There are many instructions to widen the VX-1R's coverage.

Of course you can open it completely, so the VX-1R will always have
full coverage. Don't think this is the preferred solution. With this
software you can reconfigure your VX-1R any time without any hardware
modifications, provided that only jumper 1 is set inside the unit.
To do that, remove the battery, then remove 3 small screws. Now
carefully open the case from the side where you removed the 3 screws.
On the battery side there are 3 small plastic clips inside which will
unlatch when you open the case. Remove the sticky foil from the PCB
where the battery was before. Jumpers 0 and 1 are on the top, the
others are further down. Make sure that only jumper 1 is set.
Reassemble the unit, then do a RESET.

If your unit had the "Germany" configuration before, it will now be
"Germany + wide TX": TX 140-170 Mhz and 420-470 Mhz, RX 76-999 Mhz.

FreeBand   TX 108-560 Mhz   RX 76-999 Mhz
Germany    TX 144-146 Mhz 430-440 Mhz
Europe     TX 144-146 Mhz 432-438 Mhz
USA        TX 144-148 Mhz 430-450 Mhz

wide TX    140-170 Mhz  420-470 Mhz (Germany,Europe,USA)
Cell RX    824-849/864-894Mhz RX
WideRX     ?????

With "FreeBand", the last 3 items become irrelevant, they are being shown as
not selected. This is not a bug!

Now, how do you modify your VX-1R using my software? It's very easy:
Connect your VX-1R to your PC and read its contents. The right hand part of
the screen, labelled "VX1R-Modify" is used to modify the VX-1R: Country
setting, wide TX , wide RX, cellular RX. The top 4 buttons
"VX-1R MODE" MUST always show the current settings. The lower 4 buttons
"CHANGE TO"  allow to select new settings.
For instance click on the country button until it shows "FreeBand". Don't
worry about wide TX and cell RX being shown as not selected, they don't
matter in FreeBand. Now send the new configuration to your VX-1R, and it
will be fully open. Change it back to its original configuration with the
same procedure. To summarize: With jumper 1 set and all others open, you
can reconfigure your VX-1R easily using this software.