What radio?

[john.hawkswellParticipant]

Hi
Im just thinking of getting into Ham Radio. This question has probably been asked many times.

Have used marine radio on a Yacht I used to own.
I use walkie talkies when walking with friends on the Pennine Moors, They use walkie talkies on 158.625mHz VHF

I would be using the radio mainly to listen to start with, but would need it hand held and light weight to carry when walking on the moors and be able to log onto 158.625mHz . Would like to listen to Marine, Air, VHF, UHF and side bands.
Not yet got a license, but tried a mock exam and reached the pass mark with no study, have read a book in since. I intend to get my licence.
Ive looked at various radios on line. Would hope to buy one for less than £100.

A Friend has the Anytone 868, Ive looked at the 878 which looks great and does so much, but a bit expensive for a first radio. the 168 is better priced but does less. They look complicated. They are a nice size.

Ive looked at the Radtel Rt-880g and RT-950 which look good (cant tell the differance between them) but both esp the 950 look to be big radios for carrying, and complicated. They are much better priced.

Looked at Baofeng, but not sure on reliability or durability, possibly the uv-5RH or the UV-5R mini, there is a lot of info on programing them.

Any suggestions

[Pete M0PSXKeymaster]

Hi John,

A few things to unpick here

158.625MHz is a specialist frequency – looking online, the closest match I can find is 158.650MHz, which is an emergency search and rescue frequency for Scotland. It’s also close to some Marine frequencies. Not many ham radio handhelds will do that out of the box, and you may need to check licence conditions for 158.625MHz

The Anytones support DMR – digital voice, which can be handy if you have a nearby DMR repeater. Being DMR, they’re more pricey.

Never used a Radtel, but they seem to have GPS – handy for walking outdoors, but Amazon reviews aren’t encouraging: “You need more that a Computing degree to Program this”, etc

Baofengs aren’t the greatest, but are hugely popular and many hams have them. There are loads of resources on how to program them, and you can get a UV-5R for around £25

Neither the Radtel not the Baofengs list 158MHz, so depends how critical (and legal) that is for you.

Does that help at all?

Pete

[M0PWXParticipant]

Hi John

you can get Quansheng UV-5R+ which with the custom opensource firmware is not limited to ham bands only, with the opensource firmware they can receive from about 25mhz up to 1ghz, but best performance is around the 100-500mhz range as designed for 2m / 70cm ham bands, they are cheap (less than £30)so for listening they are ideal

the other thing to watch is even though you may get a ham band handheld to transmit on the 156mhz frequency as the antenna is not designed for that band you risk damaging the output transistors of the radio due to high SWR

i have one of the Quansheng UV-5R+ with the opensource egzumer firmware on, but only use it within ham bands for TX, but it is fully open for RX from 25mhz – 1ghz+ which is useful for general, what is about / how active the bands are

BUT ALWAYS CHECK LICENSING BEFORE TRANSMITTING as Pete said above

there are some oddities with licensing as well, as although some ham radios (with a mars mod) can transmit on for example CB radio frequencies, because they are not type approved for that band i believe you would be in breach of licensing if you did use a ham transceiver to transmit on CB frequencies

Peter
M0PWX

[john.hawkswellParticipant]

Thanks for the advise.
Ive ordered a Anytone AT-D168UV Handheld Radio
Cant wait.

[john.hawkswellParticipant]

Thanks for the advise.
Ive ordered a Anytone AT-D168UV Handheld Radio
Cant wait.

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