New Product Announcement - 2 way radios

[Gun Lover]

I returned to pat the guy(sorry, forgot your name) on the back who replied to me for the well written response. He was pretty positive about the product I thought.

You're very welcome!

[grox6]

Just do your research when you're programming them. I belong to the local volunteer fire dept and have mine tuned into our frequency which can still get me in trouble as it's not a licensed handset under that license. As I mentioned in my earlier post, these cover a lot of bandwidth and if you're not careful, you could end up on the Tx side of the local police department. With the frequency step, you might not ever know that you're talking over an emergency channel(duplex repeaters transmit on one frequency and receive on another.)

Good point about being careful not to accidentally broadcast on a frequency that you are monitoring. Via "CHIRP" I was able to eliminate that risk with the Baofengs by using this setting: Set the Duplex column setting to "off" for any channel(and related freq) that you don't want to accidentally transmit on. This was not intuitive for me when I was searching for a solution as the documentation for CHIRP isn't specifically written for compatibility with Baofeng radios: CHIRP is designed as a universal ham radio programming utility. I tested this on UV82's and one older UV5R and it worked. ie. I key the mike but nothing picked up on a nearby monitoring handset. Now, if I'm scanning channels and my handset stops and gets stuck on one of the weather channels that I've programmed into the memory bank, I don't have to worry about accidentally broadcasting on that freq.

Manufacturer support for Baofeng radios is sparse(but they are still good radios for the money). For anyone who buys one of Canada Ammo's UV-5R's, you may want to bookmark this site as it contains a lot of helpful info on operating a UV5R: http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/

[bjs7293]

People seem to think these are ham radios. They are not.

Having said that, they can be programmed to operate on the ham bands.

People tend to buy these and program in the FRS/GMRS frequencies. One of the reasons why they do that is because there is less chance of being caught. Also if you are using it on the FRS frequencies there is less of a chance of causing interference to ham radio users, commercial, marine, etc. Remember you have to be responsible with these things.

As far as value they are not the same quality and ease of programming, etc. as the standard "ham radios". You just have to ask yourself how much you want to pay. The price on the radios that CanadaAmmo is selling are great prices. For the money you can't go wrong. I have purchased the 888s before and they are a great radio for the price. Zero regrets in buying them.

So why would you say these radios are not Ham radios. If they can send and receive on the specific frequencies and hit Ham radio repeaters. I purchased one of these radios that Canada ammo is selling years ago when they first came to market. They are what they are a $30.00 radio that works very well.

[badshotbob]

So why would you say these radios are not Ham radios. If they can send and receive on the specific frequencies and hit Ham radio repeaters. I purchased one of these radios that Canada ammo is selling years ago when they first came to market. They are what they are a $30.00 radio that works very well.

Well in that case people could say they are police radios... or EMS radios... FD radios, marine, etc. They are UHF portable radios.

[Wally]

Good call, Canam! I've got a UV-5R and I love it. Yeah, range of 1-2k in the bush.

[Wally]

Switch it to high power (there are 2 settings in the menu). I have 6 Baofeng UV-5Rs, the range is closer to 10km in the bush lol.

Dunno about that. I operate mine on 4W and my buddy and I had trouble between the 1 and 2 km mark in heavy bush with full batteries.

[Hhutch]

HAM is a set of bandwidths licensed for use by licensed amateur users. These are indeed not HAM specific radios. As I mentioned earlier, they encompass far more than just the 2M and 440 Ham bands, they cover commercial, marine, emergency, municipal, government and institutional bands as well as some public use bands. To own and operate a radio on a licensed frequency without the appropriate license is a FEDERAL crime under the regulations outlined by industry Canada. One of my father's closest friends was a department of communications inspector and back in the 80s, it didn't take him long to track someone down for causing interference on licensed frequencies so I suppose today it would be so much more efficient.

All "ham or not ham" semantics aside - tread lightly and check your local municipal/county/fire/EMS/Police/ham repeater,etc channels when programming your frequencies.

[randyhub]

Ham?

Well they can do CHIRP and UHF and VHF so what are they then?

https://exley.com.au/programming-dcs-codes-in-chirp/

[KeltecFan]

HAM is a set of bandwidths licensed for use by licensed amateur users. These are indeed not HAM specific radios. As I mentioned earlier, they encompass far more than just the 2M and 440 Ham bands, they cover commercial, marine, emergency, municipal, government and institutional bands as well as some public use bands. To own and operate a radio on a licensed frequency without the appropriate license is a FEDERAL crime under the regulations outlined by industry Canada. One of my father's closest friends was a department of communications inspector and back in the 80s, it didn't take him long to track someone down for causing interference on licensed frequencies so I suppose today it would be so much more efficient.

All "ham or not ham" semantics aside - tread lightly and check your local municipal/county/fire/EMS/Police/ham repeater,etc channels when programming your frequencies.

One small correction. I don't believe Industry Canada has any interest in whether you OWN a radio that can operate on a licensed frequency. I bought my amateur radio prior to getting my amateur license. I just didn't transmit. I own other transmitters as well. I can own many. I just have to program my call sign into them before I turn them on.

These radios look great. Since I am licensed and already have a handheld radio, I will get a couple. That way, my wife or a friend could monitor a frequency that I could legally broadcast on. Also, in an emergency, I do not believe you would be charged if you used an amateur band to request assistance.

[randyhub]

Exactly.

I did not buy my Baofeng Radios until I realized during the flooding in Calgary getting a cell call was next to impossible.

Now I have radios in my truck and home, at least a person would have some contact if things get goofy.