CHINESE HANDSETS AND THEIR USE

daveob007

I am thinking of getting one of those dual band baofeng handsets as a portable scanner,the one i am thinking of covers 136-174mhz and 400-480mhz.
I do not intend to use the tramsmitter on it as i am not a licenced ham operator but wondering if it is legal to use on 446,the power is either 1 or 5 watts.
also can they be used as a marine radio?
what are your views on these,,they are very high quality and have loads of features such as duplex operation,vox,ctcss,dtmf etc etc.
great radio for around €40ish but are they legal.
thanks.

martinedwards

First up, I'm in the North.....

so,

I use mine as a 2m set in the car.

I replaced the rubber duck with a decent antenna (under £5 on ebay) and it makes a world of difference.

I also use it to monitor the buses, a very useful traffic advisor, especially when folks up here were being silly and blocking roads a few months back.

HERE, PMR has a power limit.... I THINK 500mw, so strictly speaking, that makes 'em naughty straight out of the box!!

as to marine, they can certainlt recieve on marine band, as I have listened to Belfast docks, but never transmitted. different licence for marine band!

I took mine to Dublin a few months back and while it could open both repeaters that I had programmed into it, there was no-one to talk to at all that weekend!

daveob007

just found another thread relating to these a few pages on thanks

watty

They are totally illegal as a PMR446 or Marine. Only legal for Ham use, with transmission only on Amateur bands.

If you only want to listen buy a scanner/receiver.

daveob007

watty wrote: »

They are totally illegal as a PMR446 or Marine. Only legal for Ham use, with transmission only on Amateur bands.

If you only want to listen buy a scanner/receiver.

fully understand that from the other threads,but scanners with ctcss function etc can be fairly expensive,i have one thats just basic am/fm and wand one that cheap and small.
friend of mine got one a few years back and disabled the ptt button incase of accidental transmission and it work fine but the newer ones are far more advanced.

...__...

for something thats 30 euro on ebay versus someone selling a bearcat for 100 on adverts Im all for the boafeng a great little step up the ladder when it comes to handhelds

daveob007

the baofeng states that it covers 400-470 but actually goes up to 520mhz.

daveob007

got my baofeng the other day and very happy with it,great quality and a great little scanner but seems to pick up a lot of interference on most bands.
the battery lasts ages also and can work as simplex or duplex,loads of other features that i still have to play with yet,instructions not very good,luckily i found proper instruction on the net which allows you program manually.
overall well worth the money,will report back if i discover anything else.

Popular Hardback

I was thinking of getting a Baofeng UV-5R to experiment with when I get my amateur radio licence to get started.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/UV-5R-Dual-Band-Improved-Stronger-Enhanced/dp/B0091CWQBE/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1369501529&sr=1-1&keywords=baofeng



What are the capabilities of these little radio's, what can be hooked up to them, and what can I do with them in conjunction with the local repeater ?

The local repeater is about 15 miles away as the crow flies.

Will I be able to access it at that distance ?

Quaderno

I can't comment on the radio in question, but I recently stumbled upon this review of another similarly cheap but apparently better chinese radio. Just to give you some choice

martinsvi

Popular Hardback, where do you live? Around Dublin - band 136-174MHz (144-146 for hams) is very quiet. You can pick up a random taxi or ham operating but that's about it. You can consider yourself lucky if you catch anything. Band 400-480 MHz (430-440 for hams) is a bit more lively, there you can catch Dublin bus conversations, sometimes they're quite fun to listen. If you live near a business park you are very likely to hear some intercom talk.

Also this radio does not have airband coverage - 108-137MHz with most action around 118 to 122MHz. I live some 20km away from Dublin airport, but I can pick up their conversations perfectly with a custom built antenna. That's another thing - stock antennas for these handheld radios wont get you anywhere, they pick up only very strong signals.
so to answer your question- you should be able to access the repeater - if you don't - your antenna is bad. Specifications says it does 4 watts, that should be enough to cover 15 miles unless you have a lot of obstacles on your way

Popular Hardback

Didn't realise the repeaters are so quiet.

Do repeaters allow you to talk abroad as well, via linked repeaters ?

martinsvi

when I said quiet, I meant - people are not using them. Again, it depends on your location/ nearest repeater and if there are active hams around it or not. I've heard that things up North are better. SEARG seem to be running a decent repeater network as well, so there must be some activity. In South/Central Dublin amateur VHF/UHF bands are deserted.. I often scan them and I've heard nothing except 2 times somebody using Morse on 145.6. Unanswered CQ calls if I understood it correctly.

