Baofeng Radios

[sgtsandman]

It's pretty close to total chaos right now. I feel like there's about one or 2 strands left on the winch cable and the truck (metaphorical society) is so deep in the mud were gonna need a bigger boat.

I’m hearing ya.

 

[Shran]

My offroad club uses UV-5R radios (and other Baofengs) exclusively...we have for quite a few years. One of our club members programmed them to have the legal non-Ham channels - I believe they are GMRS? or FRS? I don't recall but it was researched extensively and what we are using does not require a license. Other frequencies on the old UV-5Rs do require a license.

Speaking from about 15 years of experience with these things - they work about as well as CB, maybe a little better. If you are in a canyon or hilly country they may only have a usable range of a couple hundred yards. Line of sight might be a mile or two in the very best conditions. External antennas mounted on your vehicle help... that defeats the purpose of a handheld though... if you have two handhelds with stock antennas being used inside vehicles, the range is not good. Half a mile or so maybe.

There are also some significant quality issues. I'm guessing 25% or more of the radios we got quit working at some point. Some won't transmit, won't receive, or both. Pretty high failure rate but not surprising, I think we were paying like $12 per radio back in the day and they are only $18 now.

I have a Juentai 25w dual band stationary radio in my Explorer and I am super pleased with it - I have a pretty nice antenna and both the transmit & receive range is excellent. I'm guessing 10-15 miles at least, maybe more. You can't get this radio anymore though.

If I was starting from scratch I would be looking at Midland GMRS radios... great quality and legal to use.

 

[BroncLander]

My offroad club uses UV-5R radios (and other Baofengs) exclusively...we have for quite a few years. One of our club members programmed them to have the legal non-Ham channels - I believe they are GMRS? or FRS? I don't recall but it was researched extensively and what we are using does not require a license. Other frequencies on the old UV-5Rs do require a license.

Speaking from about 15 years of experience with these things - they work about as well as CB, maybe a little better. If you are in a canyon or hilly country they may only have a usable range of a couple hundred yards. Line of sight might be a mile or two in the very best conditions. External antennas mounted on your vehicle help... that defeats the purpose of a handheld though... if you have two handhelds with stock antennas being used inside vehicles, the range is not good. Half a mile or so maybe.

There are also some significant quality issues. I'm guessing 25% or more of the radios we got quit working at some point. Some won't transmit, won't receive, or both. Pretty high failure rate but not surprising, I think we were paying like $12 per radio back in the day and they are only $18 now.

I have a Juentai 25w dual band stationary radio in my Explorer and I am super pleased with it - I have a pretty nice antenna and both the transmit & receive range is excellent. I'm guessing 10-15 miles at least, maybe more. You can't get this radio anymore though.

If I was starting from scratch I would be looking at Midland GMRS radios... great quality and legal to use.

I have 2 of these now, so I'll be doing a real life range test soon. I have a CB and a handheld and the best I got with it was 5km (3 miles) with trees in the way but as soon as the mountain blocked line of sight at was all over.

I'll do the same test with these. Each one has 3 antennas so I'll try them all and in different configurations.

I've been picking up helicopter chatter from over 100km away. And the Fire Center I catch is about 15km away with a mountain in the way.

 

[BroncLander]

It looks like I'm just gonna get the darn license. Here's a Canadian HAM Exam generator for practice.

Exam Generator - Practice Exam | Amateur and Professional Radio Operator Certificates

Amateur and Professional Radio Operator Certificates

apc-cap.ic.gc.ca

 

[sgtsandman]

My offroad club uses UV-5R radios (and other Baofengs) exclusively...we have for quite a few years. One of our club members programmed them to have the legal non-Ham channels - I believe they are GMRS? or FRS? I don't recall but it was researched extensively and what we are using does not require a license. Other frequencies on the old UV-5Rs do require a license.

Speaking from about 15 years of experience with these things - they work about as well as CB, maybe a little better. If you are in a canyon or hilly country they may only have a usable range of a couple hundred yards. Line of sight might be a mile or two in the very best conditions. External antennas mounted on your vehicle help... that defeats the purpose of a handheld though... if you have two handhelds with stock antennas being used inside vehicles, the range is not good. Half a mile or so maybe.

There are also some significant quality issues. I'm guessing 25% or more of the radios we got quit working at some point. Some won't transmit, won't receive, or both. Pretty high failure rate but not surprising, I think we were paying like $12 per radio back in the day and they are only $18 now.

I have a Juentai 25w dual band stationary radio in my Explorer and I am super pleased with it - I have a pretty nice antenna and both the transmit & receive range is excellent. I'm guessing 10-15 miles at least, maybe more. You can't get this radio anymore though.

If I was starting from scratch I would be looking at Midland GMRS radios... great quality and legal to use.

They could be MURS channels. There are five of them and none of them require a license. The same with FRS channels.

Technically, since the UV5R is a ham radio, even using those frequencies is a violation due to the equipment. For a while, before most of us in the Search Rescue Group got our licenses, we were using channel 5. It had a better chance of busting through the vegetation and giving the best range.

If you use the quick disconnect fasteners with the two side locking prongs for your vehicle antenna and the rubber duck, it will make switching between the two antennas more user friendly.

I’m still working on that myself. Too many projects going at one time and not enough money to do them all. LOL

EDIT: I believe the two side prong adapters are called BNC to SMA. You would have to look at your antenna and the radio to see if they are SMA male or SMA female. If I remember correctly, the UV5R is male and the antenna is female.

 

[James Morse]

Probably off-topic, but how about weather band? Some cars I had like Saab had this standard now you never see it.

 

[BroncLander]

Probably off-topic, but how about weather band? Some cars I had like Saab had this standard now you never see it.

When I worked on the coast we had a weather band and it was absolutely necessary to pay attention to it. And all the marine radio traffic would make calls home through a service called Coast Cone. It was an operator who would patch the radio through to a landline (cellphones didn't exist yet). So the whole west coast would get to hear every lonely husband call home to his wife. Sometimes it would get a little spicy haha

 

[sgtsandman]

Probably off-topic, but how about weather band? Some cars I had like Saab had this standard now you never see it.

As long as you know the frequencies, you can program them into the radio. You don’t need a dedicated radio for weather band.