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I don' think this is a bug. My VX-6R behaves in a similar manner. With WX Alert ON, you will not hear any weather broadcast unless their is an alert being broadcasted. The NIFTY mini manual explain this feature really well: "leaves the receiver muted until an Alert Tone is detected".

Also, anytime the WX Alert feature is ON, the weather channels are included with any scan, but will be silent.... kind of makes sense doesn't it?

The point was, if I enable WX alerts, I cannot scan another band period!

It always jumped to the WX channels no matter what, and then I was locked into the WX channels and could not get out. It only scanned WX channels if a channel was not received, it went to the next WX channel, but then it stayed on that channel indefinately. If I tried to scroll through the channels, it just wrapped around the WX bank.

Mine ended up having other problems with totally locking up, and this may have been a problem with the radio and not a design flaw. I don't, but will find out when I regain a VX-8R.

Mine was doing this too, so i reset the unit.

It's happened twice but I'm so confussed I don't remember how I got there both times.

I'm enjoying the reset though!

Yesterday we had a weather event. My radio shack all-hazards went off but my vx8r did not. I double checked and the receive alert was on but nothing happened.

I need to reread the instructions but I was under the impression that all-hazard alerts would be received regardles of the tuner.

Marc

Well, I've got this A12 blinking annunciator when I turn
on the APRS modem (at 1200bps...at 9600 the A96 annunciator
turns on and blinks). I assume that this is normal, though I don't
know why the indicator should blink rather than just stay on
continuously. The manual says nothing about this. Should I be
concerned?

The blinking "A12" means that your APRS modem is turned on at 1200bps. If you go into the APRS Modem setting and turn it off, the indicator will go away. If you change it to 9600bps, it will start blinking "A96" on the main screen.

Thanks, moleculo. That's exactly what I thought, but the OP mentioned the
blinking A12 annunciator, suggesting that the fact that it blinks could be a
"problem." He apparently did have other real problems regarding his unit being unable to scan and locking up while in WX Rx mode, but my radio doesn't have those problems. BTW, I don't know why Yaesu programmed the modem annunciator to blink. It's a bit distracting and they might have been able to set it on continuous display mode. The same goes for the blinking "dash" annunciator when the squelch meter is set to anything but "off."

Otherwise, I'm very pleased with the VX-8R. I've had quite a few HT's over the years, and this is my favorite. I have only one real complaint, and that regards the permeability of the front end. Maybe they just can't make 'em like they used to. Maybe it has something to do with the small physical size of these modern radios. It's an engineering trade-off, I guess.

That is right. I just meant that APRS mode was enabled, indicated by A12 blinking.

But all 3 parts of the setup needed to be set to produce the error:

-APRS mode enabled (A12 blinking)
-WX Alerts turned ON
-Dual Recieve with A-Band scanning VFO (6) and the display set to show the frequencies.

After setting up all of the above, I observed the problems described in the post.

I still have not purchased another VX-8R and found a good deal on a VX-5R, which has been my main HT since. But the APRS bug is starting to itch again...

__________________
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It should be common knowledge by now that Yaesu uses the amateur community as their test victims. They often release new equipment well before getting all the bugs out now. Some examples include the FT-857 and FT-867. Early versions of these radios almost always broke in RF oscillation on 6 meters. How these radios ever passed FCC inspection in this condition is beyond me.

Then there was the VX-7R. The PL encoder on those radios stinks. With the encoder level set to zero the PL is still very audible on the carrier. Even worse, Yaesu is not forthcoming with any of their design mistakes. They will be happy to charge you to fix their mistakes but will never post them in a service bulletin as Kenwood does.

I like Yaesu but I will NEVER buy another brand new one. I will wait until they have been on the market for at least a few years and the D version comes out to fix the problems in the original design after countless complaints from users. They just don't get it right the first time in too many cases and rush to market.

Don't forget the original ft100,it was a stinker with major flaws.

Well, I managed to reset some of the menu items and the BLINKING of the A12 annunciator went away (it just stayed on constantly). I'll try to figure out which setting(s) led to the blinking, and when I find out I'll post it, but I guess it's not really important. The blinking was clearly not a "malfunction." My radio works great. This is one rig for which you really need to study the manual...

I just purchased the ADMS program CD and interconnect cable from HRO. This is a really useful package, and it makes programming the VX-8R a breeze.

Nick