Total beginner, Baofeng UV-5R Mini question

[David Aurora]

I've been a bit curious about this stuff for a while so finally decided to dive in and ordered a UV-5R Mini as seems to be suggested in a lot of places. Haven't joined my local club or gone for a license yet (though I'm planning to go to their next meeting and get things rolling) so for now I'm just using it to listen and get an idea of how this stuff works.

So far on quick tests I've managed to pick up about one fifth of fuck all, and I don't know whether that's normal, whether I've got a dud unit, whether it's my location (I live in an apartment building) or whether it's user error. I did pick up a whip antenna as well given reports about the standard one not being great, and it's getting me slightly more, but I'm hoping to just get a quick sanity check of how much I should be expecting to pick up with the standard antenna

I'm in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, and if I go outside the only clean connection I've picked up so far is Essendon airports automated announcements. I've tried going through frequency lists I found online of things like a morse code channel, airports/emergency services/UHF CB bands, basically anything I could find saying there should be some activity on that frequency and aside from a couple very short bursts of noisy audio from a couple of those I've found nothing. Scanning mode on the radio has yet to pick up ANYTHING either. I went out for a drive last night with it to get out of the concrete box I live in and really didn't pick up much more.

So yeah, just wondering if this is normal for a little handheld in the inner suburbs and I just need to keep searching/change antenna/go up a hill or if this is a sign that I might have received a faulty unit? And if anyone can recommend any local frequencies that I should reliably be able to pick up as a test that'd be great too

Thanks!

[Whales]

99.9% of bandwidth and time is either empty of full of interference/transmissions from non-voice things.  Amateur radio has been dropping in popularity for a long time.  Best bet is to lookup a local amateur radio group, go to one of their meets and ask them what freqs to listen to at what times.  EDIT: They're probably friendlier than you think

If you have some known times of their transmissions then you'll be able to better assess your radio & antenna.  Otherwise yes you'll mostly just see the high power transmissions, like broadcast AM, FM, ATC (air traffic) .

EDIT: A cheap SDR is great because you can monitor a wide chunk of frequencies at the same time.  It's easier to hunt with a shovel than a needle.  But make sure to check if it can go down to a few MHz or not, many can't.  Expect it to get swamped by the big local transmitters (even when not tuned near them), but it's a starting point.

[David Aurora]

Right after I posted this I finally caught a few random things to confirm the equipment is working so yeah, I'm getting that vibe 

I'll definitely be joining the local club ASAP, there's actually one right around the corner from me

[Smokey]

See if there are any repeaters on the local mountains.  Right outside Los Angeles there is a repeater on Verdugo Peak that you can hear from pretty much anywhere in the basin.  You might be too far to transmit to it with a hand held, but you can listen.  There are some characters that hang out and chat all day on that one.  Wild stuff.

Put a Discone on your roof for enhanced receive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discone_antenna

[radiolistener]

1. Analog voice activity is much rarer than many newcomers expect. Unlike broadcast radio, where someone is talking continuously, two-way radio conversations are usually short and happen only on specific frequencies. On VHF/UHF you generally need to know which local repeater or simplex frequency people are using.

Also remember that VHF/UHF propagation is mostly line-of-sight, so your range is limited to about 5-30 km (usually 5-10 km) depending on the height of your position, unless there are unusual propagation conditions. Once you find the local amateur calling or repeater frequencies, you'll eventually hear activity if you leave the radio monitoring for a while. Some days it's quiet, while other days you'll hear long discussions.

2. A UV-5R isn't really the best tool for searching for activity. It's primarily designed for communicating on known frequencies. If your goal is to explore the spectrum and discover signals, an SDR receiver is much more capable. With an SDR you can see 1–2 MHz (or more) of spectrum at once, instantly spot active transmissions, and tune to them. That's something a handheld like the UV-5R simply can't do efficiently.

