VX-170 antenna

Equipment
1

I wrote that I lost my VX-170 rubber duck on Black Mount a few weeks back. In the meantime, I’ve been using another haldheld’s antenna. I had a search on eBay and found lots of antennas that should fit for various prices from nearby and China etc. I also found a VX-170 complete for sale with duff battery and RX issues but good as a donor of antennas and other parts for a good price. In the end the VX170 went for more than I valued it at.

Thursday I thought I’d check with Yaesu UK direct. Yes they had them in stock and including P&P only £10.80. I thrust a credit card number at them at around 1130 in the morning and my new replacement antenna was awaiting for when I returned home from work on Friday at 1600. I thought the price was as good as any of the antennas on eBay and best of all, it should actually work!

Under 30 hrs from order to delivery and a better price than the goods on eBay, I think that’s brilliant service and pricing.

5 Likes
2

I often find manufacturers are quite competitive and not just radio gear and they are usually quick.

3

Having had this happen twice to me, I now tape mine with yellow luminous tape to at least give me half a chance of finding it should it attempt to go AWOL again. I am fairly certain that I lost the original for my Standard C710 in the car park at Wythburn and not actually on the summit Helvellyn. The replacement (a Moonraker MRW420) vanished into thin air on Moncreiffe Hill and despite a lengthy search, reluctantly I had to return to the car without it.

If you are like me, losing a bit of kit in this manner in the natural environment does engender a feeling of guilt, but I guess it is totally involuntary - unlike the “lost” packaging from a well-known fast food outlet that I often find lying in the road or on the verge in the local area.

1 Like
4

…yet manufacturers seem intent on always using dark and difficult-to-see colours for their kit, even when it is most likely to be used in places where those colours will be least appropriate. Ho hum…

5

For quite some time, radios which were intrinsically safe used to be brightly coloured (yellow or orange) so you knew it was safe to use in an potentially explosive atmosphere such as an oil refinery etc. Non-safe radio black, IS radio garish colours. This made it easy to see if someone had the wrong radio and there an ignition hazard etc. This no longer seems to be a standard as many IS radios are as bland as the non-IS counterparts.