Episode: 2292
Title: HPR2292: Baofeng UV5R VHF/UHF Handset part 1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2292/hpr2292.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 00:56:55

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Hello and welcome, Hacker Public Radio Audience. My name is Mr X. As usual, I'd like to start by thanking the people at HBR for making this service available.
If we all contributed a show with more shows than we know to do with, the show is provided by the community for the community.
It's actually very easy. We've gone to a great deal of effort to streamline the whole process and it's actually quite, quite easy.
The hardest part I find is getting down to writing the show notes, just about picking up a microphone and hitting the record button.
We should must have something interesting that we'd all love to hear.
Anyway, this show is all the fault of Ken Fallens. I was listening to one of the community news episodes and he was commenting on a previous episode about the both thing UV5R handset.
It's a VHF, UHF, handheld radio that can be used either for amateur use or for taxes or PMR or whatever.
Anyway, in the community news, Ken Fallens was commenting that I said that I didn't want to go into some of the features in detail because I'd be there all day explaining it.
Ken said, no, no, I wanted to say, tell us all about it. I want to hear all about it in great detail.
Even though, of course, Ken hasn't got one of these videos because, as I said, it would be legal for him to have one of these videos in other lands.
So I have no idea why on earth would be interested in this. But anyway, this is all Ken Fallens fault.
You know who to blame if you fed up listening to me rattling on about the both thing UV5R.
So I'll begin at the beginning. And I don't have any parts, this will strut to whether it be just one part or multiple parts.
But here goes anyway. Okay, so I thought at this point I'd go through a typical example of using the both thing UV5R handset.
So I've got picked up my hand and let's just start by turning it on.
Obviously, the volume controls are at the top right hand side as you view the thing.
And I'm going to retit it clockwise and you'll hear a click as it comes on and an announcement, so let's give it a go.
So there you go. You get the double beep that signifies that the radio is powered up.
And then an announcement that says channel mode. So you've got two modes of operation either channel mode operation or frequency mode operation.
And frequency mode you just directly input the frequency you want to go to.
This is in channel mode and these channels were obviously pre-programmed at some point.
And so that's why it comes on and says channel mode.
And I thought I'd start by going through an example of giving a call on a simplex frequency.
That's just your transmitting and receiving in the same frequency.
And here in the UK the simplex calling frequency would be one well on VHF.
A very high frequency would be 145 decimal 500.
So it's 145 megahertz, 500 kilohertz.
At the moment it's saying 145 decimal 487 and that's channel 26 just happened to be the channel radio was sitting on.
So we'll push the up button once.
And the radio announces of going up to channel 27.
And in my particular radio the way I programmed it, channel 27 happens to be 145 decimal 500.
So the next thing I was thinking well okay I want as many people to hear me as possible.
I've noticed that there's a small L appearing in the top left hand corner for this place.
I'm obviously in low power.
So a better select high power.
And to select high power you just momentarily push the hash key.
The hash key has got hash on it.
It's got wee blue key on it which is for locking the keyboard which happens if you hold that key down.
If you just momentarily touch it it also happens to be a shortcut to take you to high power.
So I'll just touch that now.
There we go and you get the beep telling you that that's been inputted in.
The L disappears on the display.
There's not an H to say high power it just disappears the L.
So now that's as ready to go.
So I'll hold the radio in my right hand and squeeze the push to top button on the side of the radio.
And giving an announcement so here we go.
Hello this is GM4MRX listening on S20 for any calls.
And that's on S20 and obviously it's not around so that's fine.
So now we can try giving a call on one of the local repeaters.
And there's a local repeater here in the first and fourth GB3FF.
And that's on DSMO.
It's 145 DSMO 600 which we'll just go to so that happens.
Let's just see now.
Two, eight, two, nine, three, zero, three, one, three, two, three, three, three, four, three, five.
Sorry.
So that was the repeater GB3FF that you were listening to.
The more side in which the transmit every so often just happened to be on as I was a switching channels there.
So there you go.
That's as now sitting on 145 DSMO 600.
And if I push the PTT switch then the radio drops by 600 kilohertz and it transmits on 145 DSMO 0000.
And the repeater is listening on 145 DSMO 0000 for any reception.