3. The UV-5R also has some receiver limitations in urban environments. Its dynamic range is too low, so strong nearby transmitters (GSM, paging and security transmitters, other commercial radio services, etc.) desensitize the receiver and make weaker signals harder to hear. Apartment buildings don't help either, since they highly attenuate VHF/UHF signals.

Because of that, a higher-gain antenna isn't always an improvement in the city — it may actually make receiver overload worse, especially if you have a nearby GSM/LTE base station. A single sector typically transmits multiple RF carriers simultaneously (each with up to 50 W of output power, sometimes even up to 70 W) through a high-gain sector antenna, resulting in several hundred watts of power per sector. Such strong and focused nearby signals can easily desensitize or even completely blind a low-cost receiver like the UV-5R.

The stock antenna is generally pretty adequate for the UV-5R, especially for the city usage. A better antenna tends to help much more when you're out in the countryside, far away from strong transmitters.

[Andy Chee]

Definitely check your topography

https://en-au.topographic-map.com/map-knjp57/Melbourne/

You can also use ACMA website and/or Google Earth to generate line of sight diagrams

[Randy222]

Seeking freq? Isnt that best for something like a https://www.tinysa.org/wiki/

It can monitor a decent wide band in waterfall mode.

[David Aurora]

Seeking freq? Isnt that best for something like a https://www.tinysa.org/wiki/

It can monitor a decent wide band in waterfall mode.

Yeah I've been looking at these the last few days, I think it could be worth grabbing one

A few more days of use on the radio now and it's definitely working, and I'm getting a much better idea of what to expect to hear while messing around with it.

[radiolistener]

Yeah I've been looking at these the last few days, I think it could be worth grabbing one

A few more days of use on the radio now and it's definitely working, and I'm getting a much better idea of what to expect to hear while messing around with it.

Yes, a TinySA will definitely let you see what's happening in the spectrum, which is very useful for understanding RF activity.

However, I don't think it's the most convenient tool for actually listening to signals. An SDR receiver gives you essentially the same spectrum view, but with a real-time waterfall updating dozens of times per second.

In other words, with SDR receiver, you're watching the radio spectrum live. You can literally see the RF environment changing in real time, immediately spot new transmissions, click on any signal to tune to it, adjust the bandwidth, choose the modulation (FM, AM, SSB, CW, etc.), and even monitor multiple frequencies at the same time.

A TinySA, on the other hand, is primarily a spectrum analyzer. It lets you see what's in the spectrum, but the display updates much more slowly, and it isn't designed for convenient signal reception. By the time you've identified a signal on the TinySA and tuned your UV-5R to it, the transmission has often already ended.

And UV-5R supports FM modulation only, so you can't receiver other modulation type. For example aircraft band uses AM modulation and you will be unable to listen it with FM receiver.

For learning and general radio monitoring, I'd recommend an RTLSDR USB dongle instead. It lets you see the spectrum and waterfall while also acting as a receiver, so you can immediately tune and listen to whatever you find. It also supports far more modulation types than a UV-5R and can be used on both HF and VHF/UHF.

The RTLSDRv3 is probably the easiest choice because it's supported by almost every SDR application. The newer RTLSDRv4 has better HF performance below 30 MHz thanks to its improved RF frontend, but it occasionally requires newer software or more complicated drivers installation, and some older SDR programs were originally written for the classic RTLSDR hardware. So sometimes you may have some issues with supporting RTLSDRv4, but RTLSDRv4 is much better when you already installed driver and software supports it.


One more recommendation: I wouldn't buy one of the generic RTLSDR dongle clones. The price difference is usually quite small, but you'll often end up with worse RF performance, poorer shielding, less accurate frequency stability, bad usability, and inconsistent build quality.

Just look for an original RTLSDRv3 or RTLSDRv4. This is must have and number one device for radio listeners and ham radio amateurs.

[stretchyman]

Roof mounted antenna is a must as the signals are 'Line of sight'.

Antenna wise I'd avoid using a discone as theyre rubbish, get a proper dual band (VHF/UHF) vertical and mount it as high as possible (on roof 3m+ mast). Height is everything as is a good antenna.

