N4KVE
Member
Finally people realizing the truth. Let’s do this here.
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Great news about Baofeng. We need this here.
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mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Europe does a better job of managing their resources. If that was tried here, there would be sobs, screaming and mourning in the streets.
Pretty much sums up what anyone knowledgeable in radio already knows right here:
Pretty much sums up what anyone knowledgeable in radio already knows right here:
It seems what has happened is that the quality of the Baofeng radios on sale doesn’t match that claimed in their conformity documents, which should honestly come as a surprise to nobody.
I'd like to think that the FCC will eventually do something similar, besides the Part 90 smackdown they did a while back, but I think I'll be disappointed. The FCC isn't much of an enforcement body, and I'm sure that they'll sell out to pressure from dealers/manufacturers.
Well, what has happened in the USA is actually *worse*. They are locking the made for USA radios into the amateur bands. What that means, is the unlicensed and ignorant users who just use them out of the box will be flooding the preprogrammed "test frequencies", which are in the amateur bands. Those who know how to program could end up in our repeater frequencies. Imagine a few million of those in the hands of the general public.
Actually, the Baofeng "test frequencies" are all over the place, at least in the last few Fengs I've seen. Some amateur frequencies, but also Federal UHF, law enforcement VHF.
N4KVE
Member
If this were to happen here, US Customs should block the importation at the borders like they do for bogus counterfeit goods like fancy watches, & handbags.
DeoVindice
P25 Underground
The amateur world is addicted to cheap Chinese equipment. There's something sad about a service intended in part to advance radio technology devolving into that barely-functional junk being used on repeaters held together with duct tape and bubble gum
From what I've heard, current-production Baofengs are showing up locked to 2m/440 or locked to GMRS. I guess I should be grateful. I have one or two stashed in a box in my shop so that I can hand someone an XTS5000 and a UV-5R at the same time and let them feel the difference.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I like that approach. I've had a few show up at work.
Usually the conversation goes something like this:
Them: "Hey, YOUR radio system sucks!!!!"
Me: "Oh, really? What kind of issues are you having with it?"
Them: "It sounds like crap, I can barely understand what they are saying!"
Me: "OK, let me take a look at the system. Oh, I should look at your radio, too."
Them: *hands me a BaoFeng*
Me: "Can I ask where you got this radio from?"
Them: "Oh, we found them on Amazon, 5 for $100! So much cheaper than those expensive radios you want us to use."
Me: "Ah, OK"
And then the talk….
Explaining in simple terms type acceptance, not adding radios to my system without my knowledge, letting some random guy program their radios, especially those "Free channels".
And then the discussion with the manager and the purchase of legit radios.
And then a year later:
Them: "Hey, we found these old radios in someones drawer, can we use them on the radio system?
Me: *pulls out 8 pound sledge hammer out of truck* "Let me see those for a second…."
I've put some of these on the service monitor. They are NOT high quality radios, and they look like it on the scope. They are not a replacement for a suitable radio. They do not belong in any commercial or public safety application.
I'm totally OK with hams using them. Heck, back when I got my license, my first radio cost me a whole paycheck. I know the pain. Probably would have bought one of these, too. But I wouldn't have stuck with it.
kayn1n32008
ØÆSØ Say it, say 'ENCRYPTION'
This. All of this. I laugh at those that say they are great radios and sound good.
Not on the ones locked to only he amateur frequencies. They are only in the amateur bands in the 432 to 439 mHz range.
The funny thing is how cheap you can get a XTS or XPR for these days on fleabay. I guess some people will always look for the absolute cheapest option, if that's what they're after then Baofeng wins every time...
Radioddity sent me one of their Baofeng UV5Rs for evaluation back in 2019. It was locked to the amateur radio bands. The RF output power was also limited to about 2 watts. I found a power-on key sequence that unlocked it. Not only were the frequency ranges unlocked, but the power output was back to 5 watts. On my spectrum analyzer, this particular radio was pretty clean.
