Illegal transmissions from Baofeng-type radios

[902]

Many dispatch centers won't answer suspicious units that are not transmitting a visual ID that shows up on the dispatch console, and this problem also makes digital modes like P25 seem more attractive.

As a former system manager, this kind of policy is a "value added" feature. Most of the radio equipment in the marketplace, and certainly all of the digital radio equipment out there, has this feature embedded into it. By simply enabling the feature in programming (I mean, we already paid for it, it was in every radio), features like an emergency button can be used. A lot of my guys would get bored some nights and play music or make wise remarks over the air. I'll never forget the very first time we cut over to digital - I was listening on my radio and watching all of the IDs come across (only a few radios and dispatch saw the IDs, the others did not). Some knucklehead plays a few bars of country music. Dispatcher calls the car and asks if he had any traffic for dispatch. "Uh, um, no, negative dispatch! Accidental." GAME OVER! LOL! Word got around and horseplay just stopped right there.

The emergency button feature earned its keep the first time someone got into a collision and was so injured he could only push the button at first.

From an agency perspective, using embedded unit IDs is not a bad thing. After a while, I was able to push a policy that required them even on our analog channels.

 

[robertmac]

I don't think it's a matter of intelligence so much as awareness.

I believe most folks aren't the least bit aware that there are "radio services" or that buying these cheap radios and using them for business or pleasure (as in thinking they are no different than bubble pack FRS radios) involves things like licenses. They just want to talk to family, friends or business associates.

Do these radios come with explicit, easy to read warnings that certain frequencies need licenses to use? I don't know, but those of you here that have purchased them, maybe you can tell us about this.

My understanding is that the instructions are in "Engrish" or "Chinglish", if you will and I would be surprised if they in fact have clear warnings in the packaging informing buyers of the need for licenses.

The yahoos that intentionally interfere with LE or the ham bands are another matter altogether.

I can't comment on Baofeng radios as I have not bothered to look at them. Wouxun manuals do mention that a FCC license is required in a couple of places if people bother to RTFM. Quote: "Your radio must be licensed Federal Communications Commission prior to use. .......". and "Government law prohibits the operation of unlicensed radio transmitters within the territories under government control. Illegal operation is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both." I looked through some Kenwood, Icom and Yaesu manuals I downloaded and could not find any specific mention of requiring an amateur radio license/certificate to operate. Yaesu implies this by stating " modifications to the devise may void the users authorization to operate devise".

 

[jonwienke]

The only thing Baofeng, Wouxun, etc are really doing different than Yaesu, Icom, etc is charging less money.

 

[joeuser]

Maligning Baofeng just isn't appropriate. Not everyone that has a cheap / China made radio is a " bubble pack pirate ". I wouldn't , rather, couldn't even consider HAM if it were not for these budget units.

Used to be that you had to load windows on top of DOS, then load Winsock, negotiate the ISP & then load Mosiac to get on the information superhighway. This only after spending, what... 5K? Now any fool can get online, and there are a lot of them, with a 50$ crap tablet & free McDonalds WiFi... The Internet was better then or now?

 

[KF5YDR]

The only thing Baofeng, Wouxun, etc are really doing different than Yaesu, Icom, etc is charging less money.

That, and not producing a working squelch, or a manual written in English, or controls and interface that make sense, or transmit audio that people can actually hear, or well-suppressed spurious emissions, or an antenna that actually radiates RF.

So actually no, they don't deliver the same product as the big 3 at all.
The Chinese radios are a super bargain at $40 and I'm glad they're available, but the 'they're exactly the same as the name brand/Yaesu just charges a brand fee' argument is old and tired and just flat factually wrong.

 

[WB4CS]

That, and not producing a working squelch, or a manual written in English, or controls and interface that make sense, or transmit audio that people can actually hear, or well-suppressed spurious emissions, or an antenna that actually radiates RF.

So actually no, they don't deliver the same product as the big 3 at all.
The Chinese radios are a super bargain at $40 and I'm glad they're available, but the 'they're exactly the same as the name brand/Yaesu just charges a brand fee' argument is old and tired and just flat factually wrong.

+1. Oh hell, +1000

I have personally met several hams that have bought the $30 cheap China crap radios. Something goes wrong with the radio, and it's cheaper to get a new one than to send it back to China for repair. Pretty soon you've spent $100 on 3 cheap radios that never work right. Should have just spent that $100 plus a little more for a decent radio.

