Waste of money or worth it?
I have thousands in good ham radio equipment. Is there a place for this?
I picked up one of these.
A Boafeng UV-3 from Ebay, direct from Hong Kong. It took eight days to get here.
This unit covers VHF and UHF. It comes open so it is possible to transmit out of the legal ham bands (be careful)
The transmit power is 2 watts. Comes with a charger, ear phone mic, strap and manual. With the software you can cross band transmit. (ie receive on UHF transmit on VHF) It has a tiny LED light that would help to read a map only.
Observations:
Its tiny, about .5 inch taller than a tube of chapstick.
Its cheap, the case would crack with a fall.
The battery cover is **** and hard to get on correctly.
The volume is loud, too loud.
Programming by hand is no harder than any other HT.
I programmed a handful of VHF and UHF freqs and have run it for a few days.
I made contact using a local repeater to a friend 15 to 18 miles away mobile.
I listened in on the local emergency response net, and all the major repeaters in the area.
I listened to the security team talk at the hospital my wife works at.
I have listened to two local life flight helicopters in route.
Local EMS
Local school bus traffic
NOAA weather
Local fire station near my house
And two boys playing commando on GMRS.
So is there a place for it? Hell yes. If you can afford good radios buy them, but for $46 you have the ability to monitor emergency traffic. Most emergency traffic will be on VHF using local repeaters. Where does this radio fit in with me? I have no problems giving it to my girls to throw into the basket of there bike when they are at the park a half mile away. I will use it as a back up to my phone when in a tree stand. I chose yellow on purpose, cheap and easy to find for my kids or in the woods. They come in many colors.
If you have no radio now, this puts you in a better position.
I have thousands in good ham radio equipment. Is there a place for this?
I picked up one of these.
A Boafeng UV-3 from Ebay, direct from Hong Kong. It took eight days to get here.
This unit covers VHF and UHF. It comes open so it is possible to transmit out of the legal ham bands (be careful)
The transmit power is 2 watts. Comes with a charger, ear phone mic, strap and manual. With the software you can cross band transmit. (ie receive on UHF transmit on VHF) It has a tiny LED light that would help to read a map only.
Observations:
Its tiny, about .5 inch taller than a tube of chapstick.
Its cheap, the case would crack with a fall.
The battery cover is **** and hard to get on correctly.
The volume is loud, too loud.
Programming by hand is no harder than any other HT.
I programmed a handful of VHF and UHF freqs and have run it for a few days.
I made contact using a local repeater to a friend 15 to 18 miles away mobile.
I listened in on the local emergency response net, and all the major repeaters in the area.
I listened to the security team talk at the hospital my wife works at.
I have listened to two local life flight helicopters in route.
Local EMS
Local school bus traffic
NOAA weather
Local fire station near my house
And two boys playing commando on GMRS.
So is there a place for it? Hell yes. If you can afford good radios buy them, but for $46 you have the ability to monitor emergency traffic. Most emergency traffic will be on VHF using local repeaters. Where does this radio fit in with me? I have no problems giving it to my girls to throw into the basket of there bike when they are at the park a half mile away. I will use it as a back up to my phone when in a tree stand. I chose yellow on purpose, cheap and easy to find for my kids or in the woods. They come in many colors.
If you have no radio now, this puts you in a better position.