In anticipation of the arrival of my Yaesu VX-7R, I spent some time playing around with one of the programming options to use with that radio and was quite impressed. I used the VX-7R Commander program. This program was created by Jim Mitchell, KC8UNJ and seems quite user friendly and useful.

The features that this program offers are quite numerous and it even has the ability for the user to load predetermined frequencies to monitor such as FRS, TV, and GMRS. Many individuals like to have these frequencies programmed in to their radios to monitor and this program allows the user to do that without having to load each one individually.

The program offers two interfaces for editing the memory channels, there is the default spreadsheet style interface which allows users to view the memory channels in a spreadsheet format and also copy, paste, and otherwise move which frequencies are in a given channel. The “alternate†format is more like a form that has a separate area for each of the settings and may be easier for a first time user.

What I did was use the “alternate†interface to enter the information for the different frequencies I wanted to have loaded and then went to the default interface to move them around to an order that I felt would be convenient for my uses. If you have a VX-7R, it would be worthwhile to give this program a look.

Jim also has programming software available for the VX-2R, VX-5R, VX-6R, FT-60R, IC-R2, and the VR-120 as well as a variety of software to be used in conjunction with radar guns and radar detectors.