Hello all!
I recently purchased a Baofeng UV-5R V2+ on Amazon, and was excited to have purchased it during a sale. With a "discrete" style earpiece, and programming cable, the total came to around $43!
I'm definitely looking into soon acquiring the technician's licence, since I'd like to be able to use the device at work, and we have certain frequencies delegated to us on on the work walkies via corporate, but I'm assuming I'd need the tech license for my own device, since it's output power is different than the Motorola ones, as well as the Baofeng being able to use other frequencies. I was also hoping to use it as an EMS scanner on the side.
Unfortunately, after programming and doing some field scanning in my area, as well as some research here and in a few other radio frequency charts online, the police/emergency channels are all DMR, which the UV series can't receive properly, since it's FM only.
So, I have a few questions. I'll try and sort them by priority.
1) My workplace has the Motorola commercial radios, set to certain frequencies for channels 1-6. Can I use my device to inter-operate on low power with those channels only with no licence, or am I correct in believing the output of the Baofeng does in fact require the FCC Licence?
2) I've been reading that certain stores, particularly Wal-Mart, for whatever reason, have chosen to use MURS frequencies. I can confirm that in my area, the Wal-Mart down the road, does in fact use the blue dot MURS frequency, 154.570 MHz. Similarly to question 1, am I legally able to operate the UV-5r on the other MURS frequencies (to a friend with a MURS only, max 2W device), or, since the UV has a "High" Tx setting (high is 4W, low 1W) does that fall under "external control to increase power above 2 watts," thus requiring the Technician's licence anyhow? I'm aware that the UV is not Part 95, it's only Part 90 certified.
and 3) Finally, is there any way at all to use the UV-5R V2+ to decode DMR? I don't believe there would be a way to do so on the device directly (even through CHIRP), since it simply doesn't have the hardware. That being said, can I possibly use a laptop and the serial cable, or an audio conversion kit, with something like SDR# and DSD+ to decode? Would it be more cost effective to simply capture the DMR at home with an SDR setup (been considering RTL-SDR honestly), and then streaming that to my phone via a custom setup? (Been coding for 6+ years, so I'd be able to make a low latency service to stream from SDR# or Unitrunker to my Android phone.)
Thank you all in advance! Happy Thanksgiving/Christmas~
I recently purchased a Baofeng UV-5R V2+ on Amazon, and was excited to have purchased it during a sale. With a "discrete" style earpiece, and programming cable, the total came to around $43!
I'm definitely looking into soon acquiring the technician's licence, since I'd like to be able to use the device at work, and we have certain frequencies delegated to us on on the work walkies via corporate, but I'm assuming I'd need the tech license for my own device, since it's output power is different than the Motorola ones, as well as the Baofeng being able to use other frequencies. I was also hoping to use it as an EMS scanner on the side.
Unfortunately, after programming and doing some field scanning in my area, as well as some research here and in a few other radio frequency charts online, the police/emergency channels are all DMR, which the UV series can't receive properly, since it's FM only.
So, I have a few questions. I'll try and sort them by priority.
1) My workplace has the Motorola commercial radios, set to certain frequencies for channels 1-6. Can I use my device to inter-operate on low power with those channels only with no licence, or am I correct in believing the output of the Baofeng does in fact require the FCC Licence?
2) I've been reading that certain stores, particularly Wal-Mart, for whatever reason, have chosen to use MURS frequencies. I can confirm that in my area, the Wal-Mart down the road, does in fact use the blue dot MURS frequency, 154.570 MHz. Similarly to question 1, am I legally able to operate the UV-5r on the other MURS frequencies (to a friend with a MURS only, max 2W device), or, since the UV has a "High" Tx setting (high is 4W, low 1W) does that fall under "external control to increase power above 2 watts," thus requiring the Technician's licence anyhow? I'm aware that the UV is not Part 95, it's only Part 90 certified.
and 3) Finally, is there any way at all to use the UV-5R V2+ to decode DMR? I don't believe there would be a way to do so on the device directly (even through CHIRP), since it simply doesn't have the hardware. That being said, can I possibly use a laptop and the serial cable, or an audio conversion kit, with something like SDR# and DSD+ to decode? Would it be more cost effective to simply capture the DMR at home with an SDR setup (been considering RTL-SDR honestly), and then streaming that to my phone via a custom setup? (Been coding for 6+ years, so I'd be able to make a low latency service to stream from SDR# or Unitrunker to my Android phone.)
Thank you all in advance! Happy Thanksgiving/Christmas~