Baofeng radios as scanners, are they ok? Legal?

I don't get you sometimes. If you are in a low area, you may not even get a mile out of VHF. It simply doesn't go around objects well, especially the sort of places you go. Is this park land fairly flat?

When I told you some of the sat emergency beacons have issues with response time, I'm not talking through my hat. But since you don't think you need one, in spite of being worried about rattler bites, it won't matter which one you don't use.

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Rick C 

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rickman
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In the US nearly anyone familiar with electronics can get the entry level Ham license with a minimum amount of studying. I think it takes more work to locate the study materials than to review them to the point you would get a passing score. That doesn't give you transmitting rights on all frequencies, but it opens up most.

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Rick C 

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rickman

Den tirsdag den 19. december 2017 kl. 01.24.45 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:

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Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Here is the Facebook SDR group:

Yes, in many different modulation formats.

Yes, but the calibration isn't lab grade. It will show you the center frequency and amplitude, and you can use 'Print Screen' to capture the image.

I have this type, as well as the unmodified USB dongle intended for TV reception in Europe. You can buy those for less than $8 when they are on sale:

Ebay only has them at the regular price right now: Software-Defined-Radio-DVB-T-DAB-FM-SDR-RTL-2832U-R820T2-Tuner-Receiver

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Newfrog and Tmart have them on sale quite often.

Reply to
Michael A Terrell

That doesn't answer my questions.

There is a "Quick Start Guide" that isn't anything like quick, and also doesn't answer my questions.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
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John Larkin

Isn't the Baofeng also GMRS too, but with output power exceeding the FCC reg's? I think the limit on GMRS is 500mw, and the Baofeng is 5w.

You only need a License to transmit. Listening is free.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Back.

464.45 is a channel I don't recognize. I assume it needs a license to transmit, but you can listen in without a li cense.

For the Beofeng radio, it will do FRS and GMRS. (as well as Amateur and a b unch of other bands).

Technically, you need a license for GMRS (which runs $70 and is good for 10 years - no test). However, as a practical matter, the FCC does not enforc e either of these bands. You'd have to do something truly stupid and egreg ious to hit their radar, and even then...? There just aren't enough agent s, and they are too busy with much more important cases. (I work with the FCC agents regularly tracking down interference to cell sites, etc...)

That they look the other way doesn't make unlicensed operation legal, but t here are so many unlicensed operators out there they don't even bother. Ev entually, I suspect both bands will become license-free.

But if you want to be "legit", pay the $70 and get the license. I believe it issues instantly upon payment. (And you know the government needs the money, right?) :)

To recap: The "bird-watching" frequency you mentioned sounds like a Part-9

0 channel (Land Mobile Two Way), and might be a repeater system for longer range. If so, that will be licensed too. I would need the FCC Call Sign t o advise if/how to get a license on it, or if it is even possible. It depe nds on the station class for the repeater. (Too involved to get into witho ut knowing the call sign, or geographic location to look it up online.)

You can always listen. Transmitting may require a license.

Hope this helps. More info:

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Reply to
mpm

I have a UV-6R. I got it because the evil vendor shipped me the wrong model. I didn't care, as long as it worked, so I kept it. What I wanted was something that wasn't as fat, such as the UV-5X. Note that there are 3 versions (Mark I, II, and III). I believe the Mark II went from an 1800 ma-hr battery to 2000 ma-hr and slightly thicker. I don't have any info on the Mark III.

You can disable transmit in the programming. Using Chirp software (not the awful stock software): the "Duplex" column has 5 options: none, - , + , split, off The "off" setting is per channel and means turn off the transmitter. However, I've never used this and need to verify that it works as desired. Give me a day or two to find the programming cable.

The real danger is your photographers accidentally transmitting on a channel, usually by sitting on the radio.

The way you seem to mangle bicycle hardware, I don't think it would survive. Still, at the price, it's worth the risk. Some protection, such as foam rubber, or bubble pack, might be useful.

Think about programming some channels for GMRS and FRS as well as any ham repeaters that offer a phone patch.

To the best of my limited knowledge, the is no alternative firmware for the Baofeng radio series. There isn't even a way to update the stock firmware to the latest version.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

Here's what I'm doing: It's a software defined radio receiver customized with the addition of a preamp and a 1090MHz BP filter sitting on top of a Raspberry Pi. It listens to aircraft ADS-B transmissions and displays the data on a local map: This map shows what I can hear at my house in Ben Lomond. The data is also sent to Flight Aware for display on their area maps.

