Disclaimer: This updated review focuses on the iOS app, not the Android app, which has a different set of features.
About two months ago I did a review on the Vero Telecom VR-N7500 APRS radio. You can read my initial review here:
I was quite critical of the radio, but not because I don’t like it. It’s an awesome little unit, just the firmware and app development let it down. There are lots of reviews online that echoed this.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment though was that the manufacturer assured me that the functionality I was looking for (APRS Messaging) was supported on iOS. In reality, it wasn’t.
After I posted the review it worked it’s way back to the manufacturer, I was put in touch with the app developer and we set to work about fixing *some* of the bugs on my list. The developer was really good to work with and was very responsive to help get these improvements over the line.
I did a video and blog post summary of these changes here:
APRS Setup Video:
Out of all this work I produced this setup video to help people get started with this radio:
The tldr:
- The radio now supports iOS messaging, and a number of other bugs are fixed.
- Would I recommend this radio now? For the price? Yes.
- Is it a serious competitor for a radio like the FTM-300/400 or TM-D710? I don’t think so. Maybe. It depends.
Whether or not this radio is a serious competitor to a modern radio with a physical head depends on the individual. The noise rejection problems still aren’t solved, though I have managed to solve my noise issue in my vehicle by placing ferrites on the power cables of the radio and my headunit – the latter of which was the source of the noise. The app is still pretty clunky to use. The message stream shows a bunch of extraneous data that we probably don’t need to see (or care about) such as the raw text of the APRS messages including the ack suffixes, etc. It doesn’t have the spit and polish of it’s modern competitors, but then again, it has the advantage of being fully app controlled.
The bugs that have been fixed:
- Object reports now show on the map correctly
- Members page now shows the callsigns of the heard stations
- Long tap on the channel in the top left hand corner brings up a full screen channel option
- Data received from an IGate with nested information now shows correctly.
- APRS Path now configured through “General Settings”
- APRS Channel now configured through “General Settings”
- APRS Positioning/Messaging channel now monitored in the background if one is configured.
- APRS Channel works in “Single Ch” and “Double Ch” mode.
- APRS Messages and Positions now send with the path configured in the “General Settings”
- APRS Messages will now be “acked” correctly
- Speeds up firmware updates from iOS
- Digipeating now transmits via the APRS Channel, if one is selected
- Includes an option for the radio to turn on in pairing mode
- The confusing duplication of the “Time To Live” and “Maximum Forwarding Time” settings (that affected different features) are now gone.
The bugs that still exist:
- Not a bug per-se, but the developer is working on SmartBeaconing
- Still no S-Meter in the iOS app
- Extraneous APRS Message data is displayed
- Objects are displayed with their data, but the data isn’t really decoded, just displayed in raw text
UI Quirks:
There are some UI quirks that I don’t think will change, mainly due to the radio not primarily being designed for APRS.
- The RF Position beaconing interval and format (bearing in mind this radio supports multiple digital modulation schemes) are configured under the “User Settings” menu by tapping on the profile picture which is not very obvious.
- The APRS Settings section and associated IGate settings under the General Settings are a bit ambiguous – it would be easy to fall into the trap (and many have) that these settings control the RF transmit settings.
- The APRS Channel and path settings are under the “General Settings”, in my opinion these should be under the APRS settings page.
- The radio supports multiple 16 channel memory “banks” but it looks like this is actually controlled from the app side and on iOS at least – these are quite clunky to change.
So what does it do?
- Dedicated APRS Tx/Rx channel
- APRS Messaging
- APRS Positioning (fixed intervals)
- Up to two additional VHF/UHF voice channels
- 16 Channel memory “banks”
- 25KHz or 12.5KHz FM Voice Channels
- Bluetooth iOS/Android App Control
- Supports a Bluetooth Hand Mic – and some BT hands free devices (YMMV)
- Supports a Bluetooth Remote Control HT-esque speaker mic (BHM-74)
The (current) verdict:
The radio can now be used for APRS Messaging, Digipeating, as well as two voice channels all at the same time.
It even has limited IGate functionality – it would be cool if the IGate functionality supported standard server-side filters, but we might see that in a future version. It would make a very good receive only IGate, but personally I think it would be a bit too noisy to use as a transmit enabled IGate.
Would I recommend this radio to others now?
Yes.
I will be buying two more, one for each of my work vehicles.
Where can I get one?
Right now, in Australia at least, they’re a little hard to get. You can buy them from here. Im speaking to the manufacturer about what it would take to get some of these into the hands of a retailer in the country.
Direct from Vero – Shipping takes 2-4 weeks.
Aliexpress – Shipping takes about 2 weeks.
