Episode: 2071
Title: HPR2071: Undocumented features of Baofeng UV-5R Radio
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2071/hpr2071.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 13:57:34

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This is HBR episode 2,071 entitled Unoccupated Features of May of New V5 Radio and is part of
the series QSK HAM Radio.
It is hosted by MrX and is about 9 minutes long.
The summary is, follow on show about Unoccupated Features I found on May of New V5 Radio.
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Hello and welcome Hacker Public Radio audience.
My name is MrX and this is my 12th HBR podcast.
It's a follow on one from the previous episode I did about the documentary that I liked
and Peter Huckup when I recently bought that being a bofing UV5R 2A radio.
When I listened to it back, I realised I was speaking far too quickly.
I shall try not to do that this time.
It's a bit difficult to gauge the speed you're speaking at when you're sitting in the room on your own.
It's just a very small episode that I found some undocumented features on the bofing
and I thought I'd share them with you.
The previous episode was way longer than I expected it to be in reality.
I should have split it up, but I tried to split it up, but it didn't flow well.
Hence, it's been 41 minutes long or something like that.
Anyway, on with this one.
So, what undocumented features do I find with a bofing UV5R radio?
That's a, the bofing UV5R, if you remember, is a 2A handset that can be pressed into
use for security guards, taxi companies, but it can also be used as an amateur radio to radio.
So, the undocumented features, the first one is very useful.
I'm showing a look at both the official manufacturers' documentation and the Chinese radio project documentation
or whatever it was called, that you couldn't navigate when you were in channel mode.
In other words, when you've got pre-programmed frequency stored on memory channels,
and if you're in that channel mode, it said that to navigate to a particular channel,
you used it up and down arrow keys, and there was no mention of a cooker route to a particular channel.
And initially, I tried just typing the number and of course it didn't work.
But what I found was that it's got to be a 3-digit, so maybe quite obviously.
So, for example, if I want to go to channel 35, I've got the type 035, so for do.
035.
There you go, I'm now in channel 35.
So, that's very handy, much quicker than holding down arrow keys and trying to stop it at the right place
when you're trying to find a particular channel.
The next thing I noticed was that I think it mentioned in the Chinese documentation manual
that the S meter on the top left hand side of the screen, which gives an indication of the signal strength.
And I think they were suggesting that it doesn't and that it just is either on or off.
And that's not strictly speaking the case.
If you get a signal, you get less than two and you put your hand around the antenna that are by antenna that is supplied,
then you'll reduce the signal strength and you'll see that the bars on the signal drop off.
So, it does indeed indicate the signal strength, although it's still of limited use,
because it's such a small graphic and difficult to see.
And I don't think it responds immediately, it's obviously doing a sampling.
And so, after a second or so, it updates.
So, it's perhaps still not that useful.
But anyway, it does actually represent some sort of signal strength.
You can tell whether it's getting stronger or weaker or whatever.
The next undocumented feature was I found completely by accident while I was trying to hit the scan button,
which is a star key, that if you hold down the zero key, then which I'll do.
So, when you do that, it gives you an indication of the battery voltage.
The current battery voltage might be useful.
So, in this case, mine says,
Bat DC 7.2 volts.
Bat DC 7.2 volts.
So, that's going to be useful, I suppose.
Now, the remaining undocumented feature that I found was to do with tones and such like.
Now, if I testmit with the PCPTT button and touch any of the key keys,
you know, the numbered keys.
Well, you get a DTMF tone.
So, you'll remember to recognise these tones when I do it.
So, here's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and so on.
Now, that's documented.
That's fair enough.
And another tone you can do is you can tend out a 1,750 hertz sine wave tone.
If you push the PCT and AB key, you can probably hear that.
If I do the same thing on my other hand, I've got here, it'll be the same tone.
There you go, same tone.
So, that's 1,750 hertz.
Now, that's used here in the UK and presuming other countries.
It was used historically to access amateur radio repeaters.
And so, although these days, they tend to use CTCSS tones rather than just a 1750 hertz tone.
Anyway, it can still be useful for accessing the odd repeater.
So, you basically push the transmit button and hold the AB key down.
And you've got a nice clean 1750 hertz tone.
But what I also found was that if you push the either the, if you push the band key while doing that,
so a PTT and band, you get that tone.
And if you push the PTT and VFO band, VFO, VFO band, no, VFO MIR I should say,
you get that.
So, you get, you've got that, that, and that.
Coming from the AB key, the band key, and the VFO MIR key.
Now, what these other two tones do, I have no idea, what application I used and I don't know,
whether it's safe in PMR use or maybe in other countries,
they use other audio tones to access repeaters.
I don't know.
I'd be quite interested if anyone knew what these other tones were.
I don't have a scope or anything here to, to take a sample of the tone and work at what frequency it actually is.
Let me just think of, I'll do that again.
So AB, okay, band, that's a higher frequency.
And the MIR VFO MIR is a lower frequency.
So there's a, there's a tone above 1750 and a tone below 1750,
but what these two tones are, I don't know.
Anyway, that's about it, that's, that's all I was going to say.
I hope I haven't bored you all too much.
And maybe catch you at another point in time.
And if you really comments or want to contact me, I can be contacted at MrX,
at hpr at googlemail.com, that's MRX, 80,
hpr, the at symbol, googlemail.com.
So until next time, thank you and goodbye.
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