hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2316.txt

Episode: 2316
Title: HPR2316: Baofeng UV5R VHF/UHF Handset part 6
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2316/hpr2316.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 01:13:48

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This episode of HBR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
This episode is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
This episode is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
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 what 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 really quite quite easy.
The hardest part I find is getting down to writing the show notes. It's just about picking up a microphone and hitting the record button.
We should must have something interesting that we'd all love to hear.
Here I'll attempt to cover the menu options of the Bo thing UV5R handheld transceiver.
I'll cover some of the options in detail. The more obvious ones I'll just briefly cover. I'll highlight any options I don't understand and can't get information on.
The options I know a little about will likely be either Bo thing specific options or options that are not really relevant to the radio amateur.
If I remember, I'll try to include the radio announcements of the menu selection.
Menu 0 Squelch
Squelch level 0-9-09
When you watch someone talking on a walkie talkie on the TV and perhaps on the other end, someone stops talking and you briefly hear a kerchunk noise, that's a squelch-shark action quietening the receiver.
Without it, you would hear a continuous loud hissing sound from the radio that would quickly become annoying.
From Wikipedia, until a communications squelch is a circuit function that acts to suppress the audio output of the receiver and the absence of a sufficiently strong desired input signal.
Squelch is widely used in two radio's and radio's scanners to suppress the sound of channel noise when the radio is not receiving a transmission.
Squelch can be opened which allows all signals entering the receiver's discriminator tap to be heard.
This can be useful when trying to hear distant or otherwise weak signals.
The squelch level values 0-9-9 being the maximum squelch and 0 being a minimum IE fully open, the default value is 5.
Squelch mutes the speaker in the absence of reception.
When the squelch level is correctly set, you will hear sound only while actually receiving signals, this significantly reduces battery current consumption.
The bo-thing squelch circuit.
The UV5R doesn't have a bad squelch circuit, it's merely adequate.
The first problem it has is that it tends to make a kind of popping sound when opening and closing, which is not that noticeable when using the internal speaker.
However, it becomes far more noticeable when annoying when using the supplied covert earpiece.
A lot of thought has to go into designing a good squelch circuit, ideally you want it to instantly snap open when a two signals are received and to snap shut reasonably quickly when a strong signal suddenly stops.
However, for a faint signals present that momentarily appears and disappears, the circuit should stay open that bit longer rather than opening and closing and missing bits of the conversation, which is what the UV5R does.
Right near the edge of reception.
All is not lost, however, in this situation as a squelch can be momentarily forced open by holding down the side mon button until you're finished listening to the weak signal, whereupon releasing the button salises the receiver.
Again, it's not that the squelch is terrible on this radio, it's just not the best, but remember for the price I paid or just £20, it's pretty damn good.
Menu 1, frequency step.
You can choose from 6 frequency steps, starting at step 0 and ending at step 5.
So the first step size is 2.5 kilohertz.
Next one you can choose up from that is 5 kilohertz, one above that 6.25 kilohertz.
One above that 10 kilohertz, one above that 12.5 kilohertz, which is the one that's used here in the UK for 2 meters and 70 centimeters amateur use, and finally 25 kilohertz.
So in other words, when you use the up and down arrow keys or whatever, the radio will move by that frequency step with each subsequent button push.
Remember that's only relevant when you're in VFO mode or frequency mode as the radio calls it.
Power.
Power or menu 2, TXP.
TXP and there's option low and high, low as 1 watt, high as 4 watts.
TXP draws the highest current from the battery far more than an reception, so for this reason it's well advised to use low power when possible, as this will greatly increase the available battery time.
No indication is given when on high power, but a small L appears in the top left hand side of the display when on low power.
A shortcut key to switch between low and high power is available by momentarily pushing the front panel hash key.
Menu 3, save mode.
Battery save. So you've got a choice of off 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Off is obviously no battery save mode. One is a ratio of 1 to 1, 2 is a ratio of 1 to 2, 3 is a ratio of 1 to 3, and 4 is a ratio of 1 to 4.
OK, so explain that. OK, although far less battery power is used when the radio is in reception mode, it still uses power.
Further battery saving can be made by making use of this option.
When the radio is sitting silently on a single frequency, it can be made to momentarily switch off the receiver, further saving the battery.
The values 1, 2, 3, 4 relate to the ratio between how long the receiver is on and how long it is off.
Setting 1 has a 50-50 duty cycle, which means the receiver will momentarily switch off and then on for the same time interval.
I don't actually know what the interval is, but let's imagine it's 5 seconds. This means the radio will be listening for 5 seconds, then stop listening for 5 seconds.
