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Basic Unit Selection

 

Listening, looking around, reading umpteen reviews, and having an old vet budget and too many interests, I agree with some which relate that the Baofeng is a good low priced entry level device for those entering amateur radio. I've been all around in electronics and communication and listened to my old military receiver.

But I am having trouble identifying which unit is preferable. I see only an odd unit with almost unused (in the US,) and a unit with a larger battery, (which I love,) and a dual-power level, which I will like, once I am licensed.

This site shows some unit examples.
$29 vs $69 no huge biggee. (A ext mike and better antenna can come when I can Xmit and am licensed on more than my ancient CB, lol !)

Comments plz if any. TIA



73s
BillSF9c
KALA3329 ?
 

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

The UV-5R is a good budget priced radio. They are good value for the price you pay, but they aren't top of the line. If you take them into town/shopping centres, they are prone to interference, as they aren't very selective.

I use one for around the house or walking around the local district, as I am talking and listening to things close. The unit is small and will fit into your top pocket easily with the standard battery. The high capacity battery can be handy if you are going out all day and will be using it alot. The big battery doubles the size of the unit and weight.

I don't think you will be disappointed.


Regards,

Doug VK2XLJ

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of billsf9c via groups.io <OOWONBS@...>
Sent: Thursday, 14 October 2021 11:21 AM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: [Baofeng] Basic Unit Selection
?
Listening, looking around, reading umpteen reviews, and having an old vet budget and too many interests, I agree with some which relate that the Baofeng is a good low priced entry level device for those entering amateur radio. I've been all around in electronics and communication and listened to my old military receiver.

But I am having trouble identifying which unit is preferable. I see only an odd unit with almost unused (in the US,) and a unit with a larger battery, (which I love,) and a dual-power level, which I will like, once I am licensed.

This site shows some unit examples.
$29 vs $69 no huge biggee. (A ext mike and better antenna can come when I can Xmit and am licensed on more than my ancient CB, lol !)

Comments plz if any. TIA



73s
BillSF9c
KALA3329 ?
 

On Thu, 14 Oct 2021 01:00:46 +0000, "Doug J" <vk2xlj@...>
wrote:

The UV-5R is a good budget priced radio. They are good value for the price you pay, but they aren't top of the line. If you take them into town/shopping centres, they are prone to interference, as they aren't very selective.
I have a UV-5R also. I bought it from a retailer at Hamvention a few
years ago and got it with two of the extended batteries (they let me
swap and pay the difference between the small battery and the larger
one).

If you're not in a flat area or nor near a repeater, it may not be
worth getting a handheld. If you can have another ham in your club
come over and test to see if you can bring up the local repeaters from
your home, or wherever else you might want to use it, that would tell
you if it's a good purchase. Mine wasn't. I have one spot outside by
the garage where I can bring up one repeater, and I'm a bit noisy
getting into it.

One other thing to know ahead of time with most of these Chinese
radios is that you'll probably want a programming cable (get one from
BTech on Amazon and you'll be getting the one from Baofeng's USA
distributor), and CHIRP programming software (it's free). There's a
CHIRP group here, too, that I started so if you have questions about
using it, then post there. If you don't get the cable from BTech, get
one with the FDTI chipset. There are counterfeit cables with the
Prolific chipset and the driver will refuse to work with a counterfeit
cable in at least some cases. There's a third chipset that I forgot
what it's called and it will work, but finding the driver for it was
not easy. I have an "octopus" cable that has 8 or so different ends to
fit various radios, and I bought it just to see if it works. Other
then the difficulty of finding the right driver for it, it DOES
actually work, so I can program several brands of radios with it.

You can also get non-free software from RT Systems. You can get a good
cable from them and also great software, but CHIRP is good enough and
will save you money. Figure about $50 for the cable and software from
them. Figure less than $20 for the official cable, less for one that
works but isn't the official one (check Amazon reviews first as some
are a waste of money), and CHIRP software is free.

There are other Chinese radio HTs but Baofeng is probably the most
popular and least problematic. Don't try to save a few $$$ and buy
another brand. The Baofengs are already pretty cheap anyway. I won a
different Chinese brand of HT at our local hamfest and after finding a
cable for it, was unable to program it. I sold it for $5 at the next
year's hamfest, which is about 1/2 what I paid for the cable. It was a
waste of money to have even bought the cable! (Yes, I did tell the
buyer my negative experience.)

