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Recommend a walkie talkie?


Prahlad Strickland

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A company called BaoFeng makes a wide variety of hady talkies/walkie talkies. Most of them are easily programmable through pc software. The uv5 and f8hp are used extensively in HAM Radio because of their cost and flexibility. Maybe not as bomb proof as a Motorola but pretty darn good.  

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8 hours ago, D Simmons said:

A company called BaoFeng makes a wide variety of hady talkies/walkie talkies. Most of them are easily programmable through pc software. The uv5 and f8hp are used extensively in HAM Radio because of their cost and flexibility. Maybe not as bomb proof as a Motorola but pretty darn good.  

Thanks for the tip about the BaoFeng UV5! Seems to have a little mini cult following in the HAM radio world.

What about BaoFeng BF-888S?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs-Walkie-Talkie-Radio-BaoFeng-BF-888S-5W-Portable-Ham-CB-Radio-Two-Way-Handheld-HF/32491670445.html

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One thing to note, the BaoFeng radios are handheld HAM transmitters, so while they have the capability to transmit on "public" frequencies (GMRS or FRS), they are not technically type-accepted to be used as such. You'd definitely have to reprogram them, as they're shipped from the factory with random test frequencies, many of which are illegal to transmit on (public safety, etc). 

That being said, they're great value for the money (I personally have 16 of the BF-888s), and while they're not nearly as durable as a Motorola, I also don't have to worry about people trashing them, because they cost me about $10 each. As Spectreman mentioned, most other (non-Chinese) radios will sound much better, but for the money, I don't feel they can be beat.

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8 hours ago, Rory Reshovsky said:

You'd definitely have to reprogram them, as they're shipped from the factory with random test frequencies, many of which are illegal to transmit on (public safety, etc). 

Yup! But seems like it is very easy enough to reprogram them.

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2 hours ago, drpro said:

Mojunk fan here.  Much like Patrick Swaze said many years ago, "takes a licking and keeps on ticking".  With the shrinking frequencies, you might want to look at the DMR radios.

You appear to have both your spokespersons and era mixed up.  Newscaster John Cameron Swayze was the voice of the famous phrase.  A quick internet search reveals that Patrick would have been about four years old when his sixth cousin first uttered that slogan for Timex.

So, would drpro's post qualify as "fake news"? <g> 

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So, would drpro's post qualify as "fake news"?  

No. Unless he is not actually a "mojunk fan". He just hasn't demonstrated yet that he is a knowledgeable mojunk fan
(my reply stipulates that I actually understood what he meant by mojunk fan, which I am not sure of)
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I bought a pair of the Chinese walkies, not because I use them all that much, but just to see what I get for $15 each :)

Can someone provide a couple of production walkie frequencies that I can program in  when I get them just so as not to be one of those guys with the business radios on the set?  I look at Google but didn't really find what I was looking for.

D.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/8/2017 at 1:22 AM, tourtelot said:

I bought a pair of the Chinese walkies, not because I use them all that much, but just to see what I get for $15 each :)

Can someone provide a couple of production walkie frequencies that I can program in  when I get them just so as not to be one of those guys with the business radios on the set?  I look at Google but didn't really find what I was looking for.

D.

 

The motoroloa cp200 is by far the most common production radio out there. Most of them are in the UHF band and operate on a very wide frequency range. In the southeast I find that most of the programmed channels fall in the 461-464mHz range. I like to use an RTL-SDR usb radio receiver to very quickly find communications channels. 

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11 hours ago, D Simmons said:

 I like to use an RTL-SDR usb radio receiver to very quickly find communications channels. 

Yep. Can't beat a >2.5MHz wide waterfall to see where those signals are.   which UI?  HDSDR or SDRSharp ?

HDSDR doesn't have any bandpass filtering on its FM decoder, so it sounds bad when picking out wireless Tx.    SDRSharp works on my home PC but not my work PC for some reason.

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For actual ham radio stuff I use SDR console v2, it has a 64bit engine and to my ears a better sounding dsp. SDR console doesn't have a mac version though, so for work stuff I use CubicSDR on a macbook pro. CubicSDR isn't as nice of an interface but the DSP is of equal quality I think, plus when dealing with UHF and VHF you don't really need all the fancy logging and digital modes. 

An SDR reciever and FreqFinder on an Iphone can really solve tons of RF problems on location.

 

 

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