I bought a Baofeng UV5RA Ham Radio. Now what?

Second page rescue

I dont have a baofeng uv5r but i know somebody who does, those are them little cigarette sized radios right.

Pretty cool.

What you probably want to listen to are repeater frequencies in your local city.

Me to, I've got the license and the radio but don't have a clue what to do with it.

[link to publicsafetytools.info]

What cities/states are you guys in. You then need to google.

'2m repeater frequences' or '70cm repeater frequences'

with the name of your local area/state... you should find a list of local repeaters, tune your radio to one of those and have a listen, eventually somebody should be talking.

If you have a license you should know about offsets and stuff to get talking, so i dont need to explain that.

I know the scanner frequencies but those quit working when they went digital or something, all you hear is static when they talk.

Pay a visit to the local Ham club
You need an Elmer

I am more than concerned with becoming licensed with the current state of the government.

[link to www.hamradiolicenseexam.com]

I'm only licensed for marine VHF/UHF for my boat. If you piss off the local hams they will use a directional antenna on you and figure out where you are broadcasting from and report you to the FCC.

SHTF nobody is going to care if you are using HAMs and being a good operator but in normal circumstances most HAMS can be pedantic.

I listen to 2M/70cm and other bands but i dont broadcast on anything but 446 at 500ma as thats all i am legally allowed to do.

There are loads of good youtube channels on HAM stuff.

This is a lot easier to do than people realize too.

Only takes 2 guys a distance apart to get a good feed on your signal with a directional and draw a line from their location to the direction of the broadcast.

Where the two people lines intersect is the approximate broadcast location.

I just got one too...been watching youtubes and trying to figure out how to program it.

Baofeng UV-5R Review and Set-Up


[link to youtu.be]

At this point all I have figured out how to do is listen to the FM radio, work the light and listen to static..lol

Regarding a license..
FCC Part 97.403 reads:
“No provision of these rules PREVENTS the use by an amateur station of any means of radiocommunication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human LIFE and immediate protection of PROPERTY when normal communication systems are not available.”

So you can listen at all times but if you want to transmit without without a license, it better be an emergency.

Here is another video that might help


Baofeng UV-5R Help: How do I hit my local repeater?

[link to youtu.be]

Here is a link to find local repeaters..

[link to www.repeaterbook.com]

i have two

Want to explain what frequency, input, PL tone and offset value have to do with anything for us Ham noobs?

good point . there are non ham freq's you can use without the licensed in your area

RTFM

i ran across it in a utube vid i cant remember which one but there are some good one out there. let me get my radio back out of the box and check freq....

Download and install Chirp onto your computer. It will make it a breeze to program your radios.

[link to chirp.danplanet.com]

Here's a page that I wrote that tells you a bunch of what you need to know

[link to thelightfootmilitia.com]

The learning curve on a ham radio (even hand held) is huge. Its not like buying a new cell phone and pushing the on button to make it work. What advise do any seasoned professionals have for us noobs?

I'm really excited over my new "Toy" and am anxious to learn including taking the ham test. Experienced ham operators help/knowledge would be very welcomed.

Ok,
(freq mode) 151.820 from what i understand is a free use channel. it works very well. its kinda of a DD radio for me fully charged and back in the box and Faraday cage it goes.

Thank you...the radio didn't come with a cable so I ordered one yesterday so I can connect my radio to the computer and download CHIRP data.

Thank You!!!!

i have the cord and the disk but heard some not so good things about it. i will check out this danplanet thanks

Get your license soon, in June all the test questions change.

For later, I'm in the same boat OP. Don't expect any help from hams, they seem douchy like they are above everyone else.

you got that right i know one who is an ass when it comes to newbies. its a private click

I did read that some of the software that comes with the cables are trash, so I ordered my stuff from an official Baofeng dealer in Houston. Lets hope it works. I'm thinking If I can master hand held, and pass the test, I might invest in real ham equipment. Sounds like a "hobby" I might really enjoy.

Do a frequency search for you city and county. Get all the ham radio repeaters. Also do a search and get all the FRS/GMRS and MURS frequencies. Print all this out - in SHTF it will no longer be available.

Download the programming software.
Build a program that names each "channel" with a friendly name, such as "FRS-1", "Charlotte-North-1", "KN4RDX", etc. that will make sense to you and other users you may share the radio with.

For the ham frequencies, you will see a Plus or Minus sign after the freq. as well as a "tone" or "CTCSS" number - it will look like this:

147.150+ 121.5 Open

The stated frequency (147.150Mhz here) is YOUR Receive Frequency.

The Plus tells you the direction of the "offset" for YOUR Transmit frequency. Plus means "tune above your receive", and Minus means "tune below your receive" frequency, to transmit.

On 144-148 Mhz ("Two Meters"), the standard ham offset is 0.600, so you would program the radio to receive on 147.150 and transmit on 147.750Mhz (.600 above the receive) or for 146.88- you would program transmit for 146.280 (.600 below the receive frequency).

The offset for 440 and 450Mhz is 5.000Mhz, so if you find a listing for 441.225+, then your receive is 441.2250Mhz and your transmit is 446.2250Mhz.

"SIMPLEX" means that transmit and receive are both done on the same frequency. If the listing has no +/- after the frequency number, then it is simplex - program this frequency for both transmit and receive. All FRS/GMRS/MURS are programmed as Simplex (Unless you have access to a GMRS repeater, in which case the GMRS repeater owner will give you the offsets).

The second number is your sub-audible tone squelch. If you don't encode this when you transmit, the repeater will not retransmit your signal, so it is *not optional*. Typical tones for ham use are 88.5, 100.0, 123.0, but can be anywhere between 67Hz and 255Hz.

While tones are not generally required for Simplex operation, some groups use them. Follow the listing as published.

Here is a table of commonly standardized tones, although 'non-standard tones' are becoming more common these days with some repeater operators - [link to en.wikipedia.org]

Listen before you transmit, and don't forget to get your license.



And not all hams are jerks. I've been licensed for 25 years and love helping "n00bs" and rookies, so long as they have a bit of common sense...

Last Edited by BattlesightZero on 03/10/2014 12:34 AM