As I mentioned earlier, I can hear Echolink repeater in Wales on 145.0125. It's quite active, especially on weekday evenings. This one time I heard a local guy in Wales talking with a ham in Florida. So yes, international communication is possible, depending on repeater type

Popular Hardback

I was primarily interested in a heldheld combined with a repeater for dxing and a bit of experimenting, otherwise I might as well get a CB

martinsvi

I don't know about that... I have a suspicion that there are not that many linked repeaters out there to keep it interesting.. When people talk about VHF DXing most commonly they are talking about Sporadic E propagation. With right conditions you should be able to reach most places is Europe, but with just 4 watts power that will not be enough (not for the voice anyway)

watty

Repeaters are for Mobile use and are usually FM. VHF DX uses a big yagi and rotator and SSB, CW, PSK31 or other datamodes.

There are some repeaters here on IRLP and some on Echo Link. Quality can be atrocious on Echo Link as people at home with badly set up microphones are able to connect directly. IRLP is ONLY between repeaters and is usually properly configured. Echolink and IRLP are VOIP, (Internet connections), not DX.

4W is enough for VHF DX, but only with a big Yagi on SSB or better on PSK31

FM is really only for repeaters or very short range Person to Person, especially on a handheld. A good 5/8th Wave Mobile whip on a car is x2 to x4 range of a handheld with a "rubber duck", even using the same handheld!

martinedwards

yup.

the baofeng rubberduck is awful.

my whole radio overheated so much that the LCD screen went black!

w £4 Diamond rh771 copy off ebay sorted it and improved TX markedly.

watty

O.T.
I see they finally digging up the Shore road after discussing it for over 40 years. At one stage the Motorway ending at Rush Park was to extend over behind the Poly.

martinedwards

Yup, we've been here over 20 years and they've been saying "next year" all that time!

tech

thinking of buying one of these radios, are they worth it?

martinedwards

yes

for the price they are ridiculously good.

like i said earlier in the thread, replace the rubber duck with a 2/70 antenna and it's great.

not a €300 Yaesu, but WAYYYY more than 1/10 of a Yaesu!

Refor1981

martinedwards wrote: »

First up, I'm in the North.....

so,

I use mine as a 2m set in the car.

I replaced the rubber duck with a decent antenna (under £5 on ebay) and it makes a world of difference.

I also use it to monitor the buses, a very useful traffic advisor, especially when folks up here were being silly and blocking roads a few months back.

HERE, PMR has a power limit.... I THINK 500mw, so strictly speaking, that makes 'em naughty straight out of the box!!

as to marine, they can certainlt recieve on marine band, as I have listened to Belfast docks, but never transmitted. different licence for marine band!

I took mine to Dublin a few months back and while it could open both repeaters that I had programmed into it, there was no-one to talk to at all that weekend!

is it easy to replace the antenna

martinedwards

Refor1981 wrote: »

is it easy to replace the antenna

Yup. Unscrew the awful rubber duck, screw in the good one.

20 seconds max and no soldering!

tech

think ill give it a go for the money!

tech

any more comments on these radios?

thelordgod

tech wrote: »

any more comments on these radios?

They are cheap and cheerful handhelds. They work reasonably well but are not the best quality. Having said that you are not taking much of a risk by buying one as they are so cheap. If you want top quality then you have to pay for it.

GekkePrutser

I just got a digital one, TyT "Tytera" MD-380. Build quality was surprisingly excellent, as were the components like the nice colour screen. Though I prefer monochrome as it is always on. This radio was about 140€ which is well above the usual Baofeng but really for a DMR handset it's a steal. Headset, programming cable and charging dock were included.

And to top it off, the firmware can be hacked so it can receive any unencrypted DMR conversation. Normally you have to know the talk group number and have it programmed in to hear anything.

Only thing that felt cheap was the headset. And the name is a clear Hytera knockoff. But otherwise I'm well impressed. I used it in the Netherlands and I got heard by a digital repeater 40kms away, impressive as I used the rubber duck and this particular repeater is just mounted at 10m elevation on someone's house.

micko45

tech wrote: »

any more comments on these radios?

I bought two of them.
I found you can't expect to use them as frequency scanners as they are too slow to scan. But if you have frequencies like local repeaters already programmed in the program scans are fine. With an standard fm radio and a torch built in you can't really go wrong for the price.