[radiolistener]

Yes, a roof-mounted vertical antenna can be a very good setup for VHF/UHF, especially because these bands are mostly line-of-sight and height really does matter.

However, the key point is receiver dynamic range. A UV-5R is a very simple front-end receiver, and when you connect it to a high, efficient rooftop antenna, it can easily get overloaded by strong out-of-band signals (GSM/LTE base stations, FM broadcast, security transmitters, etc.). Instead of improving reception, you may end up with desensitization or even apparent "silence" due to front-end overload from extremely strong nearby signals. This is what usually happens when you connect external high efficient antenna to a cheap radios like UV-5R.

In such cases, a band-pass filter inserted between the antenna and the radio can help a lot. Just make sure the filter is properly shielded, this is very important, otherwise it can pick up local interference inside the house and reduce its effectiveness, and will be useless.

So yes, height and a good antenna are important, but they only work well when the receiver front-end can actually handle the resulting strong signal environment.

[Smokey]

Roof mounted antenna is a must as the signals are 'Line of sight'.

Antenna wise I'd avoid using a discone as theyre rubbish, get a proper dual band (VHF/UHF) vertical and mount it as high as possible (on roof 3m+ mast). Height is everything as is a good antenna.

Be nice to my discone!  It's doing the best it can!  In its defence I got it originally to use with an rtlsdr to pick up adsb, not just gmrs.

[David Aurora]

Roof mounted antenna definitely won't be an option any time soon as I live in an apartment complex.

Thanks for the tip about what the TinySA will and won't pick up though, I hadn't heard anyone mention that so it's really good info.

Realistically like all other hobbies/test equipment/etc I'll just buy things as I need them over time so when I hit a brick wall I'll see what solution is best for that at the time. For now though I'm getting enough signals (outside) on the basic handheld setup to know it's working and get a feel for using it so that's enough to get me started with getting a license and learning more.

Definitely a huge rabbit hole though, I can now see why people get so deep into this stuff

[nonlinearschool]

WOW! I am glad you can pickup other channels that have chatter.
I my area, I can find only one channel, a narby police band for a very small city. Everything else is either digital or nothing. I guess in my area, no one uses these frequencies for verbal use.  I also got a tri-band unit. hoping for maybe some chatter. and/or using it without a license, or maybe a license, for general use where few people will hear my use.

I find Airsoft players use them in them outdoor and milsim play all the time without licences. It works and the 200MHz band is great for preventing the opposition form hearing since few buy the tri-band models.

In my studio, it is also an apartment. Trying out a window attached antenna, and maybe a long aerial inside across the room up to the window. It's worth a try. I am glad you are getting the airline chatter. I haven't tried mine at an airport yet. Love airports and their is a civll aviation airport within the area.

 Regarding getting unwanted channels, maybe block those channels? I am not sure if you can on a Baofeng UV-5R. Have you downloaded CHIRP? It provides features not available with a keypad.

Have you checked out https://www.youtube.com/@TheNotaRubicon/videos?
He has been talking about the UV-5R for years. Not just basics but also plenty of other ways of using the radio.

There are also some other quality YouTubers that not just talk about other radios and more advanced models. They always seem to include the UV-5R.
I don't know if you do this, but when I am not sure if the video has anything of use, I speed play. 15%, 20%, 30% listening for something that might be of value, then replay it a standard speed. After awhile you may become used to +20% speed where you can even listen to all of it. and some of them speak so slowly that at +20% seems like regular speed.

I wolud like to learn what other ideas you try. Especially in a city. I live in a sprawling megalopolis and just do not understand why I get so little no matter what I try.

[Randy222]

I've been a bit curious about this stuff for a while so finally decided to dive in and ordered a UV-5R Mini .

So far on quick tests I've managed to pick up about one fifth of fuck all,

1st, lookup up in online sites what the operational frequencies are being used in your area, then you can Rx those.

There may be some user-user chatter going on, you probably just missing it.

