I know that Baofengs make a lot of hams soooooooo mad,.. But I’m sorry. For $35 they’re excellent. And what you get for 4x as much money is not 4x better of a radio..
I think that Baofengs are great, and other radios are more expensive with diminishing returns. - Change my mind
- Thread starter svenmarbles
- Start date
- Status
?
RFI-EMI-GUY
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,428
Nope, not taking the bait.
Enjoy those cheap crappy $35 low parts count Chinese radios while I enjoy my public safety grade TIA-603,, MIL-810D surplus $2500 Motorola Systems Sabers bought for $35 on e-bay.
Enjoy those cheap crappy $35 low parts count Chinese radios while I enjoy my public safety grade TIA-603,, MIL-810D surplus $2500 Motorola Systems Sabers bought for $35 on e-bay.
kayn1n32008
ØÆSØ Say it, say 'ENCRYPTION'
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
You’re Delusional. I have a $50 TK-390 that is light years better than some $35 Baofeng.
Baofengs are not ‘excellent’ regardless of how people champion them. Or how cheap they are. There is nothing excellent about them. Nothing.
I had a Baofeng battery that exploded on a Baofeng charger. I also had 8 Baofeng radios quit on me for no particular reason. Now on the flip side, I own 6 Motorola HT's. One of the XTS5000's that I own was accidentally dropped off a second story balcony, and when I went down to retrieve it, it only had a few scratches on it (I bought a $25 replacement housing just so it would look good again). I accidentally dropped a baofeng from 5 feet and it broke into several pieces. Does that make any sense? Also not to mention that Baofengs are notorious for having awful transmitters that seem to "bleed" when transmitting. Yeah, I'll stick to Kenwood and /\/\otorola, thank you.
Absolutely untrue. For 4x the money, you can get a rugged Motorola radio that does P25, does not sound like crap when transmitting, has a better speaker, has 6x more memory channels, will not set off that annoying Baofeng siren tone when a net is trying to go on, need I go on?
slicerwizard
Member
C'mon guys, Baofengs have amazing sensitivity. Mine can hear signals that aren't even there...
RFI-EMI-GUY
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,428
Yup, that's always a sign of a quality radio. I built a crystal radio when I was 11 and it picked up tons of stuff from 100 feet of longwire. Cost about $3.00 .
Baofengs are $23.58 on Amazon with free shippinig, I bought several more a few weeks ago. So you are saying you can get a FPP dual band VHF/UHF Motorola with P25 for $100? I don't think so. If its not dual band and FPP you are comparing apples to rocks.
RFI-EMI-GUY
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,428
Baofeng radio does P25? nope.
You can probably pick up a FPP Motorola P25 single band radio for chump change.
I think Baofeng radios are CRAP. - Change my mind.
Here is a challenge. Subject your Baofeng to the receiver tests in EIA/TIA603D. Then test a Motorola. Post the results.
A Baofeng UV5R is under $25 new with shipping and warranty. It works ok, not stellar but ok. Its an fantastic deal if you understand its limitations, which are really not that bad.
I think 99.9999999999% of hams would rather have dual band and FPP over P25. Why was that even brought up in the first post?
I think 99.9999999999% of hams would rather have dual band and FPP over P25. Why was that even brought up in the first post?
RFI-EMI-GUY
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,428
I don't know. Why did YOU bring up P25?
Back to my challenge: EIA/TIA603D
Does the Baofeng even make its OWN published TIA receiver Intermodulation, adjacent channel rejection ,specs?
Oops, - My Bad! Baofeng has NO published TIA specs.
99.9999999999% of hams probably own a Yaesu, ICOM or Motorola.
