Believe it or not, the Yaesu VX-8G was my first Yaesu radio, and my third ever handheld radio. I saved up some money and wanted to buy a really top-of-the-line radio to replace my Kenwood that was having problems. My new radio had to also have a bevy of the latest features and most capabilities of anything out in 2011. That’s a lot of pressure on a little radio.
The Yaesu VX-8G is a small radio, thinner and shorter than a UV-5R, but wider. It fits in my large hands pretty well thanks to that extra width, but still feels a little too small. I bought the large, 1800mAh battery to replace the standard 1100mAh battery and that helps a bit. It is also very dense, feeling like it has a metal case even though it does not. I have a feeling if I could look inside, there would not be a square nanometer of empty space.
Believe it or not, the Yaesu VX-8G was my first Yaesu radio, and my third ever handheld radio. I saved up some money and wanted to buy a really top-of-the-line radio to replace my Kenwood that was having problems. My new radio had to also have a bevy of the latest features and most capabilities of anything out in 2011. That’s a lot of pressure on a little radio.
The Yaesu VX-8G is a small radio, thinner and shorter than a UV-5R, but wider. It fits in my large hands pretty well thanks to that extra width, but still feels a little too small. I bought the large, 1800mAh battery to replace the standard 1100mAh battery and that helps a bit. It is also very dense, feeling like it has a metal case even though it does not. I have a feeling if I could look inside, there would not be a square nanometer of empty space.
The buttons on the Yaesu VX-8G are small, about the same size as the buttons on a VX-7, slightly bigger than the ones on the VX-5. The VX-8G is a little bigger in all dimension to those two. Those buttons have a rather soft click when pressed, and are very low, meaning the top of the buttons are just a hair above the front faceplate. You don’t have to press far to actuate the buttons. The one knob on top is an encoder which has detents as you turn it. You will see why that is the only one later.
I find it amazing that the screen size is about the same as on the VX-7, even with the massive amount of more capabilities and need to display more information. This is one of the prices you pay for a small radio. The good news is that the screen is very sharp, probably the highest resolution LCD money could buy in 2011. Everything on it is small, but sharp and clear.
The layout of the display of the Yaesu VX-8G is cramped, but about what you would expect with two frequencies showing for the two VFOs, small indicators under each frequency showing things like transmit power level and narrow or wide. Then a transmit/receive power meter at the bottom. The backlight is the typical orange that was popular on Yaesu radios and works well.
Where things get rough is when you press and hold the menu button, then the radio enters menu mode to display four lines of the 100 line menu item, which you can use the encoder to scroll through. I am not young anymore, but I was much younger 14 years ago when I bought this radio and the menu was too dang small then, so you can imagine me using it today. Where are my readers?
The menu is well laid out on the Yaesu VX-8R, but because the radio has so much functionality, I found myself constantly looking up what a menu item was. Even today I can’t explain half of them off the top of my head, which is why I bought a Nifty cheat card and Nifty mini-manual.
One irritation to me is the battery. It isn’t bad, but the design leaves a lot to be desired. After using a battery for years the plastic seems to bend or stretch so that it no longer sits perfect on the back of the radio. My big battery is worse, and so bad that when using it, it can disconnect from the terminals on the radio and the radio cuts off. There are no little spring pieces to bend out firther like a lot of radio batteries, so your only option is to replace a perfectly functional battery.
While we are talking about the battery of the Yaesu VX-8R, the belt clip is a single moulded piece of plastic screwed into the battery. No spring at all, and it is a small clip. This means it does not hold well on a pocket or anything other than a belt. Bummer.
Programming the Yaesu VX-8R is a functionally a breeze with the Yaesu software, RT Systems software, and even CHIRP as options. What I ran into, again, is that it does so much, that learning what all the options are is a tall order. Of course, you wouldn’t consider this radio if you didn’t want to learn at least a good bit of it. Or, I hope you wouldn’t.
The two things you really bought the Yaesu VX-8G for were GPS and APRS, of course, in addition to a good dual-band radio. The radio makes accessing the primary interface for those two options quick and easy by pressing the menu button. Press it once, and it takes you to the GPS screen showing your coordinates, speed, and altitude as well as the compass. A second press presents the station list, and a third press displays your APRS messages.
The GPS is a little slow to acquire and needs a fairly unobstructed view of the sky. This is to be expected from the little receiver inside a radio made a decade and a half ago. Some of the newer GNNS receivers will lock on well over three times as fast.
Performance:
Power output from the Yaesu VX-8G is 3 watts on 2m and 2 watts on 70cm, higher than previous radios such as the VX-7 and VX-5 but still far from the 5 watts they say, but few radios actually do what the ads say.
Looking at the antenna test shows that it is not really a bad antenna at 2m, and passable at 70cm, but the really interesting things is that the antenna excels (for a stock antenna) at 1.25m which the radio can not transmit on. My guess is they used the same antenna that came on the VX-8R, as it can do 1.25m.
Spectrum analysis shows a pretty good signal with a slight drift, which I was not expecting. This could possibly be because my radio is so old, but even then, I would not have thought that would happen. The transmitted audio from this radio is pretty good, and better than most.
Where this radio really shines is in receiving. It has one of the absolute best receivers on any radio I have used, which is why I use it to test the receive audio of every radio I review (through the audio out jack of course).
Images:
Radio Specifics:
| Screen readability | Very Good but small | |
| In-hand feel | Good | |
| Included antenna | Poor | |
| Construction quality | Very Good | |
| Belt clip | Poor | |
| Programmability | Very Good | |
| Transmit audio | N/A | |
| Frequency accuracy | 145.000 @ 145.000 | |
| Maximum power output 2m/70cm | 3.7 watts / 2 watts | |
| Actual weight | 294g | |
| Battery advertised mAh | 1100mAh | |
| Battery tested mAh | ||
| Radio manual | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD | |
| Programming software | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD | |
| Price based score 0-5 | 3.5 | |
| Overall score 0-10 | 6 |
Test Images:
If you are interested, click here for an article on how I test radios.
FEATURES:
- 5 watts FM 144/430 MHz
- RX 108-999.90 MHz
- Internal GPS
- IPX5 water-resistant
- Simultaneous independent 1-signal dual receive
- NOAA weather
- High resolution LCD display
- APRS 1200/9600 bps data
- Smart beaconing
- 50 station list
- 30 APRS message memories
- DIGI-PATH route indication
- Heads up compass display
- Message receive LED and vibration alert
- Polycarbonate resin shell with aluminum chassis
- 1,327 memory channels
- WIRES-II internet linking system
- Emergency Automatic ID system
- Auto-Ranging Transponder System (ARTS)
- Enhanced paging code system
- External data jack
- Desktop drop-in charger
| PROS: | CONS: |
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Some interesting things about the Yaesu VX-8G are that it has a special speaker/microphone jack that requires an adapter to use with anything other than a Yaesu speaker/microphone, it has a data jack so you can use APRS from your computer using the radio as a TNC, and a power jack that uses the same AC adapter as plugs into the desktop drop-in charger.
Conclusions
You may be surprised at my scores for this radio, and believe me, when I bought the radio I really wanted to love it. But I just never did. It is just too difficult for an idiot like me to use (maybe even now, lol), the buttons are too small for my fat fingers, and the screen has too much on it at such as small font.
Don’t get me wrong, the Yaesu VX-8G is extremely capable and packs an enormous amount of capability into a really small package. If that is your thing, and you have small hands and excellent eye site, maybe this is the radio for you. For me, it is relegated to helping me test other radios.
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