Donald KX8K


----------------------------------------------------
Some ham radio groups you may be interested in:
/g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas
/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng
/g/CHIRP

 

There¡¯s also a really nice device by TIDRADIO: the BL-1 Bluetooth programmer!

They are available through Amazon for $19.99.

I don¡¯t recommend using it to program you entire radio as it can be very time consuming. But it works great to program a couple of channels or modify channel mistakes/changes. It will also hold several program downloads. Have no idea how many it will hold, but I have several scans on mine.

You can use it with Android or Apple device and you do NOT need a cable!

Just my 2 cents worth.

Rod
KC7CJO

On Oct 13, 2021, at 19:23, Donald Hellen <donhellen@...> wrote:

?On Thu, 14 Oct 2021 01:00:46 +0000, "Doug J" <vk2xlj@...>
wrote:

The UV-5R is a good budget priced radio. They are good value for the price you pay, but they aren't top of the line. If you take them into town/shopping centres, they are prone to interference, as they aren't very selective.
I have a UV-5R also. I bought it from a retailer at Hamvention a few
years ago and got it with two of the extended batteries (they let me
swap and pay the difference between the small battery and the larger
one).

If you're not in a flat area or nor near a repeater, it may not be
worth getting a handheld. If you can have another ham in your club
come over and test to see if you can bring up the local repeaters from
your home, or wherever else you might want to use it, that would tell
you if it's a good purchase. Mine wasn't. I have one spot outside by
the garage where I can bring up one repeater, and I'm a bit noisy
getting into it.

One other thing to know ahead of time with most of these Chinese
radios is that you'll probably want a programming cable (get one from
BTech on Amazon and you'll be getting the one from Baofeng's USA
distributor), and CHIRP programming software (it's free). There's a
CHIRP group here, too, that I started so if you have questions about
using it, then post there. If you don't get the cable from BTech, get
one with the FDTI chipset. There are counterfeit cables with the
Prolific chipset and the driver will refuse to work with a counterfeit
cable in at least some cases. There's a third chipset that I forgot
what it's called and it will work, but finding the driver for it was
not easy. I have an "octopus" cable that has 8 or so different ends to
fit various radios, and I bought it just to see if it works. Other
then the difficulty of finding the right driver for it, it DOES
actually work, so I can program several brands of radios with it.

You can also get non-free software from RT Systems. You can get a good
cable from them and also great software, but CHIRP is good enough and
will save you money. Figure about $50 for the cable and software from
them. Figure less than $20 for the official cable, less for one that
works but isn't the official one (check Amazon reviews first as some
are a waste of money), and CHIRP software is free.

There are other Chinese radio HTs but Baofeng is probably the most
popular and least problematic. Don't try to save a few $$$ and buy
another brand. The Baofengs are already pretty cheap anyway. I won a
different Chinese brand of HT at our local hamfest and after finding a
cable for it, was unable to program it. I sold it for $5 at the next
year's hamfest, which is about 1/2 what I paid for the cable. It was a
waste of money to have even bought the cable! (Yes, I did tell the
buyer my negative experience.)

Donald KX8K


----------------------------------------------------
Some ham radio groups you may be interested in:
/g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas
/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng
/g/CHIRP




 

Thanks to Darrell AB2E, I've ordered a ...



... as of yesterday. ~$56 (+ CA tax.) Full Kit.

Most say 4-5w. Some, 8. This, 18w. Utubes dispute that for similar units claiming 18... back of the device even has it molded into the shell, 18W. Their (utube) tests show 4+ on a UV9+(?) claiming 18. No HUGE matter. Curious though. One utube had seen one on "WISH" that claimed 60w, (lol) but I wouldn't trust Wish for that detail.

Still, claiming 18w !?! Strange. Reminds me of the 70s & 80s where the music industry went through machinisms to redefine, "music watts."

Water resistant, IP67. Plus to me!
Reasonable price for s full kit. Have 30 days to consider a $6 2yr protection. Delivery 19 days max. Seller has a good rep. Site dutifully dropped from 4 available, to 3 in minutes.

