Chinese VHF radios

coopec said:
Thanks for that David.

Here is one 18W UHF and UHF WATERPROOF.

View attachment 82077

What do you think of that?

On a cruising yacht would I use that to communicate with other yachts/shipping, contact Quarantine, make Mayday/SOS calls(?), call up the Yacht Club?
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That style of Feng is available a bunch of other places for less money:


Due to the question of heat dissipation I am dubious it is really 18W, not that that makes much difference to transmission range at sea level with a rubber duck aerial.

Several of these have "Digital Mobile Radio" marked on the front of the case, and are surely not actually DMR (the cheapest DMR radios being in excess of £100).

If you want a toy for playing with, by all means buy one and contact your local ham radio club to see when you can sit your license - the Foundation exam is quite easy.

A Baofeng is not a piece of equipment I'd want to have to rely on in a marine emergency. No doubt they work, so long as you haven't (for example) made a mistake programming the marine channels in using the chirp software (make sure your Feng comes supplied with a programming cable, or buy one separately). All marine radios, on the other hand, have a "16" button on the front so that even the most inexperienced crew can be trained to press that in an emergency and call.

I understand the desire to save money, just not on critical sailing gear. Personally I forgo eating out in order to afford my yachting.
 
18Watts is rather a lot to have radiating right next to your head or more importantly your eyes. A good quality handheld fully CE compliant Standard Horizon is just under £100 not a lot to pay for safety. And being a SH it will last.
 
The age old Brand Loyalty thing ...

Today as in most items especially electronic - very few are actually made of parts that do not originate from China or similar. Since China started 'cleaning up' its act ... Vietnam and Brazil have become manufacturing areas for cheapness. Many actually are Chinese funded / developed ...

I always find it interesting that people will spend large amounts on an item that in truth does no more and no more reliable than a budget item.
Lets compare my Cobra to a leading make ... literally any make costing anywhere from 5x to 10x as much. My Cobra accepts any AAA battery ... the Branded only has its proprietary battery which requires a charger. Marvelous when all is good ... no good if floating about in your SOLAS Liferaft ...
Many are no more waterproof than my Splashproof Cobra's ...

Don't get me wrong ... buy a branded and enjoy the knowledge you have a recognised item.

Last comment : I was involved in Regattas a few years back and we had a portable power bank powered 'leading brand' VHF for the start. I had my Cobra in pocket as back-up.
Flag up ... countdown started over the VHF ... all the racing yachts jockeying for position eyeing up the start .. Race Co-ordinator had agreed with me - he would do the countdown and then the last 10 secs was me. EVERY time the remote mic for the VHF was handed over - it reverted to Ch 16 ..
Race Co-ord made start 3x ... and of course everyone was really p'd off. Wasn't me or the Race Co-ord ... it was the stupid radio.
The 3rd start - I used my Cobra ..... simple ..

Just telling it ...
 
Andy Todd said:
OP here. I don't think it's Baofeng. It's definately marine.... Ch16 button et al. £65 ish. Video here....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NptkEMLTESQ
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"70 programmable channels" gives it away. It's a more expensive version of the Baofeng

I am tempted by the Baofeng, I would program it for 2M and 70cm ham bands, Marine, and (cough) a few others. But the only legal place to use it is the ham bands providing you have a licence.
 
macd said:
Answers to all these questions and more as you qualify for your mandatory short-range operator's licence. (Not sure of the precise rules where you are, but it's probably illegal to use a VHF without a licence for anything but emergency calls. You may also need a licence for the set itself.)

In a nutshell most leisure craft radio communication is by VHF, on various channels each of which is prescribed for specific purposes (emergency, harbour movements, communicating with marinas, with other vessels, etc.) A hand held in addition to a fixed set is useful: a) as back-up; and b) because the fixed set is usually below and you, when under way, usually are not. And, yes, a fixed set typically has greater range than a hand-held, because it can usually transmit at greater power, and its antenna is usually better and higher. VHF transmission is line-of-sight.

I daresay there are books available which will tell you all you need to know to attain a short-range qualification in Oz.
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Thanks for that macd!

