Just a Newbie with newbie questions

blueb

Hi all

Im just looking for a bit of info on the Baofeng 888s
I just bought a pair from ebay. i have only read here that there is some legal issues.
I got them as im separated from my partner but live a little shy of a kilometer away from her and my daughter.
My daughter loves them but they only seem to work now and again, sometimes i can receive a clear communication from them and cannot hear me at all.
Do i need to program them to legally use them in ireland and if so will this improve the quality of communication.
Im a total novice on this subject so apologies if the questions are laughable.

Thanks guys

blueb

i know the the Baofeng 888s is probably considered one step above a childs toy by some ppl on here but i thought it would be adequate for my needs seen as we live 800- 900 meters apart

Quaderno

Using those radios without the appropriate licence would be considered illegal, so discussing it violates the forum charter. Sorry.

blueb

sorry but how am i supposd to find out if there illegal to use and if there is any way of making them legal without discussing it

martinedwards

it's not the radios that need to be made legal. they'd be perfectly legal for ME to use as I hold a full radio amateur licence.

were I to travel down from the north, I could just add EI/ to the front of my UK call sign and I'd be good to go.

for YOU (and your ex) to operate them legally, then simply pass your ham licence exam and get licences!

OldRio

The OP could just buy himself a couple of legal CB radios which would be cheap and relatively easy to set up. No exam or study.
Just a thought.

blueb

Thanks a lot lads , great info. im actually going to look into getting a licence as i have been reading more and more about them and im gaining interest.
I always thought CB Radios were expensive and needed a large aerial!?

sensormatic

Not a all for the short distance 2 small radios 2 power supplies 2 small antenna's
bob's ur uncle away you go,,,,

Quaderno

blueb wrote: »

Thanks a lot lads , great info. im actually going to look into getting a licence as i have been reading more and more about them and im gaining interest.
I always thought CB Radios were expensive and needed a large aerial!?

The antenna is indeed the problem. Due to the lower frequency range used by CB radios (~27MHz) you would need a fairly unwieldy antenna to get at least a bit of efficiency. We are talking about several meters here, and while there are handhelds with shorter antennas they are still clunky and less efficient than a much cheaper PMR446. Those use shorter waves on higher frequencies around 450MHz and achieve a much better "coverage" especially when using a very short antenna. Don't go for CB, at least not for the purpose outlined in your question.

As for the licence, there are lots of bits and pieces of information around and you are in for a hell of a journey if you go down that path. But I don't think you will regret it. Ever
A good starting point would be http://irts.ie, maybe you even have a club around to talk to some operators and see for yourself what they do. Whereabouts in the country are you? I'm sure we will find somebody to point you in the right direction.

GekkePrutser

blueb wrote: »

Thanks a lot lads , great info. im actually going to look into getting a licence as i have been reading more and more about them and im gaining interest.
I always thought CB Radios were expensive and needed a large aerial!?

Mind that getting a license makes no sense for your intended use as both operators will need to have a license.

However if you are interested in it as a hobby I can highly recommend it. I've had my HAM license well before I learned to drive.

Unfortunately Ireland doesn't have a low-level 'Novice' license to try it out so you have to study pretty hard (mainly electronics and radio propagation theory) but I've heard the IRTS is currently considering bringing one in as a way of countering the dwindling numbers.

Some of the stuff you will be able to do is make direct connections all across the world, broadcast over special sattelites and the ISS and all sorts of other stuff.

OldRio

Quaderno wrote: »

The antenna is indeed the problem. Due to the lower frequency range used by CB radios (~27MHz) you would need a fairly unwieldy antenna to get at least a bit of efficiency. We are talking about several meters here, and while there are handhelds with shorter antennas they are still clunky and less efficient than a much cheaper PMR446. Those use shorter waves on higher frequencies around 450MHz and achieve a much better "coverage" especially when using a very short antenna. Don't go for CB, at least not for the purpose outlined in your question.

As for the licence, there are lots of bits and pieces of information around and you are in for a hell of a journey if you go down that path. But I don't think you will regret it. Ever
A good starting point would be http://irts.ie, maybe you even have a club around to talk to some operators and see for yourself what they do. Whereabouts in the country are you? I'm sure we will find somebody to point you in the right direction.

A mobile DV27 antenna on a groundplane would be good enough. CB radio would be more than adequate in this particular case.

GekkePrutser

OldRio wrote: »

A mobile DV27 antenna on a groundplane would be good enough. CB radio would be more than adequate in this particular case.

That's true, now that you mention it, I operated like this before I had my HAM license when I was young because my parents didn't let me put up an outdoor antenna. Had it in the attic mounted on a 50cm x 50cm plate of plastic covered in tin foil Could reach up to 3kms away which was pretty miserable but doable for the OP's purposes

Quaderno

GekkePrutser wrote: »

Unfortunately Ireland doesn't have a low-level 'Novice' license to try it out so you have to study pretty hard (mainly electronics and radio propagation theory) but I've heard the IRTS is currently considering bringing one in as a way of countering the dwindling numbers.

The latest comreg licence statistics from June 2015 says the number of amateur licences in Ireland increased slightly in the year before. I expect similar for the current year: https://www.comreg.ie/radio_spectrum/statistics.541.490.rslicensing.html
In other countries the numbers are rising even steeper: http://www.arrl.org/news/us-amateur-radio-numbers-reach-an-all-time-high
As for the novice licence: I think it would actually help to get more people interested, but the biggest hurdle for many was arguably the morse test which is now long gone. Personally I haven't heard of any intentions to bring in a new licence regime, but I would not be opposed. But the test as is is not too hard if you are really interested, it's more a psychological thing than anything else...
And re. the CB-setup: sure it would work, it's just a fairly roundabout way to get a short distance covered. PMR446 should do if the area is not too built up inbetween...