Boefeng UV-5RM + GPS

[WSKY567]

Ok,  I really have no business doing a review.  I'm too new to all of this.   but.......   I picked one up and noticed a couple of nice additions to the 5RM series and searched and found nothing on this unit yet here.  

So.....

Radio itself functions identically to the 5RM as far as I can tell.  What is added is two programable side keys with useful options.  Added Zones which I find pretty sweet.  Easy and quick to switch between zones to actively work with on radio.  Each zone will hold up to 64 channels.  Sweet for scanning a single band or group of channels.  A new menu system that is sectioned making getting to each setting much faster and easier.  GPS receiver is pretty nice.  Nailed my home address from within the house.  Provides standard notation of Direction/degrees/minutes/seconds which is easy to cross reference with Google maps or Garmin devices.  Oh and a color screen.  Got a speaker mic with the unit that produces pretty decent audio in both directions.  Uses the same battery as the 5RM which was a plus for me as I had purchased extra batteries.  

No flashlight.....  What will people do?!!!!!

Is it really any good?  No idea.  Ask me in five years.  

[Elmo777]

I have this radio in the Ar-5rRM version, which is an extremely reliable and capable radio.  Some will argue that it has less then desirable Spurious emissions, whatever!!!!!  I think for the cost, Baofeng has been stepping it lately and i hope it continues.  My daily Handheld that i use most often is a Wouxun KG Q10g, and it is all because i subscribe to notarubicon and i seem to not be able to walk away and not make another purchase i probably don't need.   latest edition is a Baofeng DM32-DMR, Once again Baofeng is stepping up their game a bit here. 

[WSKY567]

43 minutes ago, Elmo777 said:

Some will argue that it has less then desirable Spurious emissions,

I have an oscilloscope and some day I'll pick up a dummy load and see what the signal actually looks like.  I've seen a few Youtube reviews that show some Baofeng radios producing harmonics but they don't even look for sub-harmonics.  In principal, I get the concern but I question the practical impact.  I understand that the FCC has set acceptable limits to emissions outside of prime frequency but I'm not sure how arbitrary those limits are or their derivative.  I don't have a sense that I am causing any substantial problems in using these radios.  

[WRYS709]

Jay Summet’s Guide to APRS GPS Beaconing

[WRTC928]

As far as I can tell, the 5RM Plus GPS and the 5RH Pro GPS are essentially identical in terms of their features. However, IIRC, the 5RM Plus GPS is supported by CHIRP but the 5RH Plus GPS is not, which implies some sort of difference internally. I have the 5RH Pro GPS and I like it a lot. It has all the features I like of the regular 5RM with the addition of zones so I can group my channels and only scan the ones in a given zone. I haven't had any reason so far to care about the GPS or APRS, but I guess it's a nice thing to have. It certainly doesn't hurt anything, and I don't have to use it if I don't want to. 

[WRYS709]

1 hour ago, WRTC928 said:

As far as I can tell, the 5RM Plus GPS and the 5RH Pro GPS are essentially identical in terms of their features. However, IIRC, the 5RM Plus GPS is supported by CHIRP but the 5RH Plus GPS is not, which implies some sort of difference internally. I have the 5RH Pro GPS and I like it a lot. It has all the features I like of the regular 5RM with the addition of zones so I can group my channels and only scan the ones in a given zone. I haven't had any reason so far to care about the GPS or APRS, but I guess it's a nice thing to have. It certainly doesn't hurt anything, and I don't have to use it if I don't want to. 

Unless they started supporting it last week Chirp does not work for either of these radios that have APRS features, while RT Systems does 

I believe Chirp is on the verge of supporting a Baofeng with APRS and that is the BTech BF6-F8HP

[WRTC928]

3 hours ago, WRYS709 said:

Unless they started supporting it last week Chirp does not work for either of these radios that have APRS features, while RT Systems does 

I believe Chirp is on the verge of supporting a Baofeng with APRS and that is the BTech BF6-F8HP

Okay, my memory was faulty. I don't have the 5RM version, so I got it wrong. I have the RT Systems software and it works fine. I think the RTS software also supports the 5RM Plus GPS, so maybe they are actually the same radio.