I've helped out hams with several issues with the cheap radios, including: audio issues (both TX and RX), squelch issues, PL tones no longer work, display goes out, transmitter stops working, scan doesn't work correctly, just to name a few.

I think the cheap radios have a place and serve a purpose. There's a lot of people that wouldn't be able to get on the air if it weren't for the cheap radios. I get that. But don't expect a $30 radio to perform like a more expensive radio. They are $30 radios for a reason.

I personally would rather spend $120 on a Kenwood HT that comes with a usable warranty, customer service that's in this country, and was built to be dependable and durable - than to spend $30 on a toy radio that may or may not work.

 

[Jimru]

Maligning Baofeng just isn't appropriate. Not everyone that has a cheap / China made radio is a " bubble pack pirate ". I wouldn't , rather, couldn't even consider HAM if it were not for these budget units.

Used to be that you had to load windows on top of DOS, then load Winsock, negotiate the ISP & then load Mosiac to get on the information superhighway. This only after spending, what... 5K? Now any fool can get online, and there are a lot of them, with a 50$ crap tablet & free McDonalds WiFi... The Internet was better then or now?

I can't disagree with your point of view, really. If the less expensive radios enable more young folks to get their Tech licenses (for instance) then that's a good thing for the hobby!

 

[KF5YDR]

I think the cheap radios have a place and serve a purpose. There's a lot of people that wouldn't be able to get on the air if it weren't for the cheap radios. I get that.

If the less expensive radios enable more young folks to get their Tech licenses (for instance) then that's a good thing for the hobby!

These. I like that the Baofengs exist because there are a lot of folks out there who could use a free, wide-area, instant personal communications system who can't afford to spend much, and plenty of folks (like me!) who are artist-and-student poor but love the hobby. A Baofeng is a $500 car: it's not wonderful, but it's infinitely better than no transportation at all.

It's great that there are now more options available to more people. You can still spend $600 on an FT-1DR and get all the bells and whistles, but you don't have to. Ham radio has been a rich man's hobby for quite a while, and it's nice to see it becoming more accessible.

 

[robertmac]

These. I like that the Baofengs exist because there are a lot of folks out there who could use a free, wide-area, instant personal communications system who can't afford to spend much, and plenty of folks (like me!) who are artist-and-student poor but love the hobby. A Baofeng is a $500 car: it's not wonderful, but it's infinitely better than no transportation at all.

It's great that there are now more options available to more people. You can still spend $600 on an FT-1DR and get all the bells and whistles, but you don't have to. Ham radio has been a rich man's hobby for quite a while, and it's nice to see it becoming more accessible.

But using a free wide-area instant personal communications system may not be legal and could end up interfering with licensed users, as per the title of this thread. Especially as the big 4 ham radios are really not much more expensive, and are easier to program on the fly [just look at the number of posts on difficulties programming these CCRs] I really wonder if the CCR are leading to more ham starting and getting good value. And good communications as I hear a number of them just picket fencing on repearters, with or without an upgrade antenna. In fact, some of this is driving some OH and NH [as in new hams] away from VHF/UHF. Or is it an excuse for people to use a CCR on licensed frequencies without getting licensed [forget about FRS and MURS]?

 

[KF5YDR]

But using a free wide-area instant personal communications system may not be legal and could end up interfering with licensed users, as per the title of this thread.

I was talking specifically about the amateur service, which carries with it the implication of people getting licensed.

There has never been anything preventing people from interfering with licensed radio services. The problem isn't new. The only thing that has changed is that it's cheap to buy a new transceiver (anyone has been able to buy a used ham HT for about forty bucks for at least a decade).
All that still means nothing unless someone has the urge to bother to find frequencies to interfere with and program them in.

I really wonder if the CCR are leading to more ham starting and getting good value.

Absolutely. I know several of them personally. I was only able to convince my brother to get back into the hobby and renew his license because the UV-5R was so cheap, and there are a couple guys on the local repeater that use and love them because they don't have to worry about a $500 gadget getting damaged.

And good communications as I hear a number of them just picket fencing on repearters, with or without an upgrade antenna.

