Handheld Fm

[Diaper_Pin]

Any recommendations for an easily programmable handheld?

I've been meaning to add one of these to my ops. gear for awhile now.

[Norm]

Baofeng UV-82, they are great! I bought two off e-bay after witnessing our engineers using them around the camp. Best of all they are cheap! Excellent strength and clarity of transmission, easy to program, small size, great battery life, lots of accessories...

 

There maybe some newer models available now. You'll have to do a little googling.

[Diaper_Pin]

Great info thanks, New model is UV-82HP 8watts. Picked one up in Van for $90.00 all in.

[Daz]

I have a Baofeng UV-5R, which is the cheaper version of the UV-82 ($35 on Amazon!). The Baofengs are great value, there's a pretty solid online community supporting them, and they're cheap enough that if it gets trashed, you're not out a whole lot of money. That said, they have the reputation of being a real pain to program manually.

 

I highly recommend downloading the CHIRP program (free open-source software; see link) and getting a programming cable. There's a bit of a learning curve getting started (cheap $4 knockoff cables can be a bit finicky getting the drivers to work), but there's tons of info and support on the CHIRP site.

 

The program allows you to tweak all the radio settings, plus you can build and edit a big ol' frequency list (or several) on your laptop which you then upload to your radio. Pretty handy if you want to have a coupe different frequency lists for different flying/recreational scenarios.

 

Good luck and enjoy your new radio!

 

- Darren

 

http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home

[Bif]

I got an iCOM IC-V80 2 years ago. It wasn't cheap, and you need an Engineering Degree to program it on the handset, but it's great quality and works flawlessly.

Keep in mind, when using the range of commercial FM channels on a handset that wasn't necessarily intended for commercial use, it's often advised to use different antennas to avoid frying your internals over time.

Or something...

 

https://www.smileyantenna.com/

[jljohnston79]

I got an iCOM IC-V80 2 years ago. It wasn't cheap, and you need an Engineering Degree to program it on the handset, but it's great quality and works flawlessly.

Keep in mind, when using the range of commercial FM channels on a handset that wasn't necessarily intended for commercial use, it's often advised to use different antennas to avoid frying your internals over time.

Or something...

 

https://www.smileyantenna.com/

 

I agree and highly recommend this handy little handheld. I purchased mine from Burnaby Radio a few years back. They make an antenna in-house designed for use on the higher channels. Also, would seem to increase range a bit as well. They call it the "yellow tip" antenna. A little longer than the standard antenna it comes with, and has a yellow tip on the end. (go figure?)

[Bif]

Mine has a yellow tip too. If I'm not mistaken, most antennas have a recommended have about a 10MHz recommended range? But It's up to you if you want to truck around 2-3 antennas with you!

[R0T0R]

On 2017-03-28 at 7:35 PM, Daz said:

I have a Baofeng UV-5R, which is the cheaper version of the UV-82 ($35 on Amazon!). The Baofengs are great value, there's a pretty solid online community supporting them, and they're cheap enough that if it gets trashed, you're not out a whole lot of money. That said, they have the reputation of being a real pain to program manually.

 

I highly recommend downloading the CHIRP program (free open-source software; see link) and getting a programming cable. There's a bit of a learning curve getting started (cheap $4 knockoff cables can be a bit finicky getting the drivers to work), but there's tons of info and support on the CHIRP site.

 

The program allows you to tweak all the radio settings, plus you can build and edit a big ol' frequency list (or several) on your laptop which you then upload to your radio. Pretty handy if you want to have a coupe different frequency lists for different flying/recreational scenarios.

 

Good luck and enjoy your new radio!

 

- Darren

 

http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home

Hey Daz,

 

would you you consider sharing your file for chirp? 

Cheers,

R

[Daz]

Sure. Check your PMs! Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you...

[Daz]

Actually, strike that; I can't seem to upload the file to a PM. Here's an attachment of a .csv file I exported from my CHIRP app - not sure if it's generic or specific to my Baofeng UV-5R.

Also, I have it sorta geared towards recreational use here in southwestern BC. There's the LAD channels, WX Radio channels, all the resource road frequencies, forestry repeaters for this corner of the province, and a few other local repeaters. Some of the frequencies I found online so I can't vouch for their accuracy.

At the very least you might be able to use this as a template for your own customized CHIRP file. Hope this helps!

 

- D.

 

 

SW BC Radio.csv