With increasingly high numbers, the radio remains off for longer, with more possibility that you may miss a call.
Using this facility is a trade-off between increasing battery life and possibility of missing a call.
Note, this option does nothing if the radio is either scanning or the script is open.
Menu, Vox.
Menu, Vox, that's option, that's Menu 4. Vox operation, TX, 1 to 10 or off.
Okay, this adjusts sensitive to Vox feature if enabled. The lower the setting, the louder your voice has to be in order to engage the transmitter.
According to Wikipedia, Intelli Communications, a voice-operated switch, also known as Vox, or voice-operated exchange, is a switch that operates when sound over a certain threshold is detected.
It is usually used to turn on a transmitter when someone speaks and turns it off when they stop speaking.
It is used instead of a push-to-talk button on transmitters.
The circuit usually includes a delay between the sound stopping and the switching direction to avoid the circuit turning off during short poses and speech.
Unlike manual push-to-talk, PTT operation, Vox is automatic. The user can keep his or her hands free while talking, but Vox also has some significant disadvantages that explain why PTT is still common.
Most Vox circuits have a sensitivity adjustment, but unwanted and sometimes undetected Vox triggering can still occur on background noise, heavy breathing or a side conversation.
Conversely, it may not activate when desired or speech that is too weak.
The Vox in a two-way radio can also be triggered by the loudspeaker carrying the other side of the conversation.
This problem can be minimized with an anti-Vox feature to decrease Vox sensitivity when the receiver is active.
Transmitters have a short but finite activation time that may clip the beginning of phrases.
Vox uses a hand timer typically 1-3 seconds to remain engaged during brief speech pauses.
This means that the last several seconds of each transmission are always silence.
The user of a Vox activated half duplex radio must wait for the timer to expire before he or she can receive again.
Channel bandwidth or menu 5 WN and that has option wide and wide band and narrow band.
Wide is 5kHz wide and narrow is 2.5kHz side.
This is a maximum transmit frequency deviation.
You might be wondering what I mean by deviation.
Here we go down the rabbit hole because in order to understand that you must first understand the term FM or frequency modulation.
As this is a type of modulation used by this radio and in order to understand that you must first understand what the word modulation means in this context.
According to Wikipedia, in the electronics and telecommunications modulation is a process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform called the carrier signal.
With a modulating signal that typically contains information to be transmitted.
In telecommunications modulation is a process of conveying a message signal, for example a digital bit stream or analog audio signal,
inside another signal that can be physically transmitted.
Modulation of a sine wave from transforms a baseband message signal into a passband signal, like frequency modulation.
In telecommunications and signal processing frequency modulation FM is encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave.
This contrast with amplitude modulation in which the amplitude of the carrier wave varies with while the frequency remains constant.
In analog frequency modulation such as FM radio broadcasts of an audio signal representing voice or music.
The instantaneous frequency deviation, the difference between the frequency of the carrier and the center frequency is proportional to the modulating signal.
Frequency modulation is widely used for FM radio broadcasting. It is also used in telemetry radar, seismic prospecting and monitoring newborns for seizures via EEG.
Two radio systems, music synthesis, magnetic tape recording systems and some video transmission systems.
In radio transmissions an advantage of frequency modulation is that it has a larger signal to noise ratio and therefore rejects radio frequency interferes better than the equivalent power amplitude modulation AM signal.
For this reason most music is broadcasted over FM radio.
So in summary the narrow and wide setting adjusts the maximum amount the radio will move either side of its center frequency on transmit.
On this particular radio it has no effect on the receiver. On more expensive videos the receiver bandwidth may also be changed to match the transmit deviation.
Setting deviation inappropriately may cause interference to other stations generally one channel either side if you are operating frequency.
It may also cause your signal to be momentarily dropped by repeater as these can have very sharp filters that chop off any signals that stray to wide at the center frequency.
Generally speaking, setting this option to wideband will make your transmitted audio sound louder.
If the station at the other end receives a distorted audio from you then set this to narrowband.
I find the transmitted audio on my bow thing to be better than the quiet side even when it is set to wideband.
From the user manual in the USA FCC part 90 radios are mandated to switch over to narrowband communicating by January 1st 2013, meaning all commercial users.
This does not affect amateur radio operators.
Okay so I think that is about enough for now so that is up to option 5 on the menu system.
Hopefully you did not find it too boring.
Okay that is about it for this episode. Hopefully you have not found it too boring.
If you want to contact me I can be contacted at MrX at hpr at googlemail.com
That is mrx at hpr the at symbol googlemail.com
So until next time thank you and goodbye.
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