"Asking for a friend" UV5R issue

[WRHS218]

A friend has purchased a couple of Baofeng UV5R radios for SHTF. He is not a radio person. He has entered a frequency he just wants to be able to listen to, however he can also can also TX on that frequency which would not be a good thing to do. Is there a way to save that frequency to a memory channel and then turn off TX from the radio's keypad?

Let me get all of this out of the way so folks don't have to give me the standard responses:

That radio is a CCP - Yes, I know.

Get a different radio - Yes, I know.

Use CHIRP to program it - Not going to happen. No computer.

It is a piece of crap radio - Yes, I know.

Use the  Baofeng CPS - Not going to happen. No computer.

Get a different radio - Yes, I know.

Is he a licensed Amateur Operator - The regulations have been discussed with him.

Baofengs suck and so do the people who buy them - OK

Read the manual - I did. Can't find anything about that.

It is a POS CCP, what do you expect - Yes, thank you

Use the search function - I have. Both on this site and others.

Now that we have all of that out of the way... I don't own one of these and I don't know anyone near me that does. This person lives over two hours from me and I can't just pop over to figure it out. The real answer may very well be "You can't get there from here", but I just don't know.

[Socalgmrs]

It’s sad you have to put all that stuff but I get it.  Many people just won’t admit cost is nearly nothing and most radios are all the same.  
 

to answer your question unfortunately no.  From the radio face you can not dis able tx on any frequency or saved channel.  But I’ve listened to many frequencies I can’t tx in and never accidentally hit the ptt button.  And even if he did hit the button by accident no one will break down the door to get him.  

[SteveShannon]

28 minutes ago, WRHS218 said:

A friend has purchased a couple of Baofeng UV5R radios for SHTF. He is not a radio person. He has entered a frequency he just wants to be able to listen to, however he can also can also TX on that frequency which would not be a good thing to do. Is there a way to save that frequency to a memory channel and then turn off TX from the radio's keypad?

Let me get all of this out of the way so folks don't have to give me the standard responses:

That radio is a CCP - Yes, I know.

Get a different radio - Yes, I know.

Use CHIRP to program it - Not going to happen. No computer.

It is a piece of crap radio - Yes, I know.

Use the  Baofeng CPS - Not going to happen. No computer.

Get a different radio - Yes, I know.

Is he a licensed Amateur Operator - The regulations have been discussed with him.

Baofengs suck and so do the people who buy them - OK

Read the manual - I did. Can't find anything about that.

It is a POS CCP, what do you expect - Yes, thank you

Use the search function - I have. Both on this site and others.

Now that we have all of that out of the way... I don't own one of these and I don't know anyone near me that does. This person lives over two hours from me and I can't just pop over to figure it out. The real answer may very well be "You can't get there from here", but I just don't know.

I have one. I went through all of the menus and I didn’t see anyplace to inhibit transmit. Sorry. Thanks for trying to do the right thing. 

[dosw]

38 minutes ago, WRHS218 said:

A friend has purchased a couple of Baofeng UV5R radios for SHTF. He is not a radio person. He has entered a frequency he just wants to be able to listen to, however he can also can also TX on that frequency which would not be a good thing to do. Is there a way to save that frequency to a memory channel and then turn off TX from the radio's keypad?

Let me get all of this out of the way so folks don't have to give me the standard responses:

That radio is a CCP - Yes, I know.

Get a different radio - Yes, I know.

Use CHIRP to program it - Not going to happen. No computer.

It is a piece of crap radio - Yes, I know.

Use the  Baofeng CPS - Not going to happen. No computer.

Get a different radio - Yes, I know.

Is he a licensed Amateur Operator - The regulations have been discussed with him.

Baofengs suck and so do the people who buy them - OK

Read the manual - I did. Can't find anything about that.

It is a POS CCP, what do you expect - Yes, thank you

Use the search function - I have. Both on this site and others.

Now that we have all of that out of the way... I don't own one of these and I don't know anyone near me that does. This person lives over two hours from me and I can't just pop over to figure it out. The real answer may very well be "You can't get there from here", but I just don't know.

Given your constraint of not being able to run Chirp nor the Baofeng software, no, the answer is that you cannot turn off transmitting on a given frequency from the keypad. The best you can do is set the power level to the lowest possible, so that in the event that you accidentally push the button, you're only outputting a half watt or so, which will still propagate much further than you expect when you don't want it to, and not nearly as far as you expect when you do want it to.

You could zip-tie a 2L bottle cap over the PTT button.

I can buy a set of scalpels on Amazon for $59, but in a SHTF situation I wouldn't be performing an emergency appendectomy without some practice and training. That's the luxury a license buys you; the ability to prepare not only in terms of equipment, but also in terms of experimentation, learning, knowledge.

Update: I see that you are licensed for GMRS. I misinterpreted the remark about "Is he a licensed Amateur Operator." Apologies. I'll leave the comment here though because the sentiment remains; when people are preparing for the worst, practice in preparation is essential. That's why we have fire drills in schools and office buildings, it's why we test backup strategies in data centers, etc. Anyway, carry on.

A cheap laptop would probably suffice for running Chirp; a used <$200 model even, but you would need the data cable. Unfortunately when listing a set of constraints, eventually it's possible to constrain oneself into an unsolvable problem.

