USB-C is nice but have you ever discovered the majority of today C charger are Not conpatable with small hand helds?

[dhardin53]

 

Not all USB-C are compatible. The problem is that high Amp chargers will not charge most of today HT's. Here is the fix. Get several; they are cheap. I got some clear wire shrink wrap to protect them. 

 

[OffRoaderX]

I have literally never experienced this, and I've had quite a few radios.

[dhardin53]

Our phones are Qi 2 and above. My car and truck have high-output charging ports. These will not change any of my many USB-C radios. Yes, around the house, I have several dedicated chargers for the new USB-C radios that work well. However, we also have many Qi2.2 chargers for our phones. This small chip enables high-output chargers to work with the radios, allowing me to charge at any time, anywhere. 

[OffRoaderX]

1 hour ago, dhardin53 said:

My car and truck have high-output charging ports

Sounds like a car/truck problem, but glad you found the fix.

[HHD1]

I have a 200 watt, 8 port usb charging block.  The lowest wattage port is 20 W.  Highest is 65 W.  And I've never had an issue charging my HT's with it.  Granted, I do prefer to use the charging cradles.  This issue seems strange to me.  Even my vehicle charge ports work fine with my radios.

[WRTC928]

I've never encountered this issue.

[LeoG]

Try a different cable.  Some cables are designed more for data transfer and others for power transfer.

[Steinmetz]

some chargers offering higher voltages require handshaking with the device to negotiate capabilities. 

likely all the batteries and chinese radios just expect a 5v charger and can't communicate their needs 

[WRUE951]

never once had an issue charging any of my USB-C HT's with any cable..  And i have dozens. 

[WRUE951]

I finally found one of these nifty adapters..   If you can get your hands on one, I highly recommend them.  

[TerriKennedy]

USB has been plagued with user annoyances and interoperability problems since Day 1.

I had high hopes for USB-C, but it has its own issues.

Ignoring all of that past stuff, a USB-A charger with a USB-A to USB-C cable will generally charge USB-C devices (in some cases, more slowly than with a USB-C charger).

USB-C chargers are a different issue. The only officially sanctioned USB-C to USB-C cable is male/male. As you can imagine, that cable with a charger on either end with both plugged into wall outlets could lead to Bad Things. So the default of a USB-C charger is to not provide any power until asked.

There are two ways to ask.

The first is a simple set of resistors on the CC1/CC2 pins of the USB-C connector (CC is "Charge control"). You can get "classic" 5V at 500mA with the appropriate resistors. But a surprising number of companies who should know better get this wrong - for example, the first few production runs of the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B computer had their charging pins set to "I'm a pair of passive headphones and don't need any power". A number of Baofeng batteries were also manufactured with incorrect resistor values and won't get power to charge.

The second is with a dedicated power control IC, which can negotiate with the USB-C charger for higher voltage and/or current. This is a more expensive solution and isn't normally seen on inexpensive devices like Chinese radios / batteries.

Another "gotcha" with USB-C is that some manufacturers violate the spec. One company who shall remain nameless ships a charger that looks like USB-C but always outputs 20V at 3A. Plugging that charger into an unsuspecting device will destroy the device. 

[WSKN763]

It's one of those "KISS" things that's not simple. USB-C chargers that support either "Power Delivery" or "Qualcomm Quick Charge" or other brand-specific fast charging, and the cables that work with them, will not charge GMRS (or ham) radio batteries unless they have a non-fast charge port that is 5 volts at 12 watts or less. That USB port will be a USB-A port. You can also use a cable with a USB-C connector on both ends if it is specifically a 480mbps cable, such as the USB-C to USB-C cable that ships with some Anytone D168UV HTs. *I THINK* that is USB 3.0. I have a USB-C to USB-C cable of an unknown brand that will charge radio batteries from a USB-C port on my computer, but a USB-C cable that supports 10,000mbps will not charge radio batteries. Rechargeable flashlights have the same "problem".

 

(I am not a college educated radio tech or battery engineer. I have not slept in a hotel with the word "express" in it's name. But I do have 9 HTs - ham and GMRS - that have batteries that support USB-C charging.)

[tcp2525]

On 11/5/2025 at 9:40 AM, WRUE951 said:

I finally found one of these nifty adapters..   If you can get your hands on one, I highly recommend them.  

Looks like Apple is at it again, trying to lock their users into the ecosystem.

[WRYZ926]

3 hours ago, tcp2525 said:

Looks like Apple is at it again, trying to lock their users into the ecosystem.

I still have a mini display port to VGA adaptor I used with my 2010 Mac mini that one had to purchase separately just to use a monitor with your Mac mini.

I have found with USB-C cables that some are for data transfer only and some are for power delivery only. The good cable will do both.

[tcp2525]

1 hour ago, WRYZ926 said:

I still have a mini display port to VGA adaptor I used with my 2010 Mac mini that one had to purchase separately just to use a monitor with your Mac mini.

I have found with USB-C cables that some are for data transfer only and some are for power delivery only. The good cable will do both.

That's true with USB-C, but avoidable if one knows how to select the proper cable for the task at hand. The biggest problem is people that are unaware of what cable they have and charge their phones using a public charging station and run the risk of having their phone compromised. If your cable does both charging and data you can buy a data blocker adapter that cuts the data while allowing charging. But, for most people, none of this is even an issue.