WRQC527

Two thumbs up from me for the Signal Stick. Best HT antenna I've had, if you don't mind the length.

Welcome to my Ignore User list. Have a look around. Introduce yourself.

Under $200. The only mobile radios Yaesu has under $200 are analog two-meter radios. Yaesu could easily produce a solid sub-$200 bare-bones dual band analog mobile. Same with HF. New hams are confronted with either cheap HF gear that will disappoint in the long term, or $700 + big-3 gear. So they may never venture beyond vhf/uhf. That's not good for the hobby.

Yaesu should also look at how their HTs chew through batteries. My UV5R is on the charger now almost two weeks after its last charge. I'm lucky to get a couple of days out of a Yaesu. Don't get me wrong, in a lot of ways the Yaesu is the superior radio, and it better be for what I paid, but having to charge it after a day's hiking and a few contacts on the trail, that's a problem.

I'm just wondering... And anyone feel free to chime in here. Who, exactly, is monitoring my GMRS communications for hidden meanings, and more importantly, am I going to get busted for asking my wife to "Rendezvous at Location Sierra Bravo" instead of saying "Meet me at Sonic Burger"?

Wow. That is a lot of words.

A friend of mine who has several 400s bought a 300 and as far as he's concerned it's a disappointment in comparison. I think he was spoiled by the touch screen. I'm cheap, I went with a pair of 7250s before they got the axe.

Yep and now that it's discontinued, we can all rush out to buy the next Yaesu product, the FTM-500, which is even more expensive. The big 3 gave up the entry-level ham radio market.

One thing I noticed about the UV5R is that the one I bought back in around 2013 had better receive characteristics. The new one tends to drop out more with weaker signals. A Signal Stick antenna helps, but who wants to walk around with a 19" antenna on a 4" tall radio. I even re-wrote the squelch settings using the CHIRP service settings tab, which only helped a little.

In my experience, Repeaterbook is good for ham repeaters, but not the best source of GMRS repeater information. That honor goes to MyGMRS.com. I say that because when I look at Repeaterbook and list by California GMRS repeaters, I see 35 repeaters. When I look at MyGMRS and filter by California, I see 144 repeaters. 265 if I include stale repeaters. While I'm no expert, I would think that indicates that MyGMRS is the more comprehensive source. And I've had to make a number of corrections to Repeaterbook entries, both mine and others. They rely on users to some degree to report or edit outdated or wrong information. That would indicate to me that of the thousands of repeaters on Repeaterbook, there are other inaccuracies or outdated information that have yet to be fixed.

I put it to you that anyone who compares a $20-$50 Baofeng to a radio that costs much more and expects it to perform like that radio that costs much more is the fool. Those are the people you need to watch out for.

I bought a UV5R when they came out maybe ten years ago. (guessing). It died a couple years back. I bought another one two weeks ago just to toss in the car. I'll tell you what. For the $23 delivered I paid for it on Scamazon, I'm impressed. The first ones had low audio unless you drilled out the mic hole. The signal strength meter was useless. But ten years later, big difference. Last week I did a blind test with my Yaesu FT-70 vs the UV5R with a couple of people on my repeater. Not only could they not tell which radio was which, the edge went to the UV5R. The signal strength meter actually varies with signal strength. And in terms of battery life, hands-down the Baofeng wins. I haven't charged it for almost two weeks and it's still almost fully-charged, and used every day. The FT-70 can't compete. That said, there's things that the Yaesu has that the UV5R doesn't. Alphanumeric memory programming from the keypad. Automatic repeater offset. Digital capability. Slightly more meaningful squelch settings. Slightly better receiver. The list goes on. But I will say this. The UV5R is $23. The FT-70 is $175. But with the FT-70, I am not getting a handheld dual-band transceiver that is almost eight times better than the UV5R. Conversly, I'm not getting a junk radio that performs at a level less than 20% of the Yaesu. Not only that, but at least as of March 5, 2023, you can still unlock a UV5R with button presses, something you can only do with the FT-70 by physically damaging the circuit board. The UV5R is probably the most popular dual-band handheld radio in the world. And looking at the images from Ukraine, it's even battle-tested. And people still trash-talk them. I don't get it.

Like axorlov said, HTs (and mobile radios) don't make the best scanners because they scan slowly. You can miss transmissions. But if you're not concerned about scan speed and you just want the capability to listen to specific frequencies, the KG-UV9D might be a good option if it covers them.

Somewhere here in Los Angeles is an Amateur Radio repeater that voice IDs with Dick Van Dyke reading the script. Word is he is or was a ham at some point. Took me by surprise the first time I heard it.

You may want to find a scanner like a Uniden or Whistler, or even a used Radio Shack scanner that will range into the UHF and higher frequencies. CCrane appears to focus on the lower shortwave frequencies up to VHF. Could be a marketing decision, could be because of the expense or technical challenges. Or both. Either way, a scanner may be your answer.

Some folks say military radar can interfere with frequencies around the 400 to 500 Mhz frequency range, and has been known to play havoc with amateur radio repeaters in that range, so it wouldn't surprise me if that's the issue. Just a thought. There's a linked amateur repeater network called the Winsystem that periodically has to shut down or disconnect 440 repeaters because of this.

True, true. Lytle Creek has one that might work, but it appears restricted to just Lytle Creek Canyon, Keller Peak is about 30 miles, Big Bear has one on Sugarloaf, both of which I've been able to reach from the bowels of Wrightwood. But I'm always surprised at how a 2-meter signal can get out under the right conditions. Ya, ol' Jack Torrance... If he only had a smart phone... But then it would have been a much shorter movie.

Which is why I also mentioned ham repeaters. The idea is not to rely on a cell phone and have multiple options if you're going to do something stupid like this.

Perfect example. Thank you for posting this. There was a guy over the weekend who got his SUV stuck in Lytle Creek. He couldn't get a cell signal. They finally found him after he barely got one text out to his girlfriend, but if he had a radio (GMRS or Ham), he could have given his exact coordinates from his phone even without cell service, to any of a number of repeaters within reach of Lytle Creek.

Thanks Steve, I set up an account just in case. I wouldn't mind getting another Pi for experimenting, and back in the day when I had a functional Model 3 set up as a desktop, I had CHIRP loaded on it. My understanding is that CHIRP was originally designed to run on Linux.

This could be fun though. Sometimes people just wake up on the wrong side of the bed, but this guy seems a lot more firmly-rooted in his beliefs.

"A joke. A story with a humorous climax." ~Spock

We have a jammer who jams several ham repeaters in SoCal, and when he gets bored with those he hits a GMRS repeater or two. He's very recognizable because he uses the same script on all of them.

Are you expecting a lot of pedestrian traffic IN the attic?

Is this for AMSAT?