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
Most hams should care that the transmitter is a piece of feces. Spurious emissions are the responsibility of the station transmitting. It's been well documented that many of these CCRs based on WoC's have piss poor filtering on their output stages of their transmitters. This is the issue I have with them. Aside with wide open receivers sucking turds out of the sky, that doesn't affect anyone else. But polluting RF spectrum with hash and trash is everyone's problem.
and hams should know better. Most other commercial ham gear from Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood made in the past three decades is well above the FCC specifications for spurious emissions because the manufacturers care about compliance with the rules and putting out a quality amateur product. The Chinese don't give two rats behinds or panda castings about rules.
and hams should know better. Most other commercial ham gear from Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood made in the past three decades is well above the FCC specifications for spurious emissions because the manufacturers care about compliance with the rules and putting out a quality amateur product. The Chinese don't give two rats behinds or panda castings about rules.
slicerwizard
Member
Oh yeah, just fantastic...
"As was noted before consumer grade equipment should be used very a very careful eye especially when RF is a possible issue.
Had a medic (Capt.) what had a CCR on him in the back of the bus, Ear piece, programmed up with all our freqs (Analog system). His cardiac was messing up every time he gave a report to the hospital. I couldn't reproduce the problem. Even sent the monitor in, returned "No problems found and works within spec".
It wasn't till I had him hook up the monitor on an employee and do a test including radio calls to hospital to troubleshoot. Low and behold, he failed to mention he was using his CCR instead of the mobile in the PT compartment. When he used it the problem was there, when he used his department issued handheld or the mobile, no issue. Stray RF near medical isn't a good thing.
I did not take his CCR to see what the spectrum monitor would show as I would most likely needed a medic after seeing it."
Someone compared a Baofeng to a Motorola touting the Motorola had P25, I don't know why they did that because its irrelevant. Again, a Baofeng UV5R is under $25 brand new and its usefulness is well above that price. You can't compare a thousand $$ used anything to it because those radios are not in the same price league new. That's like trashing a Toyota because it doesn't corner like a used Ferrari. Who cares what a radio cost used if they are over $1k new and the only Motorola you could even begin to compare would be a dual band APX series, which would be ludicrous.
Why complain about a $25 class radio? You get more than what you pay for and the vast majority of owners have no problems whatsoever with them. I've experienced Intermod on a UV5R but at a high site that is known to be blasted with RF.
Why complain about a $25 class radio? You get more than what you pay for and the vast majority of owners have no problems whatsoever with them. I've experienced Intermod on a UV5R but at a high site that is known to be blasted with RF.
Last edited:
Only an idiot would use a Baofeng for police, fire, EMT use. Its a cheap ham radio and very low end business radio.
RFI-EMI-GUY
Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,428
I rest my case.
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
Did you bother to watch the video and see relevant transmitter performance on a spectrum analyzer to a more expensive HAM radio? The difference in spurious output was night and day. Not talking about an APX or even an HT600, but commercially available HAM radios from HAM equipment manufacturers who don't sell products that don't meet FCC requirements not to be intentional radiators of broadband noise.
Again, the issue is the garbage these road apples emit. Who cares about receiver performance, if one wants to think some turdpile based on RDA's latest WoC is the best invention given to humanity, that's fine with me. But don't sit here and pretend these things don't put out manure on the airwaves, and let's not even touch the issue with their wide open out of the box transmitters being preset on part 90 frequencies.
Last edited:
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I'm not aware of a "lot of hams" being mad over these radios. Most hams seem to have at least one.
For the most part, hams don't care.
Who does care is the guys who run the public safety radio systems. Someone shows up with their new $25 radio, program it up with info from a certain radio website, then start talking on the system. Suddenly "the radio system sucks".
When you track it down, you take the CCR off the system and suddenly the radio system is working again. Funny how that works.
For a hobbyist, specifically a ham, they are great, sure. The work well enough and have the features that are needed. They are priced low. They are disposable, so if you lose one, or give one to a flaky friend, it's not a big deal when they don't come back.
But on the commercial/LMR side, many of them do not have suitable type acceptance to be legal. Some have features that would preclude them from being legal on some radio services.
But like the others said, you are comparing apples and oranges. These CCR's are not on the same playing field as the name brand stuff. If you don't understand why, then we've got a lot to talk about.
- Status
Similar threads