If you want specs on the Realtek RTL2832u data sheet, you'll need to sign an NDA from Realtek. This is all I can find: The tuners are better documented. Rafael Micro R820T tuner: Elonics E4000 tuner:

There are different products based on various SDR chips. The cheap stuff goes from about 24-1800MHz. There are boards with mixers to bring the coverage to below 24MHz.

Spectrum analyzers come in two flavors. The fixed frequency flavor is limited to 2.4MHz maximum IF bandwidth. The type that sweeps the frequency works over the entire receive range, but is slow. Plenty to choose from: (click on "older posts" when you get to the bottom of the page)

An SDR relies on a computah to do the math and DSP. I plug mine into my Android smartphone, Chromebook, PC, Raspberry Pi, and would probably try it on a Mac if I owned one. There is software for every imaginable receiving purpose, much of which actually works. If you want to play, I suggest you start with SDR# (SDR Sharp). Don't expect fabulous performance from the commodity RTL2832u dongle. It only does 8 bits, needs a preamp to get decent sensitivity, has a limited dynamic range, an inaccurate clock, and is easily overloaded by strong signals.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

Yes there is a "open the squelch" button.

The B6 has a LED (torch), the B5 has a rotary encoder to tune. Both have advantages, for your purpose the B6 may be better. (the B5 is better for ham radio use but the disadvantage is that the knob can be inadvertently turned and the frequency changed without notice)

It works for quite some time on a cell, especially when not transmitting. I keep a spare cell to use when it runs out.

It is illegal to transmit here but there is no enforcement so one could say "tolerated". Depending on where you transmit, of course.

It is unfortunate because it results in many intruders on our ham radio bands, both on simplex channels and on our repeaters. And there is barely anything that can be done about it. (under old legislation merely the posession of a transmitter was illegal, but now it is just the unlicensed use that is illegal, which is of course extremely difficult to prove with such a handheld)

Reply to
Rob

I know :-)

No, but VHF via repeaters works. It is mountainous but not exactly Alpine. I know a thing or two about RF.

Everything will have issues with response time. However, when a real human directly answers a 2m ham band repeater call you know exactly what is being done, right then. BTDT but I was on the "relaying side" when someone called in a serious car crash in the boonies. Later I could literally hear the sirens become louder. I stayed with them until that happened.

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Reply to
Joerg

Good point unless there is a lock function. That would also be needed for buttons because even my bone-simple CMDA cell phone sometimes does ghost button presses on rough mountain bike rides. It's cradled in there like a baby but still does it despite it having a real keyboard with fairly high resistance to button presses.

Interesting. Does it have a standard 18650 or at least something common? If not, a good source to buy spares? I had bad experience with custom-sized batteries. For example, for my Olympus digital camera new original batteries are hard to find and very expensive. When you find them you never know how long they lingered on a shelf. 3rd party ones are easy to find but of poor quality and fail soon.

That is sad. However, I was quite sure it would happen after these very low cost radios began showing up. In the old days hardly anyone would plunk down hundreds or Dollars or Euros and rather get a cheap pair of FRS radios. Now they can get these for the same price, have much more TX power and can always find a "free" channel.

If they'd tape the perpetrator's transmissions it would be easy. The secret service guys could do it with software in less than a minute.

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Regards, Joerg 

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Reply to
Joerg

Thanks but if this needs to be done for each channel and only via SW it's not going to work. They won't have a computer with them to do that and will want to enter or change channels as they go, via key pad.

Yeah, that's a concern. Though one of them work in a machine shop so he is skilled in making something that could hopefully block the PTT key.

That's what I do with the cell phone. I modified the rear end of my mountain bike in a way that it now carries trunks like longhaul offroad motorcycles do. Stuff in there gets shaken a lot and rotates like laundry in a washing machine but otherwise stays healthy.

Yes, I'd do that. Repeaters work in this area. GMRS or FRS is nearly useless, nobody listens there. I have only ever heard other traffic in urban areas or on farm operations and then I could have only communicated if I spoke better Spanish.