Do you have some magical ability to recognize the transmissions from a Baofeng? It may be different where you live, but people don't announce what rig they're using every time they key up around here, and Big 4 radios are exactly as vulnerable to picket fencing as anything else, so I don't see how you could know that. It sounds like you're blaming every FM operating problem on these radios and there's just no way that's the case.
The problem isn't the radios, the problem is either people who have some sort of need to cause people grief or be in control of something or whatever, or people who don't know there is an amateur service or even that there's such a thing as a licensed radio system.
And some of that is on us. We have to tell people about ham radio and show them how it can be useful and help them out, instead of just kvetching about no-code Extras and how digital voice is encryption (not pointing fingers at anyone here specifically).

 

[joeuser]

To better put my position - I know you get what you pay for. That's one reason I got these. They serve other purposes other than HAM use. I got one & fiddled with it, got chirp, learned the radio & was able to use it. I got my HAM study books. Studied them. Got ready to test & thought I was going to travel 2 hours one way to test. Contacted a local HAM repeater guy, very helpful - got better news, closer testing. Then I started reading the web pages of these local hams & other online trailings... A lot of them are snobbish. Very cliquey. Not all, but a lot. Know what else? They don't care for the way Baofengs, Woxun?, & some other off brand, I guess - sound. They do something weird to the repeaters & some voice complaints. Basically, if you are not willing to lay down ICOM cash - you aren't worth conversing with. Even though, on this same page - one of these high end radios has some " FEATURE " that can be turned off but isn't by default - that does something to repeaters that they don't like. After all that reading? I'm glad I only 'wasted' 40$ on radios and 60$ on books. Not a total waste - as I learned quite a bit.

 

[dwh367]

Anyone remember the Icom "Commercial" H16/U16 - with the famous Function 1-5-9-3-5-7

Yes. I still have one of those. It was given to me as my first radio after I passed my technician exam. I hooked it up to a power supply, attached a speaker-mic and connected a J-Pole to it (via an adapter) and it worked great for local communications. The only pain was programming the PL tones being as how they entered as a 2 digit code that had be looked up in the manual.

I passed it on to my wife after, she got licensed, and she ran many a net with it. We've both upgraded our equipment over the years but we still have "the brick".

1-5-9-3-5-7 also gets me into the dealer program mode on my ICOM F-4 series radios as well.

 

[DJ11DLN]

To better put my position - I know you get what you pay for. That's one reason I got these. They serve other purposes other than HAM use. I got one & fiddled with it, got chirp, learned the radio & was able to use it. I got my HAM study books. Studied them. Got ready to test & thought I was going to travel 2 hours one way to test. Contacted a local HAM repeater guy, very helpful - got better news, closer testing. Then I started reading the web pages of these local hams & other online trailings... A lot of them are snobbish. Very cliquey. Not all, but a lot. Know what else? They don't care for the way Baofengs, Woxun?, & some other off brand, I guess - sound. They do something weird to the repeaters & some voice complaints. Basically, if you are not willing to lay down ICOM cash - you aren't worth conversing with. Even though, on this same page - one of these high end radios has some " FEATURE " that can be turned off but isn't by default - that does something to repeaters that they don't like. After all that reading? I'm glad I only 'wasted' 40$ on radios and 60$ on books. Not a total waste - as I learned quite a bit.

A lot of the local Hams I listen to are using these and I think it is a fairly even split between those who were just curious about how good a $40 radio could be and those like yourself who are on a budget. And yes they sometimes have some little snafus with them; one fellow had to be reminded a bit forcefully that the roger beep wasn't welcome before he admitted that he wasn't quite sure how to turn it off. But they talked him through that. Most of them seem pretty satisfied with what their $40 bought them.

To get back at least generally/vaguely towards topic, there's also some joker who likes to light up the local Skywarn machine here. He sometimes does it during nets. I'm sure a lot of people are listening to the input side in hopes of finding him (I'd be one of those even though I'm just an unlicensed eavesdropper). I can't say though what kind of a radio he's using...if it's a Baofeng or whatever, he's figured out how to turn that roger chirp off. But then it might not even be a Chinese radio; there are a lot of older LMRS/PS radios on the market here, thanks to that wonderful narrowbanding mandate a few years ago; he could have gotten one of those and figured out how to program it or found someone to do it for him. I sure hope they find him and slam him good.

 

[joeuser]

A lot of the local Hams I listen to are using these and I think it is a fairly even split between those who were just curious about how good a $40 radio could be and those like yourself who are on a budget. And yes they sometimes have some little snafus with them; one fellow had to be reminded a bit forcefully that the roger beep wasn't welcome before he admitted that he wasn't quite sure how to turn it off. But they talked him through that. Most of them seem pretty satisfied with what their $40 bought them.