[WRHS218]

26 minutes ago, dosw said:

I see that you are licensed for GMRS

Yes, I am GMRS and HAM licensed. He is brand new to anything radio and just starting out thinking about emergency comms with his family. Thanks for the response.

[amaff]

As a work around, you could program the radio with an offset to "nothing" (or at least, nothing super critical). Make sure you're not stepping on other allocations, set the transmit power to low, no tones, and it would have a similar effect. It, at a minimum, wouldn't be stepping on the frequency they're listening in on.

Depending on the frequency space you're in, it may or may not be viable, but I'm just spitballing.

Chirp is the right answer because you can disable it there, but if that's not an option, maybe this is the next best thing.

 

Accidentally keying up once in the wrong place (...so long as it's not, like, a public safety frequency) isn't really the end of the world. So long as they don't make a habit of it, it would be fine regardless.

[UncleYoda]

1 hour ago, WRHS218 said:

 Is there a way to save that frequency to a memory channel and then turn off TX from the radio's keypad?

You can set the TX frequency to something that won't cause trouble.  For non-hams, FRS ch. 1-7 are good choices on UHF and MURS is good for VHF.  Either make sure offset is zero to manually enter TX freq or calculate offset to get desired TX freq.  Also low power like someone already mentioned.

[OffRoaderX]

1 hour ago, WRHS218 said:

• Let me get all of this out of the way so folks don't have to give me the standard responses:
• That radio is a CCP - Yes, I know.
• Get a different radio - Yes, I know.
• Use CHIRP to program it - Not going to happen. No computer.
• It is a piece of crap radio - Yes, I know.
• Use the  Baofeng CPS - Not going to happen. No computer.
• Get a different radio - Yes, I know.
• Is he a licensed Amateur Operator - The regulations have been discussed with him.
• Baofengs suck and so do the people who buy them - OK
• Read the manual - I did. Can't find anything about that.
• It is a POS CCP, what do you expect - Yes, thank you
• Use the search function - I have. Both on this site and others.

Its sad that so many on this forum are so predictable that this is necessary... Hopefully this serves as a wakeup call for "some people"....

[WRKW566]

I have a $10 laptop from Goodwill that runs windows 7 starter. Let me see if Chirp will load and run on it.... <working, working working>

This was not a quick process. The Acer "netbook" I did this with is painfully slow But it works! (I may keep this mess in a bag for when I'm not at home and get board.)

Installed the Legacy version of Chirp, and I was able to get a download from my UV-5R on the first try.

Windows 7 recognized the Prolific chip in my programming cable without having to walk the installation by hand like on my XP laptop. My cable is a bargain basement cable from Ebay. I don't remember how much it cost, I have had the thing for most of and probably 10 years.

You would be "out" the cash for gas, a laptop and a programming cable.

What I did not try was setting the radio up to not transmit on selected frequency. My UV-21 Pro V2 will accept this control but I ain't bothered with the UV-5R as I don't intend to use it anymore. The UV-21 is a much nicer user interface. All of the amateur frequencies I like to listen to are TX-ah-no-no on my radios. When you press the key the radio beeps at you and does not go into transmit. I like to listen to the Insomniac Net and the Alaska Net for the AI generated questions... and sometimes listen to the people who respond throughout the evening.

Edited October 21 by WRKW566
additional comment and spelling

[WRKW566]

Just looked at the serial number on my UV-5R. S.N.: 2012101415

I guess this makes me an "early adopter" of the UV-5R so I have been hated for longer than many people!

[WRXB215]

@WRHS218 If you can set duplex to off from the key pad, that will do the trick.

[amaff]

1 hour ago, WRXB215 said:

@WRHS218 If you can set duplex to off from the key pad, that will do the trick.

Menu 25 (SFT-D, ie: Offset) does have an "OFF" setting, but I'm pretty sure that just means no offset. I don't believe it has the same effect as setting the Duplex to Off through Chirp. Might have to play with that some tomorrow.

[WRHS218]

Thank you , everyone, for your responses. I appreciate the help.

[WRHS218]

UPDATE:

Talked to my friend this morning and told him there are work arounds for his issue. He said he was just going to put them back in the box until he could figure out how to do that. Then he said he just wanted to be able to talk to his family. I told him about the GMRS versions of Baofengs (he likes the price point) so he is going to send the UV5R radios back and get a couple of the GMRS versions, and, get a government permission slip. He travels with his family a lot so he can use them for car to car comms as well. Sometimes GMRS is the answer for keeping it simple.

[WSEQ698]

On 10/20/2024 at 10:50 PM, amaff said:

Menu 25 (SFT-D, ie: Offset) does have an "OFF" setting, but I'm pretty sure that just means no offset. I don't believe it has the same effect as setting the Duplex to Off through Chirp. Might have to play with that some tomorrow.

He means when programming in chirp, you can't do it from the radio by itsself. I do this on my ar-5rm since I'm not a ham. That ptt button is very clicky and i love to push it accidentally, lol

[nokones]

That radio is not type-accepted for use on Part 95, subpart E, and any Part 90 freqs.  It can only be used on Part 97 freqs.

[WRHS218]

1 hour ago, nokones said:

That radio is not type-accepted for use on Part 95, subpart E, and any Part 90 freqs.  It can only be used on Part 97 freqs.

Yeah, I forgot to add that to the list of comments that didn't need to be made. My friend has moved on to a type accepted GMRS radio. Thanks.