Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

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Ninjapower
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Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by Ninjapower »

Hi all,

Need some advice from you knowledgeable people!

I shall try to be brief:

I have acquired myself a role at a shoot on weekends. The shoot is organised throughout each shoot day via handheld radios.

Shoot operations/management use a bunch of Mitex 5w VHF handies.

The gamekeepers, quad bikes, the shooters, and everyone on foot are organised via lots of PMR446 handies.

Everyone uses their own gear, so everyone has their own 446 radio.

My job requires me to be able to hear both Operations comms and 446 comms. So far I have got round this by digging out an old Uniden 3500XLT scanner I had in a drawer and programming in the 446 channel and the UHF frequently, and this worked fine as I could hear both sets of chatter throughout the day

However it is become apparent that I will now be required to occasionally reply to someone on 446 rather than just listen all day.

The other people in my position have both a PMR446 and a UHF hanging round their necks, however rather than buying one of each of these, I'm looking for a neater and more professional solution.

So.. can anyone recommend a decent handheld that will be able to monitor a 446 and a VHF channel at the same time all day, and be able to TX to either (as selected).

I have no problems with buying a Chinese radio or anything like that.

It would be preferable if the radio would be able to monitor UHF + VHF, or UHF + UHF, or VHF + VHF... you get the idea, as shoot comms may change as they sometimes lose or break a load of radios and might just go out and buy a box of 10 UHF's to replace the current VHF's etc.

Thanks for the help!
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26TM931
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by 26TM931 »

Hi
My mate does the same as regards shoots and he uses a BAOFENG UV-5R
Ninjapower
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by Ninjapower »

26TM931 wrote: 06 Jan 2018, 20:10 Hi
My mate does the same as regards shoots and he uses a BAOFENG UV-5R
Hi, that's good to know cheers.

I will have a look at that UV-5R.

Do you know how easy it is to pick which of the Dual frequencies to TX on? Might have to be able to reply on either of them.

Edited to add: I've just watched a video on the UV-5R and it appears that when you press TX it does it automatically on the channel that last received an incoming signal, which I can see would be very handy for replying to things.
M3VBS
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by M3VBS »

One of the Chinese handies had two ptt switches, one for each band, which may also be useful for your application..sorry can't remeber which mpdel, but iirc it was a woxun
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by paulears »

Does the Baofeng listen to BOTH frequencies at the same time? I didn't know they could do that?
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Mitch
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by Mitch »

You'll need full duplex receive to do what you need, most radios only do simplex or semi-duplex (pri ch). The Puxing UV-973 will do full duplex but don't seem so easy to find nowadays. There is this though, Professional Radio PR-UV88, which is a rebadged version. I have two and they're quite good imho. Does cross band repeat and has a scrambler too. You can listen to two channels at once of course, V-V, U-U, V-U, U-V etc. and press the A/B button to pick TX vfo.
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Ninjapower
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by Ninjapower »

Ok, so the replies above got me a little worried that the Baofeng UV-5R won't receive two channels/frequencies at the same time, especially since I ordered one yesterday and it arrives tomorrow!

But... the video below confirms to me that the radio can listen to two channels at the same time:

https://youtu.be/Fnfnfp0tQwI

I am happy to be corrected, but it appears that radio listens to both channels at once and switches to whichever begins to receive a signal, and then hovers on that channel until it hears the other channel, and then switches to that.

If you TX, then it TX's on the channel that last received something.

All that seems to make perfect sense to me. You are most likely to need to TX and reply to someone on the channel that you last received.

You can also press a button and switch between the two channels before you TX.

If I have understood correctly, then the radio is absolutely perfect for what I want, but as I said, I'm happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood the videos that I watched.
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by paulears »

I didn't know this was possible- but I found this other video with some tips on programming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDlkpIPy4i4

It does a toggle scan between the two channels, so if one is occupied, you cannot hear the other. If that's OK, then you're sorted.
Ninjapower
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by Ninjapower »

Thanks to all who replied and those who recommend the Baofeng UV-5R.

It arrived today thanks to Amazon's speedy delivery, I've got it on charge now and hopefully set it up later.

It came with a spare battery, Speaker Mic, standard antenna and upgraded antenna, and a programming cable, all for £33 delivered.

I have to say, for the money, it's a very decent feeling radio. The quality seems good.
Ninjapower
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by Ninjapower »

Ok... so playing around with the Baofeng UV-5R.

Bit confused that when I TX with it and listen to the audio on my scanner, it appears to 'pulse'.

You can hear audio from the Baofeng for two seconds then it goes off, then comes back for two seconds, then goes off, and just repeats this.

Not sure if it's a scanner issue or a duff radio!

There is nothing on the Baofeng to suggest that it's a problem, the TX light and signal strength stay solid the whole time, but when you listen via the scanner it is like you are keying and releasing the TX button constantly while you are speaking.

Any ideas??
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ClubbaUK
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Re: Help needed - suggest a handheld dual band to me

Post by ClubbaUK »

Could it be the frontend circuit of your scanner shutting down for protection from a strong signal? ie overload.
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