And if it receives a signal then it retransmits that signal out back on DSMO in 145 DSMO 600.
That's 600 kilohertz higher than what it's listening on because you can't transmit and receive on the same frequency at once obviously.
So I'll just give that a go.
So let's just see.
Hello, this is GM4MRX testing access.
So there you go.
That was me lifting the repeater, the repeater picked up my signal and you get a pip.
We're telling you that it's waiting for you to call in sort of thing.
And then after a period of time it just drops to transmitter and it goes back to listening again.
So that's basically all there is to it.
Actually, I'll just turn that off.
Here we go. That's the real back off again.
Yeah, that's actually all there is to it.
It's really quite easy to use.
Okay, so if you're looking for information on the bofing UV5,
obviously you can look at the manual that comes with the radio.
But I'd also recommend looking at there's a project called the Chinese Radio Project.
And I don't know very much about it.
I don't know whether other models have been covered or not, but it certainly covers the bofing UV5R.
And that's available at HTTP colon slash slash radio.github.com.
I'll hopefully put that in the show notes if I got a chance.
So that takes you to the Chinese Radio Project for the bofing UV-5R radio.
And that's been created by, I think, it's Leonard Lydberg.
And it says this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribute Sharelike 3.0 and Ported License.
Looking through the document, the author was planning to cover the excellent open source programming software chirp,
which allows you to program your radio from a PC.
It's a multi-platform and it's available for Linux.
Here's what it says about chirp.
chirp and the upcoming revised edition.
Originally, I intended to include a whole section in the programming chapter
dedicated to the free and open source programming tool chirp.
But unfortunately, I couldn't for the life of me get it playing with my hardware
despite trying three entirely different setups.
Chirp will therefore have to wait for the revised edition of the book,
which in turn will have to wait for me to get chirp working.
Okay, so I remember reading somewhere that people were having problems
getting the programming cables working.
And I think the cable emulates a serial cable via USB.
I'm led to believe that there are clones of these cables
doing the rounds.
A panel of the cables have counterfeit chips within the cable
that Windows detects and refuses to work with.
Linux, in another hand, completely ignores this and works within a cable.
This makes plain the problems author was having getting his radio program using chirp.
Here are some basic concepts from the Chinese radio project,
both in UV5 or manual, that I thought you might find useful
before delving into the details for the both in UV5 transceiver.
So from chapter 8, it talks about selective calling.
So it says explain selective calling.
Sometimes when you're working with larger groups of people using the same channel,
things can get very crowded, very fast.
To minimize this problem, several methods of blocking out unwanted transmissions
on your frequency have developed.
In general, there are two forms of selective calling in two radio systems,
group calling and individual calling.
Group calling, as the name suggests, is a one too many form of communication.
Every radio in your working group is configured the same way
and any radio will make contact with every radio in the group.
Individual calling, sometimes also known as paging,
is a one to one form of communication.
Every radio is programmed with a unique ID code
and only by sending out a matching code can you get the radio to open up to your transmission.
The both thing UV5R features three different ways of group calling,
CT CSS, DCS and tone burst.
The both thing UV5R does not feature any form of individual calling.
Using these features does not mean that others won't be able to listen in on your transmissions.
They only provide a method to filter out unwanted incoming transmissions.
Any communications made while using these features will still be heard
by anyone not employing filtering options of their own.
Also, you cannot change the CT CSS or DCS settings while in memory mode.
CT CSS and 1750 hertz tone burst are also popular methods
among amateur radio operators to open up repeaters.
That's quite interesting and useful.
I'll delve into that in more detail from a bit further on.
Chapter 10, programming. Memory channels are an easy way to store commonly used frequencies
so they can easily be retrieved at a later date.
The both thing UV5R features 128 memory channels
that each can hold, receive and transmit frequencies.
Transmit power, group signaling information, bandwidth,
ANI slash PTTID settings,
and a six-character alpha numeric identifier or the channel name.
So within that there's manual programming.
So it says for manual programming,
manual programming is somewhat fiddly until you get used to it,
especially when programming in duplex channels.
Note that the ANI and S code IDs can only be set from a computer.
When programming channels, it is important to remember
that you can only save memory channels when working on the upper display in VFO mode.
