Month: January 2013

Some time ago, I qualified for 50 MHz VUCC from another location (rare grid DM67, operating portable). Lately, I have been racking up grids on 6 Meters from my cabin in DM78. Since a VUCC award is good for a set of locations that are within 200 km of each other, these new contacts count as a separate VUCC award entry.

After the ARRL Logbook of the World (LoTW) added VUCC to the list of supported awards, I started watching my grid count climb. When the grid count hit 200, I decided it was time to apply for VUCC from the new location.

There are a lot of things about LoTW that are a pain but getting this award was easy. A few clicks on the LoTW web page and I submitted an application for 50 MHz VUCC using 203 grids. The fees were significant: $46.45. This breaks out as $12 for the award fee, $1 for endorsement sticker (indicates 200 contacts), $3 for an LoTW application fee and $30.45 for confirming the 203 grids (15 cents per grid). This might seem steep until you compare it to the mailing and other costs of getting 200 confirmed QSL cards. Assuming a 100% response rate and an SASE for each confirmation, it costs more than $1 per confirmed grid or >$200. With a lower response rate, the costs are even higher. And this ignores the time it takes to organize and send out the cards.

I happily paid the fee using my VISA Credit Card and the VUCC certificate arrived in my mailbox a week or so later. This is awesome!

73, Bob K0NR

I happened upon this posting from Hans PD0AC about the Baofeng UV-B5 handheld transceiver. Hans has written a number of useful reviews on the El Cheapo Radios from China, so when he wrote “The Baofeng UV-B5 is close to perfect”, it caught my attention. I have a couple of the other radios from China that I blogged about here and here.

I ordered one of the radios from 409shop for $53 including shipping from Hong Kong, and it arrived a few days ago. After playing with it a bit, I downloaded the free programming software and loaded up a few frequencies. The software was a huge improvement over the crapware that came with the UV-5R…it installed easily and seems to work just fine.

I did an initial performance check with my HP 8920A RF Test Set and found the performance to be quite good:

 VHF - transmit frequency error ~50 Hz
       transmit power 4.4W
       fm deviation ~4.5 to 5 kHz
       receive sensitivity ~0.2 uV

  UHF - transmit frequency error ~170 Hz
        transmit power 4.4 W
        fm deviation ~4.5 to 5 kHz
        receive sensitivity ~0.2 uV

I’ve noticed poor harmonic distortion on a few Baofeng radios, so I checked that out. On VHF, the harmonics are about -55 dBc, which is good. I did not check UHF but typically these radios have had better harmonic performance on the UHF band. Hans PD0AC reported similar measured results.

On the air testing resulted in excellent signal reports in terms of audio quality. The received audio is also loud and clear. The user manual is acceptable….mostly clear English but it does have some difficult-to-understand sentences here and there. Like the other radios from China, you’re really going to want to use the programming software to set things up. After that, the controls are quite usable.

Note that, unlike some of the other radios from China, the UV-B5 is not certified for Part 90 use. At least not yet.

A Yahoo group has sprung up to discuss this radio and share information, so check that out.

My overall assessment is that Baofeng has cleaned up the issues with the UV-5R (and don’t forget, I really like that radio!). The UV-B5 is a sweet little radio that will make a splash when it hits the US market.

73, Bob K0NR