You answered so many questions and pointed me in the right direction. I'm sure the radio has to be licensed and also the operator as well.

I'll be going over your comments again in the morning but right now I'll be watching how they go in F1 qualifying

Thanks
 
GHA said:
.........................are illegal to transmit on marine vhf though, for good reasons.
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Genuine question, what are the good reasons?

I have a pal who works within the radcom industry and has access to lab measuring equipment. He speaks highly of the UV-5R.

Granted it's far from perfect. No Ch16 button is a valid point. I find the screen with 2 lines of text a bit odd. But at £20 it's a bargain. I use mine mostly on 2m amateur band. I'll probably sail on around dozen different boats during the course of a season, other than my own, and it's very convenient to carry as a spare/back-up.

It even tunes to BBC R4; about the only thing it doesn't do is deduce a longitude from sun MP :)
 
Refueler said:
The age old Brand Loyalty thing ...

Today as in most items especially electronic - very few are actually made of parts that do not originate from China or similar.
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Cobra is a brand itself now - they're sold by major chandleries like Force 4 and are now a known quantity.

You can get a Cobra VHF for only £25 more than the unknown "SocoTran" RS-35M marine VHF mentioned at the start of the thread, and a Standard Horizon is less than twice its price, so I don't know where you get "a leading make costing anywhere from 5x to 10x as much"

The link given to the SocoTran is AliExpress, which probably ships from China, has unreliable customer support and which leaves the buyer liable for VAT & import duty.

A Standard Horizon might be several times the price of a Baofeng, but it's not a fair comparison, not least because many Baofengs are rubbish. Radio amateurs have tested them and shown them to emit spurious emissions (on harmonic frequencies?) on transmission.


 
davidjackson said:
I have a pal who works within the radcom industry and has access to lab measuring equipment. He speaks highly of the UV-5R.
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I assume you mean he tested a UV-5R, in which case others have had much different results: https://www.reddit.com/detbrx

One problem with Baofengs is that you don't really know what you're getting - they're sold by so many different vendors under so many different model numbers.

I'm reminded of an anecdote I heard recently about someone trying to secure a supply of product from China and asking "what brand is it?" to get the reply "what brand do you want on it?"
 
davidjackson said:
Genuine question, what are the good reasons?

I have a pal who works within the radcom industry and has access to lab measuring equipment. He speaks highly of the UV-5R.
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I've 2 x uv5r, excellent little radios. Though the menu is somewhat of a maze, would be simple to transmit duplex, transmit wide band, have an offset so transmit off frequency etc etc. Type approval makes it pretty much impossible to make a mess on the frequencies even when cold, tired and not knowing what your doing :)
many good reasons to stick to type approved radios for transmission. And they aren't illegal...

But great for reception, uv3r as well though it doesn't have dual watch but does have USB charging.
 
macd said:
Answers to all these questions and more as you qualify for your mandatory short-range operator's licence. (Not sure of the precise rules where you are, but it's probably illegal to use a VHF without a licence for anything but emergency calls. You may also need a licence for the set itself.)

In a nutshell most leisure craft radio communication is by VHF, on various channels each of which is prescribed for specific purposes (emergency, harbour movements, communicating with marinas, with other vessels, etc.) A hand held in addition to a fixed set is useful: a) as back-up; and b) because the fixed set is usually below and you, when under way, usually are not. And, yes, a fixed set typically has greater range than a hand-held, because it can usually transmit at greater power, and its antenna is usually better and higher. VHF transmission is line-of-sight.

I daresay there are books available which will tell you all you need to know to attain a short-range qualification in Oz.
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+1
 
KompetentKrew said:
I assume you mean he tested a UV-5R, in which case others have had much different results: https://www.reddit.com/detbrx
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Makes for an interesting read. It's a forum and a member has put his head above the parapet and tested a radio. Many other contributors disparage the results. Seems normal behaviour for a forum. Do you have a view on anchors ? :)
 
davidwf said:
18Watts is rather a lot to have radiating right next to your head or more importantly your eyes. A good quality handheld fully CE compliant Standard Horizon is just under £100 not a lot to pay for safety. And being a SH it will last.
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Good point: I don't think it is clever to have that wattage close to your head. That is one of the reasons I would rather have a fixed radio down below. But I agree it makes sense to have a hand held as back-up.
 