That's been going on for quite some time already. Before my dad passed away, I often went to visit him during lunch time. While driving around, I would routinely hear people on construction crews talking on ham frequencies especially when I'd get to the top of an overpass. Always work related audio traffic and never a call sign. No doubt that the ham hobby is going to encounter more of this as time goes on. I'd rather see the radios go out unprogrammed.
How much of this is just about a cold war or trade war with PR China?
Here people are praising Motorola radios, but Motorola made money by selling off it's cell phone division to PR China and Hong Kong based Lenovo.
Am I the only one that gets this irony?
Here people are praising Motorola radios, but Motorola made money by selling off it's cell phone division to PR China and Hong Kong based Lenovo.
Am I the only one that gets this irony?
DeoVindice
P25 Underground
What's ironic about it? Motorola sells good-quality radios with none of the issues that plague Baofengs and comparable units.
Baofeng radios were showing up with default frequencies selected for the Chinese domestic market, which caused harmful interference with US operators. That and their often horrific spurious emissions are the problems at hand here. If you buy an XPR7550E from MSI, it won't come preprogrammed with every from federal to amateur to UHF-MED frequencies without regard to what you can legally use.
Some other Chinese radio manufacturers sell generally decent equipment. They aren't the ones being called out here.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Every commercial radios I've purchased, be it Kenwood, Motorola, Icom or Harris, they all come from the factory blank. There are no frequencies programmed into the radio. Deep down in the service section, there are predefined test frequencies, but those are only accessible with service software, and are not randomly chosen frequencies.
For the person that buys one of these radios, they'll take it out of the box, turn it on, and it'll be blank. As it should be.
Absolutely no reason the Chinese radios cannot do the same, other than probably limitations on the capabilities of the software to separate alignment (hah!) data from channel programming.
The issue here is that the Chinese companies are flooding US market with crappy radios that are marketed to consumers with frequencies programmed into them.
Easy fix.
And no, I don't feel sorry for the Chinese, the US based dealers, or the people that buy these radios.
For the person that buys one of these radios, they'll take it out of the box, turn it on, and it'll be blank. As it should be.
Absolutely no reason the Chinese radios cannot do the same, other than probably limitations on the capabilities of the software to separate alignment (hah!) data from channel programming.
The issue here is that the Chinese companies are flooding US market with crappy radios that are marketed to consumers with frequencies programmed into them.
Easy fix.
And no, I don't feel sorry for the Chinese, the US based dealers, or the people that buy these radios.
The manufacturers are relying on consumer ignorance. If the people buying these radios on Amazon received them and found that they couldn't communicate with each other out of the box, they'd pack up the radios and return them. If they were preprogrammed for public service or even business frequencies the FCC is likely to get a calls. Less likely to get any real flack by programming them in ham bands as the FCC quite often expects hams to police their own.
Amazon will accept their return, refund their money, and divert the returned package to a salvage operation that deals with store returns (which you can buy by the pallet if you know where to look). If Amazon gets too many returns from an individual vendor, I assume they will take some action against that vendor. In the end, Amazon just jacks up their prices to cover the losses.
None of which provides a great deal of incentive for the manufacturer to change their practices. Just raise the sell price and consider the increase to them as the cost of doing business. "No skin off their backs" as the saying goes.
I've never actually owned one, I've tried it out a few times. Do some Baofeng's actually come pre-programmed with ham freqs? I don't quite understand how that could even work, unless it was like National calling or something.
I've never bought one either bought someone gave one to me. It is a dual band (something like 136-174mhz and 400-490mhz) I'm going from memory so I could be off a little bit. When I first read the radio there were a number of frequencies programmed throughout the frequencies ranges. I recall there were some in and around the marine band, some LMR and some within the ham band. I think all were simplex. I wiped it clean and programmed a few local repeaters as well as one of my personal nodes.
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