Baofeng UV-82

[SouthernRoller]

Amazon.com : BaoFeng UV-82 (USA Warranty) Dual-Band 136-174/400-520 MHz FM Ham Two-way Radio, Transceiver, HT - With Battery, Earpiece, Antenna, Charger, and More : GPS & Navigation

Can this unit be run as a handheld scanner to monitor Sheriff/ Fire/Rescue? In the 155.085 to 157.500 range? My local community is still analog?

How would one go about programming this unit?

 

[DiabloKing]

Yes as long as your local Fire/EMS/Police are on analog range it will receive them. I use my UV-5R to listen to my local PD and Fire. As far as programing it pick up the programing cable from amazon and look up the program Chirp.

Edit: Just remember if they are on a trunking system this will not work and the scanning is terribly slow but if you park on police on one VFO and fire/ems on the other you'll be good.

 

[SouthernRoller]

They do not run a trunking system. Are these simple to program? I am not interested in transmitting, only monitoring as a scanner.

 

[DJ11DLN]

Google search "CHIRP," it is a free download and much easier than manually programming the radio. You will need a cable. I think Kawamall and others sell these for under $10. You can set it to receive only. Chirp is not intuitive but play around with it for awhile and it will become clear how to do what you need.

VHF conventional analog, yes it will work as a scanner. Be aware that it will pick up a lot of interference from any other RF sources you are near. And the scan speed is dismal. You get what you pay for. But as I posted elsewhere today, for the price, it's difficult to get really down on these radios. Have fun!

 

[pjtnascar]

I use my cheap HT's to monitor local police and fire as well. As pointed out, they scan very slowly.They're cool because you have a rechargeable battery in them, but they do pick up interference. If you're looking for good scanning capabilities you can get a used analog scanner for the price of a Baofeng, but for just monitoring 2 freqs, you'll be fine. Just keep away from RF sources including your cell phone.

 

[Anderegg]

Some of those cheap China radios like the Baofeng I am told will not scan anything with a PL/CTCSS tone under 131.8? They can be weird, make sure you do a lot of googling on the radio you want before you pull the trigger, just to see if it has any weird issues.

If you are only scanning 4-5 channels, the slow scan speed won't be a huge deal, but if you put 20 in there, good luck, it's like watching the second digit change on a clock as each channel flips by slowly!

Paul

 

[mikewazowski]

Thread moved to Budget and Entry Level Transceivers

 

[jonwienke]

Some of those cheap China radios like the Baofeng I am told will not scan anything with a PL/CTCSS tone under 131.8?

A bug in older version firmware. For receive only scanning, skip the tone/code anyway so you hear traffic no matter what tone/code is used.

 

[DJ11DLN]

A bug in older version firmware. For receive only scanning, skip the tone/code anyway so you hear traffic no matter what tone/code is used.

Which is fine until you start hearing DX or something else you don't want...but being a newer one it should cope fine. Mine are practically a year old and they don't have this issue. With 5 MURS (RX-only on all of this) in one and 2 local Skywarn repeaters in the other, using dual-watch on that one when there's storm activity, they work adequately. This leaves my scanners to do their normal thing when it's storming or when some of the local people are using MURS to chat or get work done and I want to listen in. Yes, they have limitations and there are bugs and quirks about them, but all in all, for the price (approximately 1 typical half-tank fill-up on my pickup apiece) I really can't complain about 'em.

 

[KC9HI]

Some of those cheap China radios like the Baofeng I am told will not scan anything with a PL/CTCSS tone under 131.8?l

The good news is that with the most recent Baofeng firmware versions, all receive CTCSS tones do work when scanning.

The bad news is that any on-frequency signal stops scanning (no CTCSS tone or DCS code needs to be present). This must be a workaround to allow more time for the CTCSS decoder to get a "lock" on the lower frequency tones. Reception of the correct CTCSS tone or DCS code is only used to enable the speaker audio.

Jim KC9HI

 

[nd5y]

The bad news is that any on-frequency signal stops scanning (no CTCSS tone or DCS code needs to be present). This must be a workaround to allow more time for the CTCSS decoder to get a "lock" on the lower frequency tones.

I think it is just another "feature" due to incompetent engineering. They never fixed that and other problems in later firmware versions of the UV-5R then they make a whole new board for the UV-82 and still can't do it right. I haven't heard if the UV-B5/6 are any better.

 

[KC9HI]

I think it is just another "feature" due to incompetent engineering.

It seems as if the Baofeng "engineers" are not two-way radios users and the Baofeng useability/bug testers are their end users.

They never fixed that and other problems in later firmware versions of the UV-5R then they make a whole new board for the UV-82 and still can't do it right.

Sure they've fixed problems in later firmware versions of the UV-5R.

BFB238 fixed the key order for sending DTMF A, B, C and D
BFB281 fixed the interference issue that the TDR setting caused with accessing "reverse mode" and temporarily toggling between High and Low power.

The scanning of the lower frequency CTCSS tones is "fixed" in the unreleased UV-5R variant that I tested it on this morning. I'm in the process of trying to determine which UV-5R firmware version actually brought about this change.

I do agree that what was done for this scanning issue wasn't the "right" way to fix it.

I haven't heard if the UV-B5/6 are any better.

It definitely has a more selective receiver. Some owners think they are really great. I'm not impressed with mine. I can make a pretty long list of the bugs that it has and the other things that I personally don't like about it.

Jim KC9HI