This week on ham radio QA your questions answered and boy did we have the questions, so please stick around for more
Hi, I'm Michael KB9VBR are your hosts for ham radio Q&A. I'm at a mission to inspire and educate the amateur radio community
So if this is your first time watching, please consider hitting that subscribe button. Well last month on our channel update. We just celebrated our
5000 subscriber and in the months since then we picked up an additional
2,500 more so thank you very much for that explosive girl with I really appreciate it and welcome to all of our new viewers
Thanks for finding us checking out the channel and sticking around for more videos
So every once a month
I you always do a Q&A session where I kind of dig through all of the questions and comments from
Previous videos and try to follow up on things. So what we'll do is we'll just take a moment pull through the best ones and
Create some discussions. So let's get started
Well, I saw my video is the Baofeng UV-5R radio illegal. It was a lightning rod for discussion
There was a lot of great comments and we're gonna dig into some of the better
Comments that I received on this video and it really just boiled down to two things
So first off the buffing radios while they may be part ninety certified
They're not a type accepted for gmrs or the mers radio a services a Hans Oak
Corrected my statement that I made in the video that I said a Part 90
radio also can be work on gmrs and Hans is correct and I misspoke in that video
So I apologize for that while GL RS frequencies are listed in the party
So fication in rules a part ninety certified radio is not automatically type accepted for part ninety-five
Which is the gmrs band and the same goes with?
immers the mers radio service a
Radio in order to operate on MERS needs to be also part 95 j type accepted or certified
But does this rule stop people from using these radios on those sound fans and radio services?
No, not really. In fact, I'm not the radio police. So I'm not it's not up to me to determine if
The level of risk that's associated with using a non type accepted radio on a particular radio service
So it's it's you're going to have to decide if that risk associated with using these Chinese radio is on those bands is worth it
To you which brings me to the second half of my discussion?
That these radios aren't suitable for the amateur radio service. Well the FCC
With the exception of 10 meter
amplifiers does not certify or type accept any radios for the amateur radio service and the reason is is that
As amateur radio operators, you can build your own radio devices
The only requirement is that the radios have to be an omission below 60 decibels in the 2nd and 3rd harmonic
frequencies and
Unfortunately, a lot of the Chinese radios fail in that aspect
In in the comments as I'm me says the biggest problem with baofeng radios
Is that roughly half of those tested by the ARL over five years?
created spurious emissions at levels far exceeding those permitted by the FCC and
That's a great point spectral purity is a big issue with baofeng radios in order to make a transceiver
So cheap the Quality Control goes right out the window. These radios could be fully compliant
In regards to the spectral purity and the second and third harmonic distortion
but then they wouldn't cost $30. To prove my point on poor quality control
The ARRL tested hundreds of radios over a course of several years at the dayton ham vention and
Found that the chinese radios failed at an order of magnitude higher than other radios
provided by other manufacturers
And I've got a link to that awl article and and those test results in the video description below
so if you want to read more about
Those real-world spectral tests. Please. Check it out
So as a bottom line as a radio amateur operator you alone assume, you know
the risks and liability of using this equipment on the amateur radio bands if you wish to save a
100% in line with part 97 rules
you're gonna need either test your radio equipment to make sure that they the meet the spectral purity require or
You're just gonna not
Use these radios at all
Since testing, you know is out of out of reach for many hams. I know as myself. I don't have any
Frequency spectrum analyzers or anything like that, so
It's gonna be up to you to assume that level of risk in using these radios or avoid them all together
I'll dig more into the issue of FCC compliance and type accepting in a later video
So please stick around for that one and finally now related to this issue
I'm Ian Maddock states "cheaper radios are helping keep the amateur radio hobby alive and making it affordable for everyone"
You know as an interesting point a lot of people and I mean a lot made that same exact supposition in
Defense of Baofeng radios and I'm not sure if that's totally the case
Amateur radio has been growing. In fact, there's more amateurs licensed now than there has been in the US than any other period in time
And I think the truth will be known in a few years when we start to see
