the screen - but I'm having fun with an ATS25 Max at the moment.....

 

[palmerjrusa]

Hope yours hasn't got - or getting - the display "missing lines" problem - mine just sits in the bottom draw, a useless brick. "Use a computer remote" everyone says - but you need to see something on the display to make selections from the computer - impossible! If I knew anything about Arduino it may be possible to emulate the screen - but I'm having fun with an ATS25 Max at the moment.....

It's probably a connection issue with the ribbon cable that's connected to the display.

If so, it should be fixable relatively easily.

Same issue appeared with my VR500.

There's a "how to fix" procedure I found for the above.

 

[majoco]

Yes, I think I've probably read and seen all of those 'fixes' but IMHO the 5000 is different to the 500. I've tried running a hot soldering iron along the ribbon cable to the PC board joint at both ends and although the solder flowed a wee bit it didn't solve the problem. Every so often I dig it out and have another go but never very successful. It would be easier if you could have the screen going while prodding and poking but the ribbons aren't long enough. Pity really, as it was a very nice receiver that covered all frequencies - although the control/memory programmes that I downloaded were quite clunky.

 

[palmerjrusa]

Yes, I think I've probably read and seen all of those 'fixes' but IMHO the 5000 is different to the 500. I've tried running a hot soldering iron along the ribbon cable to the PC board joint at both ends and although the solder flowed a wee bit it didn't solve the problem. Every so often I dig it out and have another go but never very successful. It would be easier if you could have the screen going while prodding and poking but the ribbons aren't long enough. Pity really, as it was a very nice receiver that covered all frequencies - although the control/memory programmes that I downloaded were quite clunky.

You asked Yaesu if they still repair the the VR5000?

I asked Yaesu re my VR500 and, alas, they no longer did.

 

[palmerjrusa]

deleted

 

[G7RUX]

Hope yours hasn't got - or getting - the display "missing lines" problem - mine just sits in the bottom draw, a useless brick. "Use a computer remote" everyone says - but you need to see something on the display to make selections from the computer - impossible! If I knew anything about Arduino it may be possible to emulate the screen - but I'm having fun with an ATS25 Max at the moment.....

It doesn’t, no, and I know how to repair it if it does develop it since I have repaired a few of these in the past…it’s a pretty simple job really but required a SMT hot air station and a bit of feel.

 

[palmerjrusa]

Yes, I think I've probably read and seen all of those 'fixes' but IMHO the 5000 is different to the 500. I've tried running a hot soldering iron along the ribbon cable to the PC board joint at both ends and although the solder flowed a wee bit it didn't solve the problem. Every so often I dig it out and have another go but never very successful. It would be easier if you could have the screen going while prodding and poking but the ribbons aren't long enough. Pity really, as it was a very nice receiver that covered all frequencies - although the control/memory programmes that I downloaded were quite clunky.

You asked Yaesu if they still repair the the VR5000?

I asked Yaesu re my VR500 but, alas, they no longer did.

 

[majoco]

Here's something interesting.....

https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=UIxD9E-iZ5w

......but unfortunately there's no info on how to do it - way above my pay grade!

 

[majoco]

palmerjrusa said:

You asked Yaesu if they still repair the the VR5000?

Did you see my QTH? I could buy another radio for the cost of shipping to the US or Japan.