Working on Tech studies.

BillSF9c
 

Bill . . .

On Sun, 09 Jan 2022 12:21:22 -0800, "billsf9c via groups.io"
<OOWONBS@...> wrote:

Most say 4-5w. Some, 8. This, 18w. Utubes dispute that for similar units claiming 18... back of the device even has it molded into the shell, 18W. Their (utube) tests show 4+ on a UV9+(?) claiming 18. No HUGE matter. Curious though. One utube had seen one on "WISH" that claimed 60w, (lol) but I wouldn't trust Wish for that detail.
Don't believe the wattage claims from sellers. Some add up the wattage for each
band, including low and high output settings, put them all together for a
whopping claim of big output power.

If you live in an area where there are repeaters close by, a handheld can be
useful. Here, not so much. I can stand in one place on my city lot and hit one
of the local repeaters a bit noisy. Move off a few feet and I can't maintain the
link.

Mobile with 25W or more I can hit both regularly used FM repeaters in most
places around here. There's one dead area along a long hill to the west of here.
Once out from the shadow of that hill, I can hit it again. I haven't tried with
the 50W on 2M I have available now but I could probably be noisy into the
repeater along the base of that hill. From home, with the 25W, I can make it
into the repeaters. That's into either a dual-band J-pole or my tri-band mobile
antenna.

When I bought my UV-5R (no longer sold as it didn't meet FCC requirements to
prevent out of band operation), I got two of the extended life batteries and
they gave me credit for the smaller one that came with it.

I also have the BF-888 which also shouldn't have been sold in the US but I put
it on the 440 MHz band and added some family radio service channels to it also.
It's actually higher wattage than allowed on the FRS band but I have never used
it there. I consider it for an emergency on those channels.

You'll want to get good at programming it from the front panel or get a good
cable with the FDTI chipset (not the Prolific chipset) from the Baofeng people
and download CHIRP onto a Windows PC. I think it may work under Linux also using
WINE or Crossover.

It's easy to program frequencies using CHIRP. I never got the hang of manually
programming repeaters into the radio I have. CHIRP is free. The cable is not,
and I recommend NOT buying the cheapest cable. Look at the reviews, find one
with an FDTI chipset, and preferably buy from BTech USA (I think that's the
name) which is Baofeng's US distributor. They're on Amazon.

There's a group here called CHIRP that can help you if you need help. Once you
get a good cable (not all will work well), the hardest thing is working out the
COM port used by the driver and radio and how the programming works.

Donald KX8K


----------------------------------------------------
Some ham radio groups you may be interested in:
/g/ICOM /g/Ham-Antennas
/g/HamRadioHelp /g/Baofeng
/g/CHIRP

 

¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

Baofeng are good budget radios, but their claims are ridiculous. This one also is so wrong on many fronts.

-The radio claims on the front it is "digital mobile radio" when it is FM and says so below it. A big contradiction.

-Also claims to be a "dual band FM transciever" when it is tri-band.

-Ridiculous TX power claims, not one of these radios ever gets over 6 watts.


Read thru the BS and the Chinglish and watch a few reviews on youtube and you will find out what they really are.


Regards,

Doug VK2XLJ

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of billsf9c via groups.io <OOWONBS@...>
Sent: Monday, 10 January 2022 7:21 AM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Baofeng] Basic Unit Selection
?
Thanks to Darrell AB2E, I've ordered a ...



... as of yesterday. ~$56 (+ CA tax.) Full Kit.

Most say 4-5w. Some, 8. This, 18w. Utubes dispute that for similar units claiming 18... back of the device even has it molded into the shell, 18W. Their (utube) tests show 4+ on a UV9+(?) claiming 18. No HUGE matter. Curious though. One utube had seen one on "WISH" that claimed 60w, (lol) but I wouldn't trust Wish for that detail.

Still, claiming 18w !?! Strange. Reminds me of the 70s & 80s where the music industry went through machinisms to redefine, "music watts."

Water resistant, IP67. Plus to me!
Reasonable price for s full kit. Have 30 days to consider a $6 2yr protection. Delivery 19 days max. Seller has a good rep. Site dutifully dropped from 4 available, to 3 in minutes.

Working on Tech studies.

BillSF9c

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