Episode: 2311
Title: HPR2311: Baofeng UV5R VHF/UHF Handset part 5
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2311/hpr2311.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 01:10:23

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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. I'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.
Okay, in this episode we're going to cover the rear and front panel controls of the both-ing UV5R handheld transceiver.
Hopefully it won't be too boring for you, but remember, this is all Ken Fallon's fault.
Okay, detailed description of the rear of the case.
So the rear of the case has the most prominent feature is the belt clip and that's held on by two screws.
I found that fitting this belt clip to be very fiddly when I first tried to do it because there's a fairly strong spring on the actual belt clip.
It tends to, as you're trying to line up the hole, it tends to tip up the, you can't get it flat on the surface of the radio as you're trying to put the screw in.
So I found that turning the belt clip through 180 degrees so it's pointing in the wrong direction and putting a screw through.
By doing that I can get it into a flat orientation against the base and put the screw through the one hole, tighten it till it's reasonably tight.
And then swivel the belt clip through 180 degrees to bring the second hole in line with the case.
And then that way you can get the second screw through. I found that to be the easiest way of doing that.
There's three gold, further down there's three gold connections on the back of the set which is obviously for charging.
I don't really know precisely what they do. There's a plus symbol on it.
There's a T, I don't know what that is, and a minus symbol T, I don't know what the T's for.
There you go, that's a three gold charging point contacts.
To remove the battery itself, just at the top of the radio there's a kind of button that's got the word push written on it.
So if you've got the radio facing down, we were the back facing up and you push that button down.
And then what you do is you just slide the battery down, keeping it flat against the unit out.
And that releases some nice feel to it, very solid.
And the battery itself is a lithium ion battery, model BL-5 with a capacity of 1,800 billion powers.
So that means that ideally it should be able to deliver nearly two amps for one hour, 1.8 amp hour basically.
And an operating voltage, nominal operating voltage of 7.4 volts.
I'll just lift the built clip, place it flat on the base, keep it flat all the time, slide it up, and you'll hear a click.
And that's it back in place. So it feels very robust, very solid, very nice solid snap.
And that covers the rear of the case. So let's cover the front panel of the radio.
The top button on the front panel, it's a kind of orange button, it's marked VFO slash MR.
Let's turn the radio on. So you've got the channel mode which is MR, frequency mode which is VFO mode.
It's a bit confusing. Okay, so this button switch is a radio between VFO and MR mode.
The VF stands for a variable frequency oscillator. I assume MR stands for memory recall.
Confusingly, the radio announces VFO mode as frequency mode, and it announces MR mode as channel mode.
According to Wikipedia, the electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or square wave.
Oscillators convert direct current from a power supply to an alternating current AC signal.
They are widely used in many electronic devices. Common examples of signals generated by oscillators include signal broadcasts by radio and television transmitters.
In VFO mode, the radio can be switched to any frequency within the range listed in the specification section of radio manual.
The frequency can either be directly inputted using the front panel numeric keys or can be moved up and down to the desired frequency using the up and down arrow keys on the front panel.
The size of the frequency step by which each up and down press is specified by the menu option 1 step.
In MR mode, which stands for memory recall, you cannot directly input a frequency.
Instead, you can jump to any one of pre-programmed frequencies. Each program frequency is stored against a particular channel number.
Many other settings can also be stored in a particular channel along with your chosen frequency. For example, you can store CTCSS tones,
transmit and receive frequency splits, and many other settings.
Below the VFO slash MR key is the A slash B key. This button causes the radio to switch between the upper and lower displayed frequencies on the main screen.
These two displayed frequencies of identical physical size give the illusion that the radio is a duplex radio, capable of listening to two frequencies at once.
Of course, that isn't the case, but I'm sure it suits the marketing people. At first, I thought this was a bit of a gimmick. I thought I would never find any use for it.
However, I've since changed my mind about this and find it immensely useful.
On a Sunday morning, amateur radio news in Mayera, Edinburgh, Scotland is broadcasted on the 2 meter band on 145-525 megahertz.
However, after the news, stations are invited to call in, but before doing so, the news broadcaster moves frequency to 145-575 megahertz to advocate the space for the Glasgow news broadcaster.
This button allows me to easily switch between the two frequencies even when the radio is clipped onto my back pocket, as the AB button is easily found by touch alone.
OK, to the right of the AB key is the band key. The band key switches the current working display between VHF and UHF frequency band.
Band switching is only relevant when in frequency mode. In channel mode, this button does nothing.
The VHF or very high frequency band on this radio covers from 136 megahertz to 174 megahertz.
The UHF or ultra high frequency band on this radio covers from 400 megahertz to 480 megahertz.
One row down from the band key on the left hand side of the front panel is the menu key.
This button is used to access the bo thing menu system.
The menu system on the bo thing is reasonably straightforward. However, trying to explain it in words is not, and I'll probably make it sound more complex than it really is.
Despite that, I'll give it a go.
Using the menus as a four step process, step one, enter the menu, step two, select the appropriate menu, step three, select the appropriate parameter for the chosen menu and step four, save the chosen menu parameter.
To start, first you need to enter the menu, selection mode by hitting the menu key.
Menu
The radio will announce menu. A triangular icon will appear on the left hand side top row display. This indicates you are in menu selection mode, and this mode you can navigate to any of the available 40 menus.
The menu key must be pushed a second time to enter the menu setting mode. This signify by the triangular icon moving down to the left hand side of the lower display.
