Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

As an update to this, I narrowed down my issue to a bad cable. New cable and connectors crimped and we are back in the game. Got my SWRs down to 1.3-1.6 from 150-158 band after tuning my antenna.
I appreciate everyone’s input. Thank you.

 

My honest and brief review of the VERO VGC NR-7500 Mobile Amateur Radio:
DO NOT BUY! Rather wait for the NR-7600 because they are putting a screen in the hand mic.

This is a quirky-ass radio. And support via manuals is limited. The only official manual from Vero-Tel is in Mandarin Chinese. All of the other manuals on the web are either a quick start guide or a product sales brochure. I've cobbled together a collection of documents to steer e through learning this odd little radio and they sometimes disagree with each other. My guess is lost in translation or in the difference between the evolving firmware. Most of my formal education on the topic has come from YouTubers.

Pros:
Power, sound, fit finish, build quality all rugged.
Hand Mic is wired (can be bluetooth too if you upgrade) and is much sturdier than other mics I've used and broken and replaced. It also has a fair amount of control buttons on it.
Mounts out of the way and there is NO screen / control panel to have to mount on the dashboard. This radio uses your phone to control it via BlueTooth.
Android is a little better control platform than Apple but not a show stopper.
Potential upgrade..... I'm looking at getting one of the bigger screen / radio control head units for the Taco. Those come with Android on board. Would be nice to have the radio seamlessly integrated with the Infotainment Screen.
APRS - What a cool feature. It has native APRS inside the radio and will run fine, but it also has a KISS TNC so you can run APRS.fi or APRS Droid. The upshot is you can also run any other phone, tablet, or laptop based radio software through the radio via that same bluetooth TNC. I know some people running WOAD that love it.

Cons:
Damn that Mic cord is short - especially for a radio that mounts "out of the way." I guess they really prefer you upgrade to the bluetooth handset. I'm keeping mine until the cord wears out.
Learning and Programming - not very intuitive.
Limited Channel Memory - Come on guys. Memory Chips Are CHEEEEEEAP. You could double the memory in this radio for $5 but they don't do it at the factory and there is no way for an end user to pop in an SD Card with additional memory on it.

You are limited to only 6 banks of channels and each bank has like 32 or 34 channels. The radio does have dual channel ability but you can only operate out of one bank at a time. So if you want to run APRS all of the time and then you have a favorite repeater in each bank, then you have to put APRS as Channel 1 in each bank so it always knows where that is.

At the end of the day am I happy with this radio? Sorta, yes. Would I recommend it? No. Am I looking to replace it? Also no. Each radio is different and if you switch from Kenwood to iCom or B-Tech then you know how difficult that curve is. This radio does what I need, want, and ask of it. Especially GPS for off roading. It just does it differently and that learning curve is proving to be hard right now. If your mind is still young and flexible, you might take to this radio like a duck to water.

https://www.verotelecom.com/VERO-VR...obile-Radio-With-APP-Programming-p541441.html