Monday, April 30, 2012

Boafeng UV-5R: Tests for Common Problems

From Jaap via the UV-5R Yahoo Group:

Off frequency receiver test:
-Tune in to a station with a known transmit frequency
-Note original receiving frequency
-Set the step size to 2.5 khz
-Increase receiving frequency until squelch blocks signal
-Note (upper) frequency
-Decrease receiving frequency until squelch block signal
-Note (lower) frequency
-Add upper and lower frequency and divide by 2
-Compare outcome and original  receiving frequency
-If they are not the same, your radio has the bug

Overheating and blurred display test:
-Set the radio to HIGH power
-Start regular communication 
-The radio might get hot; first noticeable at the top screws at the back of the radio
-The display might get blurred when the radio gets hot

No CTCSS low frequency scanning test:
-Program a channel with a CTCSS decode of a tome below 100hz for a known receiving frequency with this tone encoded
-Start scanning
-When the radio stops at the receiving frequency during reception of an encoded signal, the bug is not there

5 comments:

  1. Brick thanks for posting this for us non yahoo people. I will test this when i get off from work.

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    Replies
    1. The signal to noise ratio isn't very good, but sometimes there are some great posts.

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  2. I bought a pair of uv-5re+ models. One worked fine and the other one would start to overheat if it was ever used to transmit, even very briefly. Powering it off & on again got it to cool down again.

    I used chirp to copy the working handset config to the broken set and it is not overheating any more. chirp copies more than just channel memory so there might be some config that was doing it!

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  3. Baofeng uv5r low power

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  4. These radios have very poor receivers and are easily desensed by local police, fire, paging and even FM broadcast

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