To get back at least generally/vaguely towards topic, there's also some joker who likes to light up the local Skywarn machine here. He sometimes does it during nets. I'm sure a lot of people are listening to the input side in hopes of finding him (I'd be one of those even though I'm just an unlicensed eavesdropper). I can't say though what kind of a radio he's using...if it's a Baofeng or whatever, he's figured out how to turn that roger chirp off. But then it might not even be a Chinese radio; there are a lot of older LMRS/PS radios on the market here, thanks to that wonderful narrowbanding mandate a few years ago; he could have gotten one of those and figured out how to program it or found someone to do it for him. I sure hope they find him and slam him good.

Yeah they mentioned the roger beep dislike. That's pretty uniform / common place. CB radio is the only place its even tolerated & even at that people still gave ya crap about it. I suppose they still do? My experiences might be a regional thing also, maybe there are friendlier areas for HAMs... More tolerant of... Less than stellar radio use...

 

[Analogrules]

If they are smart enough to program these radios, you would think they would be smart enough to simply pass the test for a valid HAM license. I honestly do not agree with FCC rules in all cases. The economy is bad and I am all for small businesses to survive. If that means using cheap chinese radios to communicate via simplex on a MURS or DOT frequency that no one else in the area is using, who the hell cares. There are bigger fish to fry out there. However, I do have a problem with them transmitting on the local public safety frequencies (which they have been doing lately in my area). This will just push more PD and FDs to Switch to P25 encrypted. I love monitoring my local police so who wants to lose that privilege. These pranksters just don't get it and will feel pretty stupid if their foolishness drives their local PDs into encryption.

 

[DJ11DLN]

These pranksters just don't get it and will feel pretty stupid if their foolishness drives their local PDs into encryption.

They may be smart enough to program the radios (with Chirp it isn't rocket science) but I doubt that they're thinking about that or would care if they did. Such people probably are just out for the quick thrill of knowing that they've annoyed the authorities and getting a snicker out of it.

As far as using the Baofeng-type radios for MURS, it happens. I know of some who do this much as you describe (small business/farm/nursery/etc). They're just trying to make a living in a tough economy. When I hear them on the scanner, they're using decent etiquette and not getting in each other's way. Not much difference between 2W and 4W on an H-T, especially with the awful stock Baofeng duck. I doubt that anyone will bother them. Technically illegal...but I'm not about to turn 'em in. Victimless crime, IMHO.

If someone were to start using a 25- or 50 watt radio and causing interference with others, that would be a horse of a different hue. So far that doesn't seem to be happening, at least in the areas I frequent, and I hope it stays that way. At least the band is getting utilized, even if the equipment isn't quite kosher with the rules.

 

[Analogrules]

I totally agree with you. With many departments switching to trunked, digital, etc..., the lower bands would just be a waste of space and should be utilized in some way, even if not totally legal. If they don't use it, who else will?

 

[Analogrules]

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the police bands, just the business bands should be used by whoever wants to using low power of course. By me, even most of the taxi companies abandoned their frequencies and just use phones now to communicate with dispatch. So, who cares if a nursery school or small office building decides to use the baofeng to communicate on these bands now. I wouldn't bother reporting them. No one is being hurt or affected by it.

 

[Voyager]

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the police bands, just the business bands should be used by whoever wants to using low power of course. By me, even most of the taxi companies abandoned their frequencies and just use phones now to communicate with dispatch. So, who cares if a nursery school or small office building decides to use the baofeng to communicate on these bands now. I wouldn't bother reporting them. No one is being hurt or affected by it.

Who would complain? How about the business users who pay big bucks for a license to operate there? And in my area some 911 centers use business frequencies for dispatch operations (seriously - they do - they also use paging frequencies).

 

[Analogrules]

What business users? I live in a busy metropolitan area and even here, the business bands are totally dead, aside from a handful who use DMR in the 464 band. The only businesses that are still active in my area are Walmart (who don't even have a FCC license) and stores like Old Navy, movie theaters, etc... All who use low power DOT frequencies. I am surprised a 911 center can legally operate outside of public safety bands. Very surprising. Obviously if a business owner chose to use these radios, they would need to make sure they aren't interfering with anyone else. At low power, I highly doubt they would especially in my area.