2m & 70cm (440) Bluetooth Programmer for your Baofeng!

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Clyde

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Most Hams have grown a little tired of the difficulty in programming Baofeng radios as well as many other Chinese made radios. Thankfully TIDRADIO has come out with a simple device to make programming these radios extremely simple! TIDRADIO has made a Bluetooth Programming device for programming that works with both Android and iPhones. The TIDRADIO Bluetooth Programming device costs only $13.00 at the time of this video.

 
When I got my baofeng programming cable, I had to trim plastic off it so it would fit in the socket properly. And that wasn't the end of the issues... Like robin said above, the included software was worthless to me as well. I ended up downloading Chirp. It is a USB bootable linux OS specifically for programming these radios and it actually works quite well and is easy to understand.
 
Most Hams have grown a little tired of the difficulty in programming Baofeng radios as well as many other Chinese made radios.

The Yaesu VX6 is still in production and it's bullet proof. I would recommend it to any new ham along with the Diamond SRH 711 antenna as a replacement for the stock one. They aren't very expensive in relative terms and are waterproof. Yes you can drop them in the river and they will work fine.
 
The Yaesu VX6 is still in production and it's bullet proof. I would recommend it to any new ham along with the Diamond SRH 711 antenna as a replacement for the stock one. They aren't very expensive in relative terms and are waterproof. Yes you can drop them in the river and they will work fine.

I love quality stuff.. but it’s hard to justify spending $300 on a radio, when I can get ones that work ok for $30.
 
I love quality stuff.. but it’s hard to justify spending $300 on a radio, when I can get ones that work ok for $30.
I just shot this video to show everyone the difference an extra $270 makes.


btw... those harmonics count toward the stated output power :) I should have compared the strength of the fundamentals at a precise distance.... Next time. Edit: I should have tested bandwidth too :(
 
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I just shot this video to show everyone the difference an extra $270 makes.


btw... those harmonics count toward the stated output power :) I should have compared the strength of the fundamentals at a precise distance.... Next time. Edit: I should have tested bandwidth too :(

Baofeng is Chinese for "Spread Spectrum Transceiver". The ARRL Labs did a comparison amongst all the "Chinese" HT's and Baofeng failed miserably every time. If you want a $30 child's toy, go for it. I've been in this hobby over thirty years and can separate the wheat from the chaff. I'll stick with the big three.
 
They have a very poor front end too, which means that on receive the transciever is easily overpowered by strong FM signals on adjacent frequencies. One minute you are listening to a conversation and the next splatter from adjacent frequencies overpowers it and wipes it out. The novice will have no idea of this though and go around blaming other operators for the failings of their own equipment.

Here, on a preppers forum, of all places, we should look to efficiency and quality as our benchmark.
 
I took my video down because these guys had the attenuator needed to do the test the proper way. I used an antenna to pick up the signals, and as everyone knows, antennas have different responses to different frequencies and that will affect the reading. I didn't have an attenuator that can handle 5w so I had to compromise. However, these guys had nearly the same result (give or take a few dB).

 

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