Since receiving my Yaesu VX-7R Wednesday, I haven’t played with it a whole lot, but do have some preliminary thoughts on the radio. I did get the silver version rather than the black one, but that is purely cosmetic. The radio seems to be built very solid and has some really cool features. The waterproofing measures appear to be adequate, but I will find that out this weekend.

The receive seems to be at least as good as other hand-held radios that I have and the transmit reports I have received are not anything to be concerned about. I haven’t heard any “wow, that sounds really good” type comments, but I have gotten better reports than I have at times with other hand-held radios from the same location.

I got this radio mainly so that I would have some form of communications that I would be able to bring along in my kayak and not worry about (I’m pretty sure my phone wouldn’t handle a swim very well) if I were to capsize the boat, intentionally or otherwise. Being a dual band radio will be beneficial being on then water because not every place has 440 and not every place has 2 meters so I will be more likely to have a system I can access when I am on the water.

Initially, the menus do not seem to be as intuitive as some of the other radios that I have used in the past, but as with all radios, after looking through the manual they do not seem too terribly daunting. The only other initial comment that I have is that the keypad is not laid out in a way that I am used to. The buttons are stacked only 3 high and the 0 is to the right of the 6. This will take some getting used to.

I will try to have a more extensive review after the weekend. During the time between then and now, I will be working on becoming much more familiar with this radio and try out some of it’s other features.