Handheld UHF radios

[Warrigul]

One Uniden 1 watter has died(they ain't waterproof) and the second is getting a bit erattic(played up a couple of times when I was walking in front of the bus trying to pick a path out of a difficult track), time for new handhelds.

Has anyone come across these before? http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale-BAOFE ... 61066.html

All the internal reviews seem good and they are a third the price of anything else. They have to be UHF's as that is what most of us have.

(Comments please, preferably from those that have them or similar, but those that regard UHF's as kiddies radios should refrain from posting for the good of the thread)

[Westy]

I also have been watching these as a walk about set for the wife and kids and would really like to know how they run????

[petemacsydney]

ive been watching these for a while now. reviews i've seen online look pretty good, but haven't come across anyone who has actually bought them.
i'm very tempted to get a pair!!

[petemacsydney]

p.s. 3min 38 sec... seems pretty nice and clear!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c69aIIhKIbk

[Combat_Wombat]

You can only use a UHF is you have an antenna of a minimum of 3.5m bolted directly into the skull and need to wear metal discs on your shoes to ensure that you have a good grounding otherwise they will not work under any circumstances!

[Combat_Wombat]

But on a serious note I'll grab a pair of these too if they turn out to be any good.

[petemacsydney]

hey by the way... for you radio oficionardos... apart from extended band width, do you guys see much difference in the 'plus' version?

http://www.banggood.com/Baofeng-UV-5RE- ... 07541.html

.

[petemacsydney]

here's another review (5RE)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz9D96b8GKw

[on_one_wheel]

The lads on aurfscan forum are good for advice ... full on radio junkies ! Looks like a good radio to me but dual band radios just seem pointless to me, id go for a straight uhf.

I made the mistake of buying a cheep uhf from overseas, I thought it was going to be great becase it pumped out 50 wats of power, had the full uhf band ( not just 80 ch ) fully programmable bla bla bla..... it took me a week to program it, everything outside the normal 80 channel range is pretty much useless and all the extra tx power in the world wont let you hear people replying to your calls... it was slow to scan , iligal and a pain to program so I replaced it with a gme.

my lesson was, cheep man buys twice.

Ask the lads on aurfscan for advice, I bet someone there knows the radio you are looking at.

[on_one_wheel]

The lads on aurfscan forum are good for advice ... full on radio junkies ! Looks like a good radio to me but dual band radios just seem pointless to me, id go for a straight uhf.

I made the mistake of buying a cheep uhf from overseas, I thought it was going to be great becase it pumped out 50 wats of power, had the full uhf band ( not just 80 ch ) fully programmable bla bla bla..... it took me a week to program it, everything outside the normal 80 channel range is pretty much useless and all the extra tx power in the world wont let you hear people replying to your calls... it was slow to scan , iligal and a pain to program so I replaced it with a gme.

my lesson was, cheep man buys twice.

Ask the lads on aurfscan for advice, I bet someone there knows the radio you are looking at.

[Westy]

my lesson was, cheep man buys twice.


Ain't that the truth 9 times outta 10

[Lorgar]

Bugger about the Uniden dying. I've always thought their stuff was good.

Still got my original unit from about 17 years ago.

[Warrigul]

Bugger about the Uniden dying. I've always thought their stuff was good.

Still got my original unit from about 17 years ago.

Most of their stuff is possibly a tad better than GME(not a debate I wish to ignite) but these two are just the generic dick smith walkie talkie type uniden, one was submerged for about an hour before I realised and didn't work afterwards for some reason? The other one has had a VERY hard life and was my personal radio at work in yards and on ships decks in all weathers, in less punishing hands they would still be going strong

I gave dad my 011 when my current ute came with an Electrophone TX but my very original Uniden sundowner is still giving good service up the shack as a base station. Even my VERY old pearce simpson(uniden copy) is going strong in a mates excavator.

I am a big fan of Uniden.

[petemacsydney]

Looks like a good radio to me but dual band radios just seem pointless to me, id go for a straight uhf.....

hey mate, i'm really ignorant when it comes to radios, can you tell me what you mean by this?
i'm keen to learn but don't want to add another bl**dy forum into my life at this stage!! lol
i'm really only after a budget solution as its not like i will be using it every weekend, infact, i will probs only use it a few times a year!. anyway, any further thoughts would be appreciated.
cheers
p

[Guliver]

Here's the link http://www.aurfscan.com.au/showthread.p ... ese-Radios

[on_one_wheel]

Looks like a good radio to me but dual band radios just seem pointless to me, id go for a straight uhf.....

hey mate, i'm really ignorant when it comes to radios, can you tell me what you mean by this?
i'm keen to learn but don't want to add another bl**dy forum into my life at this stage!! lol
i'm really only after a budget solution as its not like i will be using it every weekend, infact, i will probs only use it a few times a year!. anyway, any further thoughts would be appreciated.
cheers
p

Basically dual band is like your car radio having AM and FM, the link at he top of this thread is a radio with FM and UHF

[petemacsydney]

Looks like a good radio to me but dual band radios just seem pointless to me, id go for a straight uhf.....

hey mate, i'm really ignorant when it comes to radios, can you tell me what you mean by this?
i'm keen to learn but don't want to add another bl**dy forum into my life at this stage!! lol
i'm really only after a budget solution as its not like i will be using it every weekend, infact, i will probs only use it a few times a year!. anyway, any further thoughts would be appreciated.
cheers
p

Basically dual band is like your car radio having AM and FM, the link at he top of this thread is a radio with FM and UHF

thx mate, so for a basic user it should be ok i presume?

[on_one_wheel]

I cant think of any use for FM ... so if I was looking at it id think its 50% useless, but it sure looks pretty and quite cheep.

[Guliver]

I cant think of any use for FM ... so if I was looking at it id think its 50% useless, but it sure looks pretty and quite cheep.

FM refers to the type of modulation used by the radio in the same way a radio can be AM or SSB.

The radio is also capable of receiving the FM broadcast band. The normal FM you're probably used to listening to music on.

All UHF CB radios use FM.

Dual band refers to the radio covering both the VHF and UHF bands, you cannot legally use any part of the VHF band unless you hold a current Amateur license, even then you must use the allocated frequencies. You really can't use this radio for CB although it can be programmed for the CB channels, it isn't type approved, you risk interfering with essential emergency services as well as normal commercial users if you do use it to transmit on other than the 80 CB channels.

VHF = Very High Frequency.
UHF = Ultra High Frequency.

Listed below are some of the ways your voice can be used to influence the radio signal and turned back into the voice that's heard at a receiver.

AM = Amplitude Modulation.
FM = Frequency Modulation.
SSB = Single Side Band.

I've tried to keep things simple, I hope my post does more to explain than it does to confuse.

[ozturtle]

Ok, with all the tech talk out of the way, would a pair of these bad boys do a couple of hunters walking around a property and what kind of distance could you expect them to cover?

[petemacsydney]

Thx Gulliver for the info!!

So for a real basic user I'm thinking this is an OK option, but I must be careful what channel I use?

Is there a "good"freq to use, or is decision based on wot noise is around at the time?

Soz for the ignorant Q's, but got to learn somehow I guess

[Guliver]

Pete the radio doesn't come programmed, you will also need the USB programming cable and software (chirp is free) and the CB file to download to the radio.

The radio can be programmed using the numeric keypad but it would be a bugger to key in all 80 CB channels.

Chirp http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home

CB file http://www.goldcoastcb.com/forum/index.php?topic=255.0

Do some reading some people have trouble getting the correct drivers working for the cable, worked first time for me.

The ultimate Baofeng resource http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/

Choose a clear channel from the 80 CB channels and you won't go far wrong, if you use any othe frequency you risk causing interference to other services.

[petemacsydney]

Thx mate, much appreciated