In an absolutely dire situations there'd still be 121.5MHz but these little radios don't do AM so that would be tough.

That's fine, I have a Signalhound spectrum analyzer to offsite jobs. It's just that it requires a laptop which isn't so great if out in the field. Luckily it works with an older Atom-1 netbook which it supposedly shouldn't (only with their old software though).

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Regards, Joerg 

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Reply to
Joerg

VHF repeaters work if you can reach the repeater. If you get two of these units, let us know what sort of range you get.

That is a pointless statement.

I was talking about the emergency beacons. I haven't retained the details, but there have been some unnecessary problems with some systems regarding the response time. My point is they are useful, but you need to research which ones work best in the likely situation you might find yourself.

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Rick C 

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rickman

It is possible to enter everything from the keyboard. I've tried it a few times and found it to be a rather complicated and confusing procedure. A computah is easier. Chirp runs on Linux which runs on minimal hardware, such as Raspberry Pi. Add a display, power, USB programming cable, miniature keyboard, and field programming might be possible.

If they want to change channels in the middle of nowhere, how are they going to get the frequency information needed to determine what to program into the radio? I don't see field programming as something that will be done very often.

I was thinking the photographers would buy two and use FRS/GMRS to talk to each other. Program for low transmit power to save battery life and keep the FCC somewhat happy.

Before you suggest programming the Baofeng to transmit on the local police and fire repeaters, it won't work. The few people that have tried that, have run into problems with local law enforcement (not with the FCC). Public safety people want their frequencies to be for their exclusive use and don't want even a hint of them being used by the GUM (great unwashed masses).

121.5Mhz is going away. It's been delayed for about 6 years: If they want an ELT, go with the newer 406MHz PLB (personal locator beacon) things. Yeah, I know... more junk to drag around. Cell/smart phone, FRS/GRMS/ham/scanner, PLB, GPS, programmer, programming instructions, frequency lists, etc. Maybe something like a Garmin InReach: Text messages via the Iridium birds. About $450.
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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

I'll have to talk to my biking buddy if we should get two or just one. Thing is, he doesn't have a ham license so we could only try on FRS channels. Even there it would be a legal gray zone because of the TX power.

It isn't. Response time is nearly independent of the system used unless asssigned priorities are different.

I don't know those but AFAICT there isn't much (or anything?) in terms of feedback to the transmitting person. For example, things like whether the call got to where it's supposed to, how much time it will roughly take for a helicopter to arrive, what to do regarding a snake bite until rescue gets there, and so on.

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OTOH FM radios when outside ham bands may not be of much help in many areas if the fire department has gone all-digital.

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Regards, Joerg 

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Reply to
Joerg

These look right for programming a Baofeng without a computah: More: Wonderful. Only 14 or 15 steps to program one channel.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

For non-techies that is way too much clutter. A cheat sheet with the sequences to be punched in is easier.

Oh it is. They usually get those frequencies from others they meet at hot spots where photographers gather. "Hey, where do they transmit out here?" ... "On xxx.xxxMHz". Sometimes they use more than one channel. Occasionally you can find out via a web site while on the way there (when you still have cell connection).

On FRS they probably could.

Sure, I'd never do that. However, if you find a guy who crashed his MTB down a ravine way in the boonies, is about to die and then you use a fire department frequency I am sure they will forgive you. It's just that many of them probably have gone digital by now, not sure if FM would still get through.

And $12/mo minimum fee, for the Iridium. We have an Iridium option on one of the remote electronics products I helped design but that is only used if there is absolutely no chance to reach a cell tower (because of the cost).

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Regards, Joerg 

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Reply to
Joerg

From :

"Licensees are given transmitting privileges on a wide variety of amateur bands."

That would imply that a license is necessary for transmitting, but not for receiving.

Reply to
sms

Ok, but I am always of the opinion that one shall stick to the rules whether enforced or not. Except maybe for the 15mph speed limit on lonely stretches of bike path ...

And pretty darn soon :-)

Sure, it's park rangers and other. The photographers aren't supposed to transmit there, ever, regardless of license. And they won't.

Thanks, that one I knew. Opens bands for a fee that are less cluttered than FRS. Although FRS is wide open in most areas I (and the photographers) go to, due to a lack of ... people.

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Regards, Joerg 

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Reply to
Joerg

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