Just picked up an R5 and I am having a blast with it and thought I'd throw in some tips and tricks, especially how I get around the lack of any "bank links".
These are probably obvious to many, but here we go:
* Topping off batteries - Normally I charge out of unit for total safety and effectiveness, but sometimes I like to top off the batteries on the run rather than run them through full charge/discharge cycles. The charger won't activate unless the batteries totally die, or are swapped with another set. For topping off, I either pull one battery momentarily and put it back in, or put the charger on a switchable outlet. Toggle the power on the outlet, and now I can activate the charger without pulling the batts.
There is a 15-hour timer that will shut off the charger, and the manual specs the charge current at 120 ma. Theoretically, if you have very high-capacity batteries, and only give it a 15-hour charge, it might be possible that you are never charging your high-capacity batteries fully, unless you re-cycle the timer and then KEEP AN EYE ON IT.
Best bet is to charge the batts out of the unit with an external charger for total safety and a guaranteed full charge.
* On some of my memories I have ctcss PL tone-squelch activated. Yet when I do a memory scan, the R5 sometimes skips right over them, and I can see that the transmitter is active. The PL tone is programmed correctly, and the transmitter is emitting a PL tone as checked on another receiver. I thought it was me programming it wrong - nope - I've found that every so often, I have to drop to vfo mode, and actually toggle tone-squelch on and then back off for the system in *memory* to open up on the properly programmed pl decode tone. Very strange, and I've reset the cpu a few times. What's weird is that I've seen this behavior on the RX7 as well. Still looking into this one.
* Overload / interference:
Luckily I'm not blasted with RF at home so the front end is holding up fine - even on half-wave vhf / uhf dipoles - but I'm mainly using this portable with the included antenna. If I did suffer interference, I'd check what antenna is set for AM or FM use (bar, external, earphones). Manual warns about interference using the bar or earphones. YMMV.
* Audio is strong enough to drive an MFJ-281 small communications speaker very well. Almost as if there wasn't any limiting resistor inline. Not sure about the resistor, but this combo, which also works fine with the RX7, can easily be heard all over the house - maybe even mobile, but I'm not going to even think of fiddling with it mobile.
* Lack of Bank Links:
Everyone is familiar with the ALL or just a single-bank scan, and wish we could do bank-links. I do, but I've found a way around it in a kind of reverse-logic fashion.
The RX5 isn't the fastest thing around, and scanning all memories or all banks is probably too frustrating to use if you have more than a handful of memories, so I am trying to shorten up the amount of memories in each bank creatively.
At any rate, I have two ways of dealing with the lack of bank links with an adjustment to how I program it. The key is to SKIP everything, and then enable what you want back in - possibly with a "hot bank" thrown in that has all frequencies un-skipped. This only works if you keep your bank lists a bit smaller than you would normally do with a real scanner.
Ideally, each bank would be filled with very specific categories or systems, rather than just random programming for this to work well.
Option 1: SKIP every memory channel you program into the banks. Then selectively un-skip the "hot" freqs in each bank. Now you can use the ALL-bank-scan feature and there's your hot list which jumps around from bank to bank so to speak. Of course now you can go to a single bank of interest and start un-skipping the rest of the channels in the bank and do just a single bank-scan if things get really interesting in that bank.
Option 2: Duplicate your "hot" frequencies into a single bank, perhaps bank-A, and DO NOT skip them. However, leave all the memories in the rest of the banks SKIPPED. Like above, selectively go into the other banks and un-skip a few more of the more interesting channels. Now when you do an ALL bank scan, you'll scan your hot-bank of duplicates (ie, BANK-A), and a handful or more of the channels you un-skipped in the other banks. Like above, if you find something interesting, you can now stop on a specific bank and start un-skipping the channels inside the bank and do a single-bank scan.
Again very tedious so at some point you'd want to reach for a fast scanner instead. With the R5, I just tool around like this and when something gets interesting, or I'm in a certain area, I'll just manually scroll around in a bank. Kind of a different type of ops than with a fast scanner.
I haven't actually purchased the software and am giving the scroll-knob a real workout. This thing intrigues me, so I'm thinking of putting out a "out of the box" experience kind of thing to help get some past the manual ... at least just for a leg up in the beginning.... Next time perhaps...
