Who knows about batteries here?

I have a Yaesu (now Vertex Standard) Aviator Pro II VX-120 handheld radio.
It's a good, basic unit that has worked flawlessly, it'ss relatively cheap
and is all the technology I need for this. My question is about batteries
and chargers for it.

When I bought the unit, it came with a rechargeable Nicad battery pack, and
a desktop charger for same. After several years of faithful service, the
battery pack no longer holds much of a charge, so it's time to replace the
battery pack. NiMH seems to be a better technology for stuff like this
(greater capacity, fewer issues with battery "memory", etc.), so my first
inclination would be to buy a NiMH battery pack to replace the old Nicad.

The manufacturer does not sell a NiMH battery pack (this is a relatively
"old" unit - all of about 3 years old - so they don't provide much in the
way of support for it). Chief Aircraft has an item in their catalog
alledging to be a NiMH battery pack for this model (the bottom of page 4, if
you want to follow along at home). Encouraged, I called Chief today to ask
about this NiMH battery pack, wanting to double-check that it would indeed
work with my radio and charger. The lady I spoke with at Chief didn't know
anything about this battery pack, and she suggested I call Yaesu, since she
said it was from them, and she would make no promises about the battery pack
working or not damaging anything. So I called Yaesu "Tech Support" and the
guy I spoke with (not in India, to my surprise) didn't know anything about
any NiMH bateries for that model, and said they never manufactured any such
thing. He said it was probably some third-party battery pack.

So I googled "Yaesu Aviator Pro II VX-120 NiMH battery" and found a place on
the web selling a battery pack for this model radio
(http://www.batteriesamerica.com/newpage71.htm). They claim it's a NiMH
battery that should work in an NC-76B charger, which is the original Yaesu
charger I've been using with my Nicad battery pack.

My concerns are mostly about the charger (I assume the radio doesn't care
what kind of batteries I feed it). I have a few battery chargers laying
around my house (for AA and AAA batteries), and while some of them say they
can be used with either Nicad or NiMH, they all have some sort of switch
that they warn you must be properly set to the battery type - there are dire
warnings about attempting to charge NiMH batteries with the switch in the
Nicad position (and vice versa).

The original Yaesu charger was designed for Nicads. I wouldn't expect that
it would work correctly for NiMH batteries, but the online battery vendor
says it will. Are they telling the truth, or will it fry things? Am I
being overly concerned?

Thanks for any battery/charger expertise you can share on this.


--
David Herman
N6170T 1965 Cessna 150E
Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA
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