That's handy to know, isn't it?
To create a new channel, start by switching your radio to frequency VFO mode
using the key.
When in frequency VFO mode, select your desired receive frequency using the numeric keypad
after that using the menu system to configure the finer details of the channel
you're wanting to program to memory, such as transmit power, bandwidth,
CTCSS or DCS and more.
For more information on how to use the menu system,
or for working with the menu system and appendix B,
information regarding how to set up CTCSS and DCS
can be found in chapter 8, Selective Calling.
Chapter 11, Repeaters.
A radio repeater is not emitted transceiver in a fixed location,
usually mounted high up on a hilltop or on a tall building,
but some time is to operate within buildings for internal use.
A repeater takes one signal and relays it,
usually after amplifying it by orders of magnitude.
This can be very handy as this enables you to use a small,
low-powered handheld two-way transceiver,
such as the bo-thing UV5R, two-reach-create distances.
Whether you're a commercial business or government user
or an amateur radio operator, chances are you'll be dealing
with a repeater system sooner or later.
To find out what settings to use to use your local repeater,
ask your employer or someone at your local IARU membership
organization for details.
A common type of repeater is a duplex repeater.
In a duplex repeater system, the repeater transmits
and receives simultaneously, but on different frequencies.
To utilize this type of repeater,
your radio have to be capable of transmitting and receiving
on different frequencies on the same memory channel.
How you use this kind of repeater is by setting the receive frequency
of your radio to the out-boot frequency of the repeater
and the transmit frequency of your radio to the in-boot frequency of the repeater.
Oftentimes, the transmit frequency to use isn't explicitly stated,
but rather an offset relative to your receive frequency is specified.
This is conveniently enough, also how the bo-thing UV5R
natively handles repeater setup by specifying offset
rather than transmit frequency.
Chapter 12, Automatic Number Identification
In dispatch environments, it's common to have a system in place
that will allow radios to automatically identify themselves to the dispatcher.
This is known as Automatic Number Identification,
or sometimes PTTID.
Since the radio sends a data bus to continuing the ID code
at the beginning or end of transmission,
the bo-thing UV5R uses DTMF signaling for an ANI implementation,
Automatic Number Identification.
13, Amateur Radio Setup
In contrast with commercial radio operators
who often need very specific requirements to be compatible
with a very specific radio implementation,
Amateur radio operators tend to need the broadest possible settings
in order to be compatible with as many systems as possible.
This basically implies turning all the fancy features
that you typically might need for commercial set-ups off.
In a typical Amateur radio setup,
the following set-up settings would be recommended.
Set bandwidth to wide, menu item 5.
Turn DCS and CTCSS off, menu item 10 through 13.
Turn ANI DTMFST,
S code PTTID off,
and PTTLT to zero milliseconds.
Zero MS, menu items 15 through 17,
and 19 through 20.
Turn of Scratch-tailed elimination STE features,
menu item 35 through 37.
Turn Roger Beep off, menu item 39.
For further information,
see appendix BE, menu definitions,
and chapter 4 working with the menu systems.
I hope that gives you a flavour of the sort of things
that's inside the Bowfing UV5R, Chinese.
What's it called again? Let me just get this right.
It's called the Chinese Radio Project Bowfing UV-5R.
Yeah, excellent document,
just really, really professionally made.
I mentioned it when I first talked about the Bowfing UV5R,
and I said that they've got diagrams of the radio,
and it was so accurately produced and so, so well rendered,
that I thought it was originally the commercial manual
that came from the manufacturer,
but it wasn't, and I believe it was,
was it rendered the neat ink scape?
Is that right?
I can't remember. Anyway, there you go.
It's very, very impressive piece of documentation,
well worth a read,
but I think that's enough just to cover some basic ideas about
using the handset with amateur radio use and mind.
Okay, so that's enough for part one of the Bowfing UV5R.
As I say, it's going to be a long and rambulane.
It's all kinfalan's fault.
Hopefully, it'll be of interest to a few people listening.
If you want to contact me,
I can be contacted at MrX,
at hpr.googlemail.com.
That's MRX,
AT,
HPR,
the At symbol,
googlemail.com.
So until next time,
thank you,
Goodbye.
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this year, you know,
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