Having fun with the R5!
These are probably obvious to many, but here we go:
* Topping off batteries - Normally I charge out of unit for total safety and effectiveness, but sometimes I like to top off the batteries on the run rather than run them through full charge/discharge cycles. The charger won't activate unless the batteries totally die, or are swapped with another set. For topping off, I either pull one battery momentarily and put it back in, or put the charger on a switchable outlet. Toggle the power on the outlet, and now I can activate the charger without pulling the batts.
There is a 15-hour timer that will shut off the charger, and the manual specs the charge current at 120 ma. Theoretically, if you have very high-capacity batteries, and only give it a 15-hour charge, it might be possible that you are never charging your high-capacity batteries fully, unless you re-cycle the timer and then KEEP AN EYE ON IT.
Best bet is to charge the batts out of the unit with an external charger for total safety and a guaranteed full charge.
* On some of my memories I have ctcss PL tone-squelch activated. Yet when I do a memory scan, the R5 sometimes skips right over them, and I can see that the transmitter is active. The PL tone is programmed correctly, and the transmitter is emitting a PL tone as checked on another receiver. I thought it was me programming it wrong - nope - I've found that every so often, I have to drop to vfo mode, and actually toggle tone-squelch on and then back off for the system in *memory* to open up on the properly programmed pl decode tone. Very strange, and I've reset the cpu a few times. What's weird is that I've seen this behavior on the RX7 as well. Still looking into this one.
* Overload / interference:
Luckily I'm not blasted with RF at home so the front end is holding up fine - even on half-wave vhf / uhf dipoles - but I'm mainly using this portable with the included antenna. If I did suffer interference, I'd check what antenna is set for AM or FM use (bar, external, earphones). Manual warns about interference using the bar or earphones. YMMV.
* Audio is strong enough to drive an MFJ-281 small communications speaker very well. Almost as if there wasn't any limiting resistor inline. Not sure about the resistor, but this combo, which also works fine with the RX7, can easily be heard all over the house - maybe even mobile, but I'm not going to even think of fiddling with it mobile.
* Lack of Bank Links:
Everyone is familiar with the ALL or just a single-bank scan, and wish we could do bank-links. I do, but I've found a way around it in a kind of reverse-logic fashion.
The RX5 isn't the fastest thing around, and scanning all memories or all banks is probably too frustrating to use if you have more than a handful of memories, so I am trying to shorten up the amount of memories in each bank creatively.
At any rate, I have two ways of dealing with the lack of bank links with an adjustment to how I program it. The key is to SKIP everything, and then enable what you want back in - possibly with a "hot bank" thrown in that has all frequencies un-skipped. This only works if you keep your bank lists a bit smaller than you would normally do with a real scanner.
Ideally, each bank would be filled with very specific categories or systems, rather than just random programming for this to work well.
Option 1: SKIP every memory channel you program into the banks. Then selectively un-skip the "hot" freqs in each bank. Now you can use the ALL-bank-scan feature and there's your hot list which jumps around from bank to bank so to speak. Of course now you can go to a single bank of interest and start un-skipping the rest of the channels in the bank and do just a single bank-scan if things get really interesting in that bank.
Option 2: Duplicate your "hot" frequencies into a single bank, perhaps bank-A, and DO NOT skip them. However, leave all the memories in the rest of the banks SKIPPED. Like above, selectively go into the other banks and un-skip a few more of the more interesting channels. Now when you do an ALL bank scan, you'll scan your hot-bank of duplicates (ie, BANK-A), and a handful or more of the channels you un-skipped in the other banks. Like above, if you find something interesting, you can now stop on a specific bank and start un-skipping the channels inside the bank and do a single-bank scan.
Again very tedious so at some point you'd want to reach for a fast scanner instead. With the R5, I just tool around like this and when something gets interesting, or I'm in a certain area, I'll just manually scroll around in a bank. Kind of a different type of ops than with a fast scanner.
I haven't actually purchased the software and am giving the scroll-knob a real workout. This thing intrigues me, so I'm thinking of putting out a "out of the box" experience kind of thing to help get some past the manual ... at least just for a leg up in the beginning.... Next time perhaps...
Having fun with the R5!
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