At this point, the radio will announce your chosen menu. Let's push menu because it's come out of that.
Push it again.
There you go.
Menu setting mode allows you to choose the parameter of your chosen menu selection. Once the desired parameter is selected, it can be set by hitting the menu key a third time.
The first time is going into the menu. Second one is telling you what menu selection you've picked.
Squelch.
And the third one is to confirm it.
Confirm.
There you go. At this point, the radio will announce confirmed. The chosen parameter will only be set if the menu key is pushed a third time.
This is signified by the radio announcement confirmed.
The radio is left in menu mode, and no buttons are pushed. Then after a good number of seconds pass, the radio reverts back to the normal home screen displaying your chosen channel or frequency.
Actually also beeps as well, so for push menu.
Menu.
And then you wait. Any second now.
There you go. That's the return back to the home screen, displaying your chosen channel or frequency.
Any time you can exit out of the menu system and return to the home screen by pushing the exit key.
There are three ways to navigate the menus, once the menu key is pushed.
One is to cycle through the menus one at a time by pushing the up and down arrow keys.
Another is to use one of the keyboard numeric keys to directly access a menu. For example, the number two key has a letter TXP next to the number two.
Pushing it while in the menu selection mode will take you to menu selection two, which happens to be TXP.
A lot of the most useful menu entries are directly available from keys 0 to 9.
The menu names from menus 0 to 9 are written beside the numeric keypad number keys and blue letters.
You can access any of the menus above 9 by typing the two required digits.
So for example, to get to menu 20, you just hit the two followed by the zero key.
For blind operators, Rated does not announce the menu until it is selected by the pushing the menu key at a second time.
At this point, you are ready to change its parameter.
Unfortunately for blind operators, the parameter is not announced either during selection or setting.
The only announcement for parameter setting is the word confirmed to signify that you have chosen a parameter as set.
Moving to the right of the menu key is the up arrow that is used to navigate the menu frequency and channel selection.
Next to that, to the right again, is the down arrow used to navigate the menu frequency and channel selection.
And next to that again to the right is the exit key, used to exit from the menu system and return to the home screen,
containing an upper and lower displayed frequency or channel name.
numeric keys 0 to 9.
These keys are used to directly enter a frequency, jumped up to particular channel or in menu selection mode,
allows quick access to any of the available menus.
Useful shortcut keys.
The star SCN key, which is the furthest row to the right,
but as you go to a column of keys, the right hand side and one down from the top, that makes sense.
So as far to the right as you can go, one down from the top, star, the religion star in white and SCN in blue.
So a short press of that puts you into reverse mode, pushing again cancels a reverse mode.
And it also stops scanning if you have to be scanning.
Remember this is just with a short press of the SC, if that's that key.
Reverse mode is useful when working split frequencies, split typically when working through a repeater,
and it allows you to quickly listen to the input frequency of the repeater,
that way you can quickly tell if you are close enough to directly work the station you're talking to on the repeater.
That way you can vacate the repeater, freeing it up for others to use.
Star, CSN, long press, that does scanning begin, so hold it down.
Scanning begin.
There you go, scanning begin, short press.
Scanning stop.
Scanning stop.
The next key down from the Star SCN key is a zero key, long press.
Battery voltage, what do I get it says?
It says bat DC 7.5 volts.
Yeah, I guess that could be useful.
Below the zero key, directly below that is a hash.
And it's got a white hash and next to it a blue symbol of a key.
So short press of the hash key, toggles between high and low power.
High power is four watts, low power is one watt.
And low power letter L is displayed in the top left hand side of the display.
There is no indication of high power other than the absence of the letter L in the top left hand side of the display.
A long press locks the keypad.
A small key symbol appears in the upper right hand side of the radio.
The radio will announce lock.
So I'll just do that.
There you go, lock.
This feature is useful to guard against accidental button activation.
I haven't found this necessary as the buttons have a nice positive feel to them.
I need a reasonable force to activate.
The keypad is unlocked by pressing and holding the hash key for two seconds.
I'll just do that again.
Unlock.
There you go, unlock.
Menu followed by a single key press of key 0 to 9.
This takes you directly to any one of the menus.
The first time menus being among the most useful often used.
To enter a menu, go to the 9, enter the two digits directly on the keypad.
One final thing, if you push the PTT side key plus the AB key,
this will transmit a 1750Hz tone.
This used to be commonly used to access repeaters.
The repeater will not activate unless initially receiving a 750Hz tone.
Whereupon, it will stay active while a strong enough station is detected on the repeater's input frequency.
After a preset time of receiving nothing, the repeater will stop transmitting.
These days, most repeaters are accessed by CTCSS.
This was probably brought into play to help combat the Carchunk Brigade.
What's the Carchunk Brigade?
Well, it's people blipping the repeater by just momentarily holding the transmit button
and you hear the repeater go as they release the key.
It momentarily lifts the transmitter on the repeater end and it just drops again.
It's really supposed to give you your call sign if you're going to lift the repeater.
You should always give your call sign when you do that sort of thing.
That's what the Carchunk Brigade are apparently.
Rather, I'm just talking about the Carchunk Brigade and I thought that was quite funny.
So that's the front panel covered.
Okay, that's about it for this episode.
Hopefully you haven't found it too boring.
If you want to contact me, I can be contacted at MrX at hpr at googlemail.com
That's MRX ATHPR, the art symbol googlemail.com.
So until next time, thank you and goodbye.
Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen.
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