KompetentKrew said:
That style of Feng is available a bunch of other places for less money:


A Baofeng is not a piece of equipment I'd want to have to rely on in a marine emergency. No doubt they work, so long as you haven't (for example) made a mistake programming the marine channels in using the chirp software (make sure your Feng comes supplied with a programming cable, or buy one separately). All marine radios, on the other hand, have a "16" button on the front so that even the most inexperienced crew can be trained to press that in an emergency and call.

I understand the desire to save money, just not on critical sailing gear. Personally I forgo eating out in order to afford my yachting.
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I thought the Baofeng was legal that's why I considered it.

I definitely want a powerful VHF down below but in the meantime I think I'll get a hand held as back-up and also become proficient in it's use (I won't forget to get the necessary licenses). In Australia the Uniden seems to be more popular than others

Screenshot_2019-11-30 Uniden VHF eBay.png

As far as saving money is concerned I won't scrimp on safety gear.
 
coopec said:
... in the meantime I think I'll get a hand held as back-up and also become proficient in it's use (I won't forget to get the necessary licenses). In Australia the Uniden seems to be more popular than others

View attachment 82079

As far as saving money is concerned I won't scrimp on safety gear.
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That Uniden handheld only has 2.5W max transmitting power, you'd be better looking for a handheld with at least 5W power. The Uniden also has a fairly small NiMH battery; most decent handhelds today use larger capacity Li-ion batteries to maximise operating time.
 
pvb said:
That Uniden handheld only has 2.5W max transmitting power, you'd be better looking for a handheld with at least 5W power. The Uniden also has a fairly small NiMH battery; most decent handhelds today use larger capacity Li-ion batteries to maximise operating time.
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Uniden does make a 5W but I will take the smallness of the battery into account. Thanks.
 
Refueler said:
The age old Brand Loyalty thing ...

Today as in most items especially electronic - very few are actually made of parts that do not originate from China or similar. Since China started 'cleaning up' its act ... Vietnam and Brazil have become manufacturing areas for cheapness. Many actually are Chinese funded / developed ...



Just telling it ...
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Ok I wasn't knocking Cobra, the original poster wanted a rechargeable radio, although you can put rechargeable batteries in the Cobra.

As for Chinese manufacturing, well I worked for the largest Chinese Telecoms supplier and I can assure you that whilst our kit was made in the same factory as loads of other manufacturers we only got the quality we needed by putting our own quality controllers on the lines. And paying a lot more for the manufacture than other cheap brands being made there as well.

You can see that at Foxcon who make all sorts of kit for just about all the major players including Apple, just because a cheap brand is also made there it doesn't guarantee the same quality.

I was also involved in a startup making a wireless device in China, it was a nightmare getting rid of spurious emissions in order to pass the tests required in Europe and the USA. We did that to conform to the relevant standards, we could have just sold them on Alibaba and let the buyer beware. But we didn't we went the extra mile to sort the issues that costs money.
 
davidjackson said:
Makes for an interesting read. It's a forum and a member has put his head above the parapet and tested a radio. Many other contributors disparage the results. Seems normal behaviour for a forum. Do you have a view on anchors ? :)
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We appear to be reading that thread quite differently - I see very little disparagement and most respondents agreeing with him that the results are unacceptable, a handful stating that they've measured similar findings from their Baofengs.

I forgot that it might be easier to read the thread through this link if you don't have a Reddit account: https://old.reddit.com/detbrx
 
You can get a Cobra VHF for only £25 more than the unknown "SocoTran" RS-35M marine VHF mentioned at the start of the thread, and a Standard Horizon is less than twice its price, so I don't know where you get "a leading make costing anywhere from 5x to 10x as much"
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My twin pack of Cobra HH's was about £45 if I remember right ...

My saying 5 - 10x was based on various such as iCom and similar ...

Of course there are others that price through the band from cheapest to most expensive. I was making a point.
 
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