VGC VR-N7500: APRS! Android, iOS, Bluetooth, Dual Band 2m/7cm Ham Radio Review

Bought this radio about one year ago. Works great, it is hidden and safe in the car. I use the small BT PTT speaker/microphone (not the HT shaped). What I was not able to do is to use it as an APRS tracker. It actually plots my position via cell phone internet but not by RF. Any thoghts on how it could transmit my position automatically in a regular basis via RF only?

I caved and bought it with your link. Although it's kinda chinese jank, I support developers that innovate. This seems like an absolute blast to use, having a cellphone integrated just makes sense to me since we carry one with us all day long. APRS seems way easier to use with a tablet or cellphone to compared using aprs on a normal radio that supports it. Can't wait to use it on my road trip coming up :)
Where I work, I park my car right outside by the building. I hope the little bluetooth handset can reach my car, this will be epic being able to radio from work with my car parked outside :D

Is this radio spectrally clean.

Josh, can you do a video just on how to set up APRS on this device?

I think the reasons the CW didn't decode nicely :
1) the radio was listening to the mic, not the RF, in decoding CW. If you have the channel selected (and recording) you'll find it'll auto-decode CW in the messages screen.. like when a repeater IDs, etc.
2) the Icom you used to test it was sending CW in CW mode - not MCW. so it was simply keying/unkeying to generate the Continuous Waves making up the code. the VR-N7500 listens for modulated CW (tones sent over FM) so the carrier going up and down in the pattern of code was meaningless to it. I could tell it was trying to hear the Icom's monitor-tone generation... but...
3) the noise in the room of the squelch opening and closing out-of-sync with the monitor-tone of the Icom "muddied the waters" enough that the ambient mic decoding just wasn't happening.

Suggestions:

turn down all other radios and key the Icom into a dummy load, doing everything else the same - the monitor-tone of the Icom should be picked up by the ambient mic and decoded by the "HT" software.

or

send modulated CW - a few ways to do this are with a code practice oscillator into a mic jack, etc, so you're transmitting a continuous carrier in FM mode and simply modulating the CW, such as what you hear when a repeater IDs. I bet it decodes beautifully.

:)

I have a love/hate relationship with my two 7500s but the use cases I have for them outweigh any bad vibes and I use both of them a lot - one in the shack for home/low power APRS monitoring on an old android VM running on my win11 desktop (tricky to set up but so worth it) and the one in the car that my wife and I share because I'm "not allowed to have visible radios inside that car' or something yada yada... :)

73 and thanks for this video!

Can this do something basic like cross band repeater?

The biggest problem with the software is that is must connect with servers in China in order to work. On networks that block traffic to/from China, this app does not work at all. That means if China ever decides to cut off network access to the outside world or just your part of the world, this stops working. Also, if they decide they no longer want to be in this business and take their server down, it also stops working. If the internet is down or you don't have network connectivity, it doesn't work.

Can this crossband repeat

..... I lose my mind constantly! Great job, I've had this for 3 or 5 years through a craigslist deal and it just came with it. I finally have a use for it. I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it and I now use this in my company vehicle. I'm going to have to use an external speaker because the wireless speaker mic is a little weak. I thought about buying the HT thingy and might due to it has an antenna and may work better than the speaker mic itself. TX audio quality is excellent but you MUST run mic gain on lowest setting for the wireless mic. It's very HOT otherwise. Cool little unit and I don't mind using the phone to dial up the channels. Once you get used to the interface and get your channels in there it's pretty easy to use. I don't use the APRS functionality I have APRS droid for that if I choose to use it......Once again great video.

Retevis RT99 is the same radio. WA2EDR

What power meter are you using?

does it TX beacon intervals while mobile?

can this radio be used without having a smartphone connected to it?

Love this radio for my motorcycle communication. I use the aprs and it pairs nicely to my Bluetooth headset and I have ran a ptt button to my handlebar. A wireless ptt button is available but not as good as a wired one.

Great idea. The app needs some style, since the app is the front-end of the radio, which we will mount on a dashboard, they should make it look good! How about a dark mode?

Nice looking and very portable. I think I'd prefer more ssb handheld CB or HF transceivers come on the market. However I purchased a president randy fcc AM only version and was somewhat impressed with it's performance.

Does this allow you to contact to nodes and join in on nets or conversation without having to have a piehat

Hi Josh. I want to use this radio just for APRS. Do you recomend this radio for this feature? BTW great video!!

Just bought the radio and the HT mic...looking forward to playing with them

Solved the annoying "roger beep" / APRS tone issue when using the radio on ham or GMRS repeaters (yes it can do GMRS) :Turn off all APRS and ID signaling settings. Problem solved!

I really wish companies that make this kind of hardware would open source the software end of it. The HT app is horrible but if the community got a hold of it, it would probably be fantastic.

I'm looking for a inexpensive dedicated 50W option to run with my Mobilinkd TNC4. If I made up or bought a TNC cable for this radio what do folks think? Is there a simpler small form factor 50W radio out there I should consider? Cheers!