2nd, handhelds have shit ground plane, but having an antenna that has good VSWR for the band you use is key. I have probably a dozen or so sma antennas. Using a VNA to test various antenna is the only way to know for sure if it's good or not. A lot of everything, chinesium or not, will have specs that simply do not match what my VNA says.

Yagi antennas are great for directional long distance, but a bit too large for the bands of 5R. There's also the rat-tail trick, but I found that didnt really help all that much, if any at all.

I forget, does the uv5r have a scanner mode?

[@rt]

No matter where you are you can decode the APRS packets on 145.175 MHz with a smartphone and an app like PocketPacket, and a lot of local repeaters will advertise their presence with telemetry data and even club meeting times, etc.
You may also pick up packets from hams in the area with simplex freqs to call on.

If you are not receiving APRS packets you're in the middle of nowhere or there's something wrong.

Either way, this info should be useful whenever you take a handheld into any new area.

Personally, I think the social side of amateur radio is largely a wank, and the technical side is largely a pretence,
and that's why the hobby is becoming vacuous.

[David Aurora]

No matter where you are you can decode the APRS packets on 145.175 MHz with a smartphone and an app like PocketPacket, and a lot of local repeaters will advertise their presence with telemetry data and even club meeting times, etc.
You may also pick up packets from hams in the area with simplex freqs to call on.

If you are not receiving APRS packets you're in the middle of nowhere or there's something wrong.

Either way, this info should be useful whenever you take a handheld into any new area.

Yeah I went to my local radio club meeting last month and they had a talk on APRS, was super interesting!

[@rt]

A few (more expensive) handhelds will decode APRS right on the screen,
but they will cost quite a bit more than a Baofeng, unless they have introduced a new model that does it since I was looking.

[MarkF]

You should start chasing trains...

Lookup the frequencies used by your local railroads and listen to there traffic.
Dispatch to locomotive, Conductor to locomotive.  Find a railroad switching yard for more.
Learn to lingo.

Here are two of my favorite channels for train watching (examples):
  Jaw Tooth  and  Jason Asselin

[ftg]

No matter where you are you can decode the APRS packets on 145.175 MHz with a smartphone and an app like PocketPacket, and a lot of local repeaters will advertise their presence with telemetry data and even club meeting times, etc.
You may also pick up packets from hams in the area with simplex freqs to call on.
...

What place has APRS on 145.175 MHz?
I mostly see USA on 144.390 and region 2 (so Europe & co.) on 144.800. Even the ISS packet station is on 144.825.

Edit: Answering my own question, it is Australia, according to this this source:
https://aprs.world/guides/aprs-frequencies-by-country
Didn't know that, apparently APAC is really fragmented when it comes to packet frequencies.

[@rt]

It's a good think you posted because I just assumed the OP is from Australia, which is unlikely.

[David Aurora]

It's a good think you posted because I just assumed the OP is from Australia, which is unlikely.

I am  I thought it showed that in my info on the left?

[David Aurora]

You should start chasing trains...

Lookup the frequencies used by your local railroads and listen to there traffic.
Dispatch to locomotive, Conductor to locomotive.  Find a railroad switching yard for more.
Learn to lingo.

Here are two of my favorite channels for train watching (examples):
  Jaw Tooth  and  Jason Asselin

Oh goddammit, I was already taking a huge new extra nerd plunge and now you've given me this idea.

Fine, I'll do it.

 

[David Aurora]

A few (more expensive) handhelds will decode APRS right on the screen,
but they will cost quite a bit more than a Baofeng, unless they have introduced a new model that does it since I was looking.

Monday nights nerd club meeting had a talk on LoRa/Meshcore/Meshtastic and that actually seems to be an alternative and cheap way to get into APRS. But yeah, some of the handhelds with integrated APRS look pretty cool

[stj]

find out if PMR446 is legal in your country.

infact start researching the frequency's used for various things, you will need that if you want a license.
and download CHIRP
for programming frequencies and settings - forget the factory software.
https://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home