today we're gonna take a look at the Baofeng UV-5Rx3 Triband handheld radio. Stay tuned for more.
hi I'm MichaelKB9VBR your hosts for ham-radio Q&A
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today we're at the Edgar gas and steam engine show in central Wisconsin and
when I'm at large events like this it's always good to have some radio
communications with your party so that you can split up or if you get separated
you can get reconnected but at large events sometimes can be
hard to find a clear frequency so you might want to consider using something
such as the baofeng uv5 rx-3 this is a tri-band HT it has two meters the 220
band and also seventy centimeters all in one radio and what's great about 220 is
that not a whole lot of activity on it so you're almost guaranteed to have your
own personal private frequency so let's take a little bit deeper look at the
Baofeng UV-5rx3 tri-band d HT I'm a bit of a 220 aficionado but decent 220
equipment can be hard to come by the one point two five meter band has some
unique properties blending the propagation advantages of the 2 meter
and 70 centimeter bands so 220 radios and repeater systems tend to have better
range in coverage than similar VHF and uhf systems with that said I was excited
when radiodiity approached me to take a look at their new handheld the baofeng
UV-5RX3 the UV-5RX3 is a tri-band radio with coverage on a 2 meter 70
centimeter and one point two five meter or two twenty two megahertz band by all
respects theUV-5RX3 is like any other Baofeng UV-5R series radio it has a
familiar case design although the radio oddity version adds some snazzy trim
but it has the standard list of features in
128 channels dual watch function FM broadcast radio reception CT CSS dcs
tone burst and DTMF calling frequency and channel scan 5 and 1 watts of
transmit power box and of course a tricolor display new to this radio is
the tri-band function which includes operation on the two amateur 2 meter 70
centimeter and one point two five meter bands that's great news for 220 lovers
like myself but there is a bit of caveat while the radio works on all three bands
the stock antenna will not so ready oddity includes a separate 220 antenna
in the box and you'll have to switch out the dual band antenna for the 220
antenna if you want to work on that band both of the antennas look quite similar
so you need to look at the bottom to see which band each antenna is for this is
kind of goofy so I picked up the nagoya NA-320A tri band antenna the nagoya is
a great aftermarket antenna but at 17 and a half inches long it's kind of
unwieldly for this diminutive radio what's nice about radio out of these
baofeng UV-5RX3 radio is that since it has the same form factor and case as
other Baofeng radios it's compatible with all the accessories such as the
programming cable speaker mics earpieces and high-capacity batteries that's kind
of nice because if you have multiple Baofeng radios you can use the same
charger saving space on the shelf programming a radio is pretty easy you
can download the UV-5RX3 programming application from the radio oddity site
or better yet use chirp to program the radio I went the chirp route plugging in
the radio reading the program file from the radio and then cutting and pasting
the frequency list from one of my other radios into the UV-5RX3 with a couple
of quick edits for the 220 band I was on the air in no time
and on the air controls are the same as other buffing radios the buttons are in
the same location an operation is similar to every other model that's good
news if you're used to a bough thing this radio will feel comfortable in the hand
so let's get down to the good and the bad the good is inclusion of the 1.25
222 megahertz band the 220 band needs more operators on it and this radio
makes getting on this band accessible and affordable also good is
compatibility with most other Baofeng accessories batteries and chargers
finally it's great that the radio can be programmed with chirp getting you on the
air faster now for the bad. the radio only has 128 channels this may not
matter for most people but you can sure fill up those channels fast if you live
or travel in an urban area and speaking of urban areas the radio is
more susceptible to interference as it uses direct RF sampling receive which
lacks the filtering you'll find in a more conventional superheterodyne
receiver but that's a shortcoming with all of these Chinese radios also you're
gonna need to swap antennas for the 220 band so final word on radio oddities
Baofeng UV-5RX3 s that this is an affordable radio and I'd recommend
picking one up just so you can get on the 220 band especially if you have a
220 repeater in your neighborhood as for myself I'm gonna add this to my camping
kit so I have a second radio when I travel and with that having 220 is gonna
be a bonus for me for more articles and information be sure to check out my blog
at www.jpole-antenna.com if you enjoyed this video give me a big thumbs up I really
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thanks for watching that Michael KB9VBR have a great day and 73