Can it do SSTV too?

Can you stop the APRS and have the radio Screen only

I am curious to know what are the power levels outputs for mid and low on this radio?

I do a lot of camping and off-roading out here in So-Cal and in conjunction with being a ham, I can definitely see this radio filling a void in my comm needs. The absolute ONLY problem I have is with it's connectivity to phones, tablets, etc with internet capability. In this day in age, one can't help but to wonder about WHAT'S BEING SENT HOME TO CHINA when the app is running on these connected devices. I've said this before about rc drones and security cameras and now there's a laundry list of brands that are BANNED here because of extremely questionable practices. Food for thought. 💡

After setting up by using the app, can the 7500 be left to operate on it's own ? or does it nedd the app connected all the time ?

I would freaking love to have a radio like this if they open sourced their API’s so it would work with open source apps.

So much easier than trying to program typical radios. FT-5DR comes to mind - terrible!

Oh man the "F U" guy. He's great! Do I put another $60 into a digirig box for my IC-2100 or put it toward this radio and run it as a full time APRS digipeater? I already bought the interface cable from Digirig just so you know.

I have a thought if the one that is in the radio what if I somehow got to be able to swap the bluetooth chip in it to be more powerful transmitting Bluetooth chip would that idea work or am I crazy here? (in order to extend the Bluetooth range even further essentially)

 the cross band thing would the be the thing that would make me be able to use it as a vehicle repeater system so I could use it as a mobile repeater to be able to reach far Ham radio repeaters out there (side note does relay mode have anything to do with the cross band thing at all?)

A different question is the front mic Port do you know if you know the pinout of what each wire goes to the palm mic? I think about plugging in a audio system like how ham radioist hook up their studio mics to their base station (I also trying to find out too if the radio has a balanced audio system or a unbalanced speaker in the Palm mic?

...now review the VR-N7600

Too bad it doesn't use HTML5 instead of proprietary apps. When the app stops being supported and Android gets an update, you will have no way to control it. But HTML5 will probably be supported for many years to come.

do you know if the speaker in the palm mic use a balanced or unbalanced audio system?

also is the mic component in the rj palm mic uses balanced or unbalanced audio system?

Is this an FM only radio?

does the app have a dark mode? seems like it might be nice to mount a phone or tablet in the car and select channels on the fly

Wow, Josh, thanks for this. I found your review while searching for this radio. I've done lots of research and this looks like the best currently-available option for a motorcycle with a BT headset. I'm especially surprised with myself for considering it, since I'm a pretty old-school HF guy (with a Collins S-Line at home and a surplus Racal in my truck). I have never been on VHF, but this looks like a great motorcycle option for 2M simplex on the road. Thanks and 73...NV1V.

We NEED the HT app to support Android Auto or Apple CarPlay

The APRS passcode isn't a Chinese thing. To connect to an APRS server anywhere you need a passcode. It's easy enough to get one online.

Enjoying the informative aspect of this Vid. Thank you.

Can it work through CarPlay or android auto through the cars speakers and mic?

Has anyone got the KISS TNC to work with Radiomail yet? I can't get it to work and can't find anything about it?

I always wondered why do the radio manufacturers just open source their radio software/firmware. Don't see how it'd cost them money/sales. You got to buy the hardware. Let the open source community do the software development for them. Something like this would have crazy potential as an open source project. It really wasn't until they wrote 3rd party software for the MD380 that the radio took off. No one really heard of the radio until the open source community baked their own firmware. Why not jump start this?

Does it come with that little handheld or do you have to purchase it separately? I don't see it anywhere as an accessory.

I really like my vgc- vr-n7500. I use it for one of my base station radios. I have an android phone that I don't use anymore connected to the radio and the internet. I leave it with the radio in the shack. I've installed an external wifi antenna on the outside of the radio to extend the Bluetooth range. Using the phone for the microphone I could get about 15 feet from the radio. With the external antenna the range extended to about 50 yards. I also setup network channels to use my radio remotely. I installed the ht app on my phone that I carry with me to control the radio through the phone I have paired to the radio at home. You can also send and receive sstv through the app on the paired phone or my phone I carry. I really like the radio. It's not perfect but pretty darn good. They go on sale occasionally on R&L electronics. Got mine that way for $127.

Does the app have to be connected for it to beacon APRS with current location? I presume it doesn't have a GPS module built-in.

Has the iOS app improved & supports APRS? I remember it was limited previously.

Well, after some years being off the air, now I have a 2nd radio I want to get. Would love to put one of these in my truck! For the time being I already blew my budget on the Btech Uv Pro and the wireless mic for it.
Hopefully the tariff game doesn’t Jack the price up. Will be some time before budget wise can get the radio and an antenna for the truck too

I love my VERO. Made a video about 8 months ago. One thing I don't like is their software. It would be really nice if some of these apps were more open source.