Baofeng BF-888s for GMRS

[HHD1]

This is my opinion.

The BF-888s by Baofeng makes for a handy GMRS HT.  Paired with a Nagoya NA-701G antenna, I have found RX and TX to be quite clear.  It's 16 channels can be programmed via CHIRP.  It has 5 watts of power, so I set up 15 of its channels to GMRS 1-7 and 15-22.  The 16th channel can be set up to whatever you like or left blank.  When scanning is enabled through CHIRP, channel 16 becomes your scanner.

The radio is super lightweight, which I find ideal for carrying on my belt. It's very inexpensive.  The last 2 pack with charging docks that I purchased was $19.99.  So, accidents are not very heartbreaking.  In fact, the Nagoya 701g antenna is only a dollar cheaper than the 2 pack of these radios.

Are there better radios out there? Absolutely.  Is this radio part 95? Absolutely not.  But with the proper programming, one can stay within all the other "rules".

There are no fancy screens and buttons.  Just a knob for volume, and a knob to select channel.  The voice prompt lets you know what channel you're on.  This is an ideal option for helping family members that are not tech savvy get into GMRS with very little to confuse them.

I just wanted to give my personal review of what I think is a great little budget HT.  It has become my everyday carry for home and work.

May the haters now commence their hate speeches.

[Socalgmrs]

Agreed.  One of the ranch’s we work with run them.  Super easy to use, super cheap. They have like 50of them.    They do the job and work with the ranch repeater.  The only issue is only one channel to monitor so I can’t use simplex and monitor the repeater.  But I always bring my own dual watch radio anyway.  .  

[WSDE760]

You've chosen to ignore content by Socalgmrs. 

[HHD1]

1 hour ago, WSDE760 said:

You've chosen to ignore content by Socalgmrs. 

He actually left a nice comment this time.

[Socalgmrs]

2 minutes ago, HHD1 said:

He actually left a nice comment this time.

If it had been about a midland or a woxoun things would be very different.  Plus it was more neutral than nice.  

[HHD1]

1 minute ago, Socalgmrs said:

If it had been about a midland or a woxoun things would be very different.  

While I don't have a Woxoun, the one Mildland I do have does kinda suck.  I got it for free so not too big a deal.  It just sits on a shelf with the rest of my collection.  It could be that it's just old and has been abused.  Not sure. Most of my radios are Motorola.  But my Baofengs are my go to's.  BF-888s for GMRS, and AR-5rm for everything.  LOL

[Lscott]

4 hours ago, HHD1 said:

This is my opinion.

The BF-888s by Baofeng makes for a handy GMRS HT.  Paired with a Nagoya NA-701G antenna, I have found RX and TX to be quite clear.  It's 16 channels can be programmed via CHIRP.  It has 5 watts of power, so I set up 15 of its channels to GMRS 1-7 and 15-22.  The 16th channel can be set up to whatever you like or left blank.  When scanning is enabled through CHIRP, channel 16 becomes your scanner.

The radio is super lightweight, which I find ideal for carrying on my belt. It's very inexpensive.  The last 2 pack with charging docks that I purchased was $19.99.  So, accidents are not very heartbreaking.  In fact, the Nagoya 701g antenna is only a dollar cheaper than the 2 pack of these radios.

Are there better radios out there? Absolutely.  Is this radio part 95? Absolutely not.  But with the proper programming, one can stay within all the other "rules".

There are no fancy screens and buttons.  Just a knob for volume, and a knob to select channel.  The voice prompt lets you know what channel you're on.  This is an ideal option for helping family members that are not tech savvy get into GMRS with very little to confuse them.

I just wanted to give my personal review of what I think is a great little budget HT.  It has become my everyday carry for home and work.

May the haters now commence their hate speeches.

My buddy had one of these. He found on-line a code plug hack to get the radio to run on VHF. That did work EXCEPT the harmonics was through the roof on VHF! I heard him fine at work here from our other building. Then for grins I tuned to the third harmonic on the 70cm band. He sounded even louder! Oops. Likely a result of the deviation being 3 times what it was on VHF. He quit using the radio, at least not with the code plug hack for VHF.

[HHD1]

3 minutes ago, Lscott said:

My buddy had one of these. He found on-line a code plug hack to get the radio to run on VHF. That did work EXCEPT the harmonics was through the roof on VHF! I heard him fine at work here from our other building. Then for grins I tuned to the third harmonic on the 70cm band. He sounded even louder! Oops. Likely a result of the deviation being 3 times what it was on VHF. He quit using the radio, at least not with the code plug hack for VHF.

I did a search in the forum on this radio before making my post, and I saw a post of some guy's picture of the insides of an 888 all wired up to what looked like a raspberry Pi .  It was his only post and nobody responded to it. Not sure if I can link it to this thread. 

[HHD1]

It's the first result I get when I search "BF888s".   His post is like 2 years old.

[HHD1]

4 minutes ago, HHD1 said:

I did a search in the forum on this radio before making my post, and I saw a post of some guy's picture of the insides of an 888 all wired up to what looked like a raspberry Pi .  It was his only post and nobody responded to it. Not sure if I can link it to this thread. 

 

[Haroldo]

I have a pair of these BF-888S. At this price, they were the perfect gift for my grandchildren. They use pure simplex for their fun.

When I first used CHIRP, something happened to where the monitor light stayed on constantly, even after re-uploading the original code plug. I found a post on Reddit about these and how to reset them to eliminate the bug. It worked perfectly.

That link is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Baofeng/comments/1givouj/baofeng_bf888s_squelch_issue_led_light_always_on/

 

[WRTC928]

I have a pair of them which I got as a freebee when I bought some stuff from Temu. I haven't done anything with them, but I had the thought of doing exactly what you did. I probably will at some point.

[HHD1]

1 hour ago, WRTC928 said:

I have a pair of them which I got as a freebee when I bought some stuff from Temu. I haven't done anything with them, but I had the thought of doing exactly what you did. I probably will at some point.

If you give it a try, let me know what you think.