Cheap HAM radio

Interest Groups Amateur Radio
#1

Probably a piece of crap, but very cheap

http://electronics.woot.com/offers/baofeng-8w-tri-power-ham-two-way-radio-transceiver?ref=eml_w_to_el_img&utm_source=Daily+Digest&utm_campaign=ee79121300-Daily+Digest+-+20160531+-+Woot&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c5ca76da11-ee79121300-299059197

FYI, my experience with Baofeng is that they aren’t sensitive enough to receive APRS unless they have a different antenna/counterpoise/high vantage point.

#2

The Baofengs are probably the most common HT’s in use by HAMs today. They work pretty well. No HT with a rubber ducky antenna picks up APRS very well, even the Kenwood TH-D72.

Those short stubby antennas have a naturally short range, but the front end of the various Baofengs are surprisingly good considering how ceap they are. And cheap is a good thing for a radio that is intended to be carried around.

AF5WH

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#3

By the way, they are availble cheaper from amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-Transceiver-Warranty-Dual-Band-Radio/dp/B00KDRV91E?ie=UTF8&keywords=baofeng&qid=1464698564&ref_=sr_1_10&s=electronics&sr=1-10

In practice there isn’t really any difference between 5w and 8w with those stubby antennas. They are good enough to hit a repeater up to 10-15 miles.

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#4

They are cheap, but unless they vastly improved the interface they are very cumbersome to program for your favorite repeaters.

#5

Yes, programming directly with the radio is a hassle; however, a $10 cable and an open source software package solves that problem.

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

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#6

I’ve programmed a few of the 5 watt. I used chirp & it’s pretty straight forward unless you copying radios & have different software versions in the radios.

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