Baofeng Bf-r5 Review
Pit Gebeyaw
Today my UV-5R arrived. Time for the first impressions, and a few measurements. For a start, comparing the new UV-5R with the UV-3R seems pointless. The full-featured UV-5R is a totally different ball game, and comparing this handheld with a Wouxun or a Quansheng would make much more sense.
In the box
The transceiver itself, one 1800mAH Li-Ion battery, a sturdy belt clip, a desktop charger with separate power supply, a dual band antenna, a headset, a small wrist strap and a manual.
First steps
The manual states that the battery is not pre-charged and needs to be charged for about five hours. The lamp went green here after spending just two hours in the charger. The first thing I had to do was diving into the menu to set the channel spacing to 12.5KHz on VHF, and 6.25KHz on UHF. Piece of cake. Then I programmed the repeater shifts used in the Netherlands: 600KHz on VHF, and 1.6MHz on UHF. No problems at all.
This might seem odd (and it is, in a way), but this system does allow you to make odd splits. When you have the voice prompt switched on, you can actually hear a female say whether you store a transmit or a receive frequency when accessing menu 27.
Sensitivity, selectivity
Sensitivity appears to be on par with any other quality handheld. Contrary to the UV-3R, the new UV-5R is perfectly capable of handling strong out-of-band signals. That is a relief; bad front ends and RX filters would be a real deal breaker for me.
Hans, thanks for the review. But a very silly question here, as I am new to amateur radio. I purchased an extra UV-5R to leave at my mountain cabin for emergencies. But in order to prolong the battery life, I am planning to remove the battery from the UV-5R and put it in the refrigerator. Will I lose all of my memory channels, or are they stored in flash memory?
Thank you for the review, I have had mine for about 2 weeks and am quite pleased with it. I have the UV-3 and Wouxun UV-2D as well. All three seem to be great values and do what they need to do well. I had been out of the hobby for years and recently pulled out my FT-470 and needed a battery for it and while searching I found the Baofeng UV-3R for less than a battery cost for the 470. I bought it and since bought the others since they cost so little. The flexability they offer in programming through the bands allow me to use them for so much more than just ham use.
Your English is excellent and as someone else mentioned better than most native users. Take care and thanks again for confirming what I thought about my UV-5R
The only thing I can think of is that you tried to enter frequencies from VFO B. Only frequencies from VFO A can be programmed. Stay in VFO A and use the Band key to switch from VHF to UHF before programming.
Just a note on the screws which hold the belt clip. On the first radio I bought, the included 6mm screws were too short, so I had to purchase 8mm long M2.5 screws. But the second radio I bought came with 8mm screws.
Also, there has been mention to be very careful when transmitting because you can inadvertently broadcast on some of the emergency channels that you might be monitoring. Can you comment on this and possibly suggest a way to avoid this?
Lastly, I have a Macintosh computer (running Snow Leopard 10.6.8). Apparently, the Baofeng software only works on the PC (Windows). Is there any hope for my situation? If not, can I get by programming manually?
In the end it all depends on where you live. My home is located in the middle of all kinds of radio towers, transmitting on all kinds of VHF/UHF frequencies. One of those spits out 20 kW, just above the frequency range of an average HT. The Wouxun is one out of two Chinese hand-helds able to cope with that amount of cr@p. The Quansheng TG-UV2 is the second one.
Hello, I try to connect the 5R to the PC via audio cables (to test the Free Radio Network).
The bigger jack (MIC on the 5R) is OK to connect to the PC speakers jack, but i cannot recognize the smaller jack (SP on the 5R). Which size can I ask it for? Is there a cable from this jack to the PC line-in/mic or any adaptor?
Thank you!
Hi
Ive just ordered the uv-r5 and will use the programming cable
Ive already put the software on my computer to play around abit and when i click save it comes up star dat and will not save what do i need to do to save
Regards
Albin
Hans,
Heb hier sinds een maand of twee een UV5RE en ik vindt het een prima porto zeker in vergelijking met de oude UV3R uit de eerste serie. Hij is iets minder dan mijn QUANGSHENG TGUV2 maar is voor zijn prijs een prima ding. Ook makkelijk om bij de lokale chinees wat te eten te bestellen. Doe mij maar nummer 45 v/d kaart!
monteren op een kunststof motor is altijd een kwestie van experimenteren. Ik rijd zelf ook motor, en gebruikte een eenvoudig systeem om bijna elke antenne te laten werken: n draadje vanaf het frame verbinden met de afscherming van de coax.
De eenvoudigste en goedkoopste methode is het bestellen van een SO-239 chassisdeel (bij voorkeur rond, scheelt 4x M3 gaatjes boren) en deze op de koffer te monteren. Daarna soldeer je er coax aan en verbind je de buitenmatel met het frame van de motorfiets.
I belive your wrong on a couple of points on this product i feel that manualy entering the codes and saving them to memory was very easy and this is the 1st cb ive ever used and like i said i belive its alot better than waht your saying and as for the call button being easy to hit by mistake only if you got the fattest figures known to man its simple well made easy to use when shown how good strong and comes with some cool extras the only downside to the whole baofeng company is that they only do 2-way walkie talkie type deals they need a car one or you know one for you to be able to sit at home and yarn to your mates to instead of the walkie talkie thing but other than that for my very 1st 2way its great a+
Hi: Great Site ..My problem is I can not get a Repeater programmed into a second memory location without changing the first memory location. Also I can overwrite info into the first location after it has been programmed. When the second memory channel is programmed it replaces the info in the first memory location. I am programming manually but pretty sure it is being done correctly as I do get the prompts that the receive and transmit frequencies have been stored Any history of other people experiencing this problem? Thanks
Great review and great site! I received my radio today and was baffled by the poor instructions. I took the web for better explanations of how to program it. I am an absolute novice but I purchased my radio to act as a simple 80ch UHF radio and to simply monitor emergency channels such as local police etc.
I have programmed the frequencies into the memory for the UHF but im absolutely stumped as to how to store the repeater frequencies into he radio. Im in Australia so the parameters may be different. Any suggestions of where I could find the info?