License renewals come about is there going to be a lot of attrition and people not renewing their licenses
Or will the easy proliferation of cheap
Radios and equipment help keep people involved in the hobby for a longer period of time we'll have to see on that one
moving along a couple of items from my Baofeng UV-5RX3 review video first off Scott Evans
Notice that my radio had the words etekcity
Right there on there you take city and not Baofeng on the speaker cover and wondered if there was any
Difference between those those models also, he said that living in Australia
He mentioned that the 222 megahertz band isn't available to him
well, this is the radio that
Radioddity shipped to me
Maybe I got a pre-production model or it was something different off the line
I don't really know but the Box in the manual all said buffing on it
And the only thing that didn't was the radio in fact if you open up the back of the radio
It says Baofeng on the on the back
Serial number panel of the radio too. So I
don't know my mind says etekcity and as for a second point
The one point two figure megahertz band one point two five meter band is only available available in itu region 2
Which includes North and South America? So the rest of the world really doesn't have access to the 220 band
With this band only available in part of the world. I think that's a big reason why you don't see more
amateur radio equipment or the 220 band available
Another comment max pepper says for a better antenna for a Baofeng check out signal sticks
at signal signal stuff
And I just like to say well, thanks for the recommendation of the signal sticks
They have a dual band 2 meter 440 HT antenna and also a mono band - 20 antenna available on their website
So I'm gonna check those out and maybe in a future video
We'll have a review of the some of some of these signal sticks antennas
Finally a dial M for micro controller says nice review
You mentioned propagation advantages of the 222 megahertz band. Well, I'm not really familiar with that
Could you give me a quick?
Example of distance to a repeater or that you could hit with watts or compare it with the 2 meter repeater in your area
Or other some other direct comparison
Well, he brings up some good points and I did mention in my review that the - 20 megahertz band does have some unique
propagation characteristics
so
one point two five meter band sits between the 2 meter and the 70 centimeter bands and shares
Many of the properties of both of them the one point two five meter band
Has a working range quite similar to what you're going to find with the two meter band
maybe a little bit more penetration into buildings and
Densely forested areas like the 70 centimeter band has
you know, it's one of the advantages of 220 but like 70 centimeter other 220 is
quite sensitive to tropospheric ducting
But while sporadic ii it can be quite rare on the 70 centimeter band. It's also a little bit more rare on
the 220 band although
Letting you know by by its close approach
Distance from the two meter band you do see a little bit of sporadic II happening and meteor scatter happening on the 220 band
I think the biggest advantage of the 220 band is its relative immunity to
adjacent interference
There's not much if any commercial activity around
The the amateur 1.25 meter band
So in term odd really isn't much of an issue on 220 as it is on say 2 meters or the 70 centimeter band
Finishing up. I just want to announce a couple of things that are going to be happening in the month of september here
first off the wisconsin parks on the air is
the third Saturday in September that's
Saturday September 15, 2018
hams will hit the road and activate
many different state parks and recreation areas within the state of Wisconsin
this should be a really fun event and hopefully it'll become an annual tradition much like the Wisconsin QSO party has I
did a video on the event a couple weeks ago, so if you want to know more about
Wisconsin parks on the air I recommend you just check up that link right up there and
see more for yourself a
Next step is on Saturday a September 22nd is the Chicago FM Club's annual radio fest over at the Boone County
Fairgrounds in of Belvidere, Illinois, this is the largest
Ham fest that you're gonna find in northern, Illinois
So if you're in the area, I recommend heading on over checking it out. I'm gonna have a booth in
Building number one. Also we're gonna do a little bit of camping there in the fairgrounds. So should be a really good weekend
I hope to see you there at the Chicago FM club's Radio Expo
More information on that. Like I said will be on the video description below some former amateur radio articles. Please check out my blog at
www.jpole-antenna.com
Loaded with information there. If you enjoyed this video as always give me the big thumbs up
I really appreciate that got some suggested videos over here that you may find interesting and also don't forget to subscribe
Subscribing is your way to be notified when new videos are produced and released
So with that being said, I'm Michael KB9VBR